sound of a refrigerator door slamming jerked her head up, and she saw that he was holding a lemon and a can of tomato juice in his hands.
'Put that back!' she snapped at him sharply but he just ignored her and strolled into the pantry.
'Ta-ta-ti-ta,' he hummed. 'Now don't get your bowels in an uproar, babe. You look like you could do with a little hair of the dog yourself. Have a little party last night?' He rummaged around in the pantry a minute, opening and slamming placard doors, and came out with a bottle of vodka. 'A couple of Bloody Marys are just what we both need to pick us up.'
June decided that the best policy would be to say nothing to provoke him and get rid of him as soon as he had his drink, so she kneeled down again and opened her suitcase. The first thing she saw was a brown manila envelope that certainly didn't belong to her.
'What's this?' she questioned irritably, holding up the envelope. 'It's not mine.'
'Beats me, babe. I'm new on the job,' Pimple Face replied, busying himself with mixing vodka, tomato juice, lemon and Tabasco sauce into two tall glasses. 'Maybe some forms you gotta fill out.'
June opened the flap of the envelope and saw that there were several large glossy photographs in it. Some deep intuition made her draw them out and look at them… They fell from her stricken hands.
Tiffany!
June's eyes blurred with sudden tears, and she sank back on the floor, fighting desperately for self-control. She felt really ill… as if she were about to vomit. The picture she had glanced at showed a completely naked Tiffany hunched down on her knees and elbows being taken from the rear by some weird creature half-man, half-goat, and the expression on her childish face was one of anguished pleasure. Suddenly all the half-formed suspicions lurking in the back of June's mind crystallized with stark clarity. She had fallen into some kind of hideous diabolical trap set by the Bormans. Everything had been carefully planned from the moment her purse had been snatched… No, even before that. The telegram must have been a fake to lure her to New York. For a moment she teetered on the brink of hysteria, then abruptly she felt icily calm. She would show them she wasn't to be so easily defeated. She was going to get to the bottom of this, and before she was through they would all be in jail — the Bormans and everybody else involved, no matter how much money and influence they might have.
'Hey, that's pretty hot stuff, June baby.' Pimple Face had drifted over with the two Bloody Marys and was staring down at the top photograph on the floor. With a scuffed toe of a very down-at-the-heel shoe he pushed it aside so that the second shot was visible. This one showed the same scene from a different angle, and June saw that the penis of whatever it was — a man dressed up — as a satyr, she supposed — was entering Tiffany's rectum instead of her vagina as she had thought at first. Well, that was nothing she hadn't seen already.
She looked up at Pimple Face who held out a Bloody Mary to her. Her first impulse was to take the drink and throw it right in his disgusting face, but she decided on the spot to start her investigation with him. He didn't look too bright, and it was obvious the Bormans had hired him to bring the suitcase. She put her glass on the floor beside her and accused him without warning, 'You stole my purse yesterday, didn't you?'
'No, but I know the guy who did,' Pimple Face grinned down at her unabashedly. 'I was standing right there when he did it. Then I followed you here. Then I went and got your pocketbook from the guy who snatched it. Minus the money, natcherly. That's all he was innerested in, but I figure, somebody lives in a swanky dump like this, maybe there's something else in there worth some dough. I didn't know I was gonna find a gold mine. Little sister Tiffany sure likes her cock, don't she?' he added, pushing another photo into view. This one showed Tiffany sucking an enormous penis with an ecstatic expression on her blissful young face.
June wasn't in the least bit fazed. 'I suppose you don't know the Bormans,' she said sarcastically.
'Never heard of 'em,' Pimple Face assured her nonchalantly.
'Then how did you know which apartment I was in?' June was unable to keep a note of triumph out of her voice.
'The doorman told me.' Pimple Face shrugged. 'As soon as he saw the suitcase, he asked if it was for Miss June Wright, and I said yes and he told me which apartment. He also told me to use the service elevator, the snotty bastard.'
June's spirits sank. It made sense. Of course, Nina would have told the doorman that if someone came with a suitcase to send him up to her apartment. She picked up her drink with a hand that trembled slightly and took a sip. Immediately a warm glow radiated through her body. At least one thing Pimple Face had said was true, a Bloody Mary really did pick you up. She took another, longer swallow.
'Your sister may look like she's having a good time in those photos, but she's in bad trouble, babe!' Pimple Face snarled at her suddenly. 'It's gonna cost you plenty to get her out of it.'
'I–I don't have any money,' June faltered. 'I don't live here.'
'I know you don't live here,' Pimple Face snapped at her. 'I read the telegram in your pocketbook. But if you got friends who live in classy dumps like this…'
'They aren't friends, they just know me from where I work. I–I'm a secretary.' June stammered confusedly. 'How do you know all this about my sister anyway? Where did you get those photographs?'
'Shit, I've seen that chick fucking for applause on the stage a dozen times!' Pimple Face snorted. 'I recognized her soon as I saw that snapshot in your pocketbook. One gang runs all the sex shows in this town, babe, and I got plenty connexions, so finding out what the story is was easy. I brought those photos to show I'm on the level. You sure you ain't got any money?' he asked suspiciously, eyeing her over. 'Maybe — you really don't. That ain't exactly no Christian Dee-or outfit you got on.'
'Sex shows…?' June quavered weakly. 'You mean my sister…?'
'Yeah, she acts in 'em, babe,' Pimple Face sneered. 'She has to, you better believe it. These guys don't fool around. She don't do right, she ends up in a concrete wedding gown on the bottom of the river. If you got money, you can buy 'em off, but if you don't, there's only one way to get her out'a this mess…' He paused sadistically, enjoying the miserable expression on June's face. 'Only one way,' he repeated. 'You take her place!'
'What!' June clutched her glass and took a long swallow of the potent mixture.
'And for my part in the deal,' Pimple Face went on, 'I guess I'll just have to take it out in trade. Where do ya want me to fuck ya, babe? Up the ass or in the mouth?'
June was so stunned by the news of the predicament Tiffany had gotten herself into that she didn't really take in the last thing the repulsive creature said. It was hard to believe such things could occur in a civilized country in the twentieth century, but she had read that there were still gangs of men who controlled prostitutes and the awful things they did to the girls if they didn't cooperate, so why not with the poor people in these sex shows. God, what had Tiffany gotten into and how was she going to get her out of it?
Abruptly all the resentment and ill feeling she had harbored against her sister ever since she had caught her with Cliff on the porch that afternoon vanished from her heart, and all she felt was pity and loyalty and, of course, responsibility. She had to get Tiffany out of this mess but she couldn't take her place. It just wasn't possible!
Why not? another part of her mind nagged her. You're older and stronger and smarter than your little sister. You might be able to figure a way out of the situation that she never could…
In a flash June saw the solution. Her heart raced and she drained her drink in one long gulp to hide her exultation. She knew what she would do! When she felt sufficiently calm, she looked up at Pimple Face and said in a deliberately subdued and weepy voice, 'All right, I'll do it. I'll take her place.'
'Okay, babe. Now what about me?' The implacable man fingered his already bulging crotch suggestively. 'I don't put you in contact with your sister until I get my commission. So which way do ya want it, kid?' He nodded toward the photographs.
The queasy feeling in June's stomach was so strong she almost gagged, but her mind was made up. She was going to save her baby sister, and nothing was going to stop her… not even THAT! And it certainly wasn't hard to make a choice. With a little quaking tremor deep in her bowels as she remembered how her father's cane had felt up her rectum, she pointed to the picture of Tiffany and the satyr. At least that way she wouldn't have to see the man's horrible pimply face. She just hoped he didn't have some awful disease. She started to leave the kitchen, but he grabbed her around the waist, and she saw that he was already yanking at his belt.
'We don't have to go nowhere, babe. The kitchen floor will do just fine. Just kneel down there and stick that hot little ass up in the air where Big Daddy can get at it.' He leered evilly at her, and June noticed with relief that at least he had nice healthy white teeth. In fact if it wasn't for those horrible pimples all over his face he would be quite good-looking. His hand swarmed suddenly up under her skirt to cup one of her buttocks and she could feel his fingers sliding down her anal crack toward her pussy where he teased her pubic hairs which were still caked and
