Blue Belle

off.'

'Okay.'

'And just a touch more rouge . . . there! Brings out your color. Now, sit straight in the chair. Cross your legs. Elegant!'

'Michelle?'

'Yes, honey?'

'The guy with the tool belt? The one out front? Boy, you were right about him. He had this jar of water on the desk, fiddling with some locks. Marcy flashed her ass at him, sat on the desk. Asked him if he ever sampled the merchandise. He drops a key in the glass of water, and it disappeared! '

'I told you not to play with him.'

'I won't. Does he ever . . .'

'He's not for hire,' Michelle snapped. 'Now, flash me a smile.'

161

Bambi was the last one in.

'Any special way you want this?' Michelle asked her.

'I've got my own handcuffs. I can twist right out of them if I have to. Can I loop them around the back of this chair?'

'Sure, honey. Go ahead. Bend forward. More. Give your butt a little shake. Beautiful.'

Sound of handcuffs clicking. 'You don't put me down for it?'

'Why should I?'

'Some of the other girls . . .'

'You got a pimp?'

'No.'

'So who's the masochist?'

Bambi laughed.

162

The girls were gone by one in the morning. 'You're next,' she told Belle.

I snapped the lead on Pansy, taking her to the basement. The Mole followed me down, shining his flash. 'All fixed,' he said.

'Okay, Mole. We roll tomorrow for real. Any way I can get Pansy down here without going past the other rooms?'

'Only to the basement, not outside.'

'We'll do it that way. Over in that corner,' I said, pointing. 'Watch where you step from now on.'

We went back upstairs. 'Try the buzzer,' I told him. He hit the switch. I counted in my head. Thirty-five seconds, Morales burst through the door, gun in his hand. 'Which way?' he snapped.

'Just testing it,' I said.

'Next time make it real. I'm looking forward to it.'

163

In the back room. Michelle was still working on Belle's face. Cat's-eye makeup, pancaked cheeks, slash of red across her mouth. It didn't look like her. 'This is mousse - it'll wash right out,' said Michelle, spraying it over Belle's hair, working it through with her fingers. 'Let's see. You'll turn over your right shoulder' - pancaking that side of her face. 'Try it.'

Belle peeked over her right shoulder. Her hair was dark, face a stranger's mask.

'Okay, let's do it.'

Belle unhooked her bra, knelt before the chair, hands on either side. Michelle wrapped a black scarf around each hand. 'Slide further back to me,' she said. 'Let them swing free. Turn your head . . . Not so much.'

She went over to Belle, pulling the big girl's panties over her rump. Belle lifted a leg to help her get them off.

'Leave them that way - like they've just been pulled down - it'll work better.'

Michelle went back to the camera. 'Okay, turn your head again. Just a little bit. Can you look a little scared? Oh, forget it - I'll open the lens, blur your face. Nobody'd look past that ass anyway.'

Belle giggled. Twin dimples at the top of her butt, strip of black cloth around her thighs. The shutter clicked. Again. She shook her butt at the camera.

'Got it,' Michelle said, then snapped off the lights, carried the camera out to the front.

The cigarette burned my mouth. I ground the tip out in the ashtray. Belle was still on her knees, watching me.

'Make you think of something good?' she asked, wiggling again. Then she saw my face. 'What's wrong, boney?'

I walked over to her, took the loops off her hands. She put her arms around my neck. I stood up, hauling her to her feet. Reached behind me, pulled the panties back into place.

'Go wash that crap off your face.'

'You're mad at me?'

I held her against me. 'I'm not mad at you.'

'I'm sorry, sweetheart. Truly sorry. I thought it would be a turn-on for you.'

'It made me sick to look at it.'

Her teats against my face. 'I'm sorry . . . I'm sorry . . .'

I squeezed her rear with both hands. 'Shut up,' I said, quietly.

164

The joint was open and rolling the next afternoon. Michelle was there by eleven in the morning, her arms full of bags. She and Belle worked like maniacs cleaning. The dump even smelled clean when they were done.

I stayed in the back room. The Mole would buzz me if any Hispanic male came in, anyone that could come within a half-mile of Ramon. I checked the periscope a few times on the little TV screen the Mole put on the desk. It worked perfectly.

I spent my time checking my tools. Supermarket shopping cart full of empty plastic one-liter bottles. The kind street bums collect from garbage cans - turn them in for a nickel apiece. I ran a few copies of the Daily News through a paper shredder. Packed a half-dozen of the bottles with the paper. I filed the front sight off the long-barreled .38. A couple of tiny slits with a razor blade and the barrel fit deep into the mouth of a bottle of Coke. I felt an ugly smile inside me - the real thing. I wrapped duct tape around the mouth of the bottle, sealing the pistol barrel inside. Pointed it at the wall, holding the bottle in my left hand. Pulled the trigger. It made a sound like snapping fingers. Plaster flew off the wall.

I lined up twelve bullets. Mole specials - super-speed hot loads, mercury tips. Any one of them would total whatever it hit. Six bullets went into the long-barreled .38, another six into the two-inch revolver next to it.

The guns were ice-cold, brand-new. No serial numbers. A pair of the fragmentation grenades sat on the desk, the blue handles winking at me.

The Mole stashed a new car for me every morning. All along the river, one block apart. We had four cars now. I fingered the ignition key - it would work in all of them.

A tattered khaki raincoat hung on a hook. It would reach well past my knees. A long blond wig was on top of