'You know I do, Mr. Gallagher,' Tiffany wailed as pathetically as she could. 'I enjoy working for you and all that but…'
'Yeah, yeah,' he muttered gruffly. 'Spare the act. I bring 'em up from Nowheresville, give 'em exposure, and overnight they're million dollar stars. Out in Hollywood. Rome. Paris. The whole world over. But they don't forget old Dippy, kid,' he added milkily. 'You know why? Because old Dippy don't forget what he knows about them. Which brings me to June.'
'Huh…?' Tiffany was caught off balance again.
'Yeah, June!' Dippy yapped at her. 'Not April, May or September. June! Big sister June. Humpty-Dumpty's ex- fee-ann-say. The one who caught Humpty humping you that afternoon last summer back in Laketon.'
'How did you know that?' Tiffany gasped. She had been super-careful never to breathe a word about where she came from to anybody in the troupe. Of course, there was that letter from June she thought might have been missing from her purse; she couldn't be sure she hadn't thrown it away after showing it to Cliff. But, anyway, there had just been the letter, no envelope or address. So how did he know where she came from? Actually her home was four miles from Laketon but he was too close for comfort.
Gallagher was enjoying her consternation. 'Oh, I got ways, kid, I got ways,' he jeered knowingly at her. 'Anyway, June's the answer to your problem. Get her up here, get her in the sack with Humpty again, and five gets you ten he goes back to Nowheresville with her.'
'Oh no, you're wrong, Mr. Gallagher,' Tiffany objected quite positively. 'Cliff adores me, and anyhow, June wouldn't have anything to do with him after… after what happened…'
'I got other information,' Dippy grunted, continuing to follow out Borman's instructions. 'Let me worry about the details, will ya, kid? Just do what I say. First get Humpty to send June a telegram saying you're in bad trouble and he needs her help des-purr-ately. Send it yourself and sign his name. She'll come, won't she?'
'Ye-es,' Tiffany had to grudgingly admit. Even after all that had happened, June with her Goddamn Puritanical sense of responsibility would probably be on the first train out of Baltimore.
'Tell her to wire arrival time at this address,' Dippy went on, shoving a piece of paper at her. 'Second, tell Humpty that you want out of this business and that the only way you can get out is to bring in a new broad. Sister June! And that he's got to break her in.'
'But that's impossible!' Tiffany wailed in despair. 'I mean it doesn't even make sense. You don't know my sister. It won't work.'
'That's our worry, kid. What's it gonna be? Hollywood or back to Nowheresville? See ya tomorrow.' He clamped the slimy butt of a half-smoked cigar in his mouth and shuffled some glossies around on his desk by way of dismissal. Personally he didn't think the scheme would work either, and sometimes he wondered why he was letting a crazy sex-mad nut like this Axel Borman handle his money for him. But his stocks kept going up and up and up, so who's to complain…?
Tiffany was sitting naked on the big bed in her room in the grimy but fairly respectable hotel not far from where she worked. She was buffing her nails while Cliff Farrow strode back and forth, ranting and raving, clutching his head and occasionally drinking from a pint bottle of gin he carried in the coat pocket of his rumpled suit. In three short months the once handsome, dynamic and dapperly dressed star salesman of the Chisolm Realty Company had become a shambling, bleary-eyed wreck of a man, an obvious candidate for Skid Row.
Finally Tiffany interrupted his rambling drunken tirade. 'Listen,' she said sharply. 'If you really love me and want me to get out of this business, then you've got to fuck June while Gallagher films the scene. He seems to think she'll do it. Personally, I don't care if you have to rape her.'
'But if you really want to get out, why can't you just quit?' Cliff plaintively wanted to know.
'What! And have Gallagher send Daddy a batch of those shots of me sucking cocks and fucking gorillas! It would kill him.' Tiffany exclaimed indignantly. This was the brilliant idea she had come up with on the way home and it seemed to be working.
'But if Gallagher threatened to do that, it's blackmail. We could go to the police,' Cliff pursued doggedly.
'Ha… after they saw some of those shots they'd just laugh.' Tiffany shrugged. 'I wasn't forced you know. I signed a contract that protects Gallagher.' She changed her tone to one of appealing persuasion. 'Listen, Cliff, I made a terrible mistake and I admit it. But now I just can't take it any longer, and I've got to get out of this cruddy business. I want us to go away somewhere and have a happy life together. And the only way is for you to fuck June on camera. Don't ask me why because I don't know. It's just one of Dippy Gallagher's brainstorms.'
Cliff sighed and gazed forlornly at her with a sheepish hangdog took. 'But you know I can't get it up any more,' he reminded her pitifully.
'Brother, do I ever know it!' the young girl exclaimed contemptuously.
'Well, it's your fault!' Cliff flared back at her, knocking down a big slug of gin from his bottle. 'Every time I think of what you're doing every day with those other men… it's killing me.'
'It didn't used to bother you that I fucked other guys in school. Remember? You were the big shot then. The big frog in the little puddle,' she mocked him mercilessly. Then changing tone again, she said more kindly, 'It's the booze, Cliff. You've got to stop drinking. You should see yourself. Honest, I was ashamed to bring you in here tonight.'
'Well, I'll try,' the haggard man sighed despondently. 'But I still don't see why it has to be me.'
'Maybe Gallagher thinks you have hidden talents,' Tiffany suggested sarcastically.
'I used to be as good as those guys you work with, didn't I?' Cliff asked in a pathetic tone of voice, stung by her allusion to his impotence.
'Oh, better, Cliff, much better,' she reassured him. 'But that's not much help right now.'
'I can still suck,' he said eagerly. 'Can I just suck your sweet little cunt some, Tiff. Maybe my cock'll get hard.' He looked longingly at the fluffy golden vee nestling up between her slender girlish thighs.
'No,' she refused after just the briefest hesitation. It would be fun to just lean back on the pillows and watch him slave away down there on her pussy, the roles reversed for a change, but the dark stubble of beard on his jaw deterred her. The tender skin between her thighs had been scratched enough for one day by that Goddamned satyr costume… and she always had the vibrator one of the girls in the troupe had turned her on to. In a lot of ways it was better than a tongue. 'No,' she repeated firmly. 'No pussy until you get me off the hook. Call me tomorrow and I'll let you know what's going on. Now, good-night, Cliff. They're shooting a big sandwich scene tomorrow, and I want to look my best.'
After another long forlorn dejected look at the beautiful young body he had once possessed so completely, but which was now forbidden him, Cliff silently left the room. As soon as Tiffany had heard his footsteps plod away down the hall outside she called up Room Service to send up a bucket of ice and began to unwrap the two ice packs she had bought on the way home. That Goddamn Gallagher was a sonuvabitch liar, she decided as she carefully studied her slim but curvaceous form in the bathroom mirror. Her breasts weren't sagging at all, but maybe the ice would do them some good anyway. Why take chances…?
CHAPTER FOUR
Nina Borman was wondering what the hell her crazy wild man of a husband was up to now as she walked beside him with her hand linked under his arm along the crowded street off lower Fifth Avenue. Because he certainly was up to something, there was no doubt about that. The lithe long-legged young brunette in the cheap, poorly-cut navy blue suit they were following — at least Nina assumed they were following her, Axel refused to answer her questions — turned up the steps of another shabby brownstone house and, after scanning the names listed by the door, hesitantly rang the bottom bell. It was the sixth building she had tried and each time she came out looking more dejected and discouraged. The pure classic beauty of her profile was visible for an instant, then the door clicked and she went inside.
As usual Axel had stopped as soon as the girl turned up the steps and was pretending to examine the wares displayed in the window of a basement 'head' shop. Some private eye he'd make, Nina snorted to herself. With his elegant Malacca walking cane and his perfectly tailored grey business suit he stood out like a sore thumb in the
