I went back to bed. The machete was still stuck in the pillow. I shrugged, removed it, tossed it out the window, turned the pillow over, and went back to sleep. It was past noon when I awoke.
A half-hour or so later, I left my hotel. As I walked onto the street, I noticed three things. The first was that the corpse had been removed. The second was the thermometer on the wall just outside the hotel entrance. It read 102 degrees. I could well believe it. The sun hit my bare head like a sizzling mallet.
The third thing I noticed was the man following me. A quick look over my shoulder identified him as Vlankov, the Russian. On general principles, I decided to lose him.
It was easier decided than done. Vlankov had the tenacity of a Siberian bulldog. What his tailing technique lacked in subtlety, he more than made up for in stick-to- it-iveness. He stuck like glue.
I hopped in one end of a tram-car and out the other, and he was right behind me. I hailed a cab and took a sightseeing tour of the city, doubling and redoubling back on my route, and still when I hopped out of the cab at a traffic light, he was right behind me. I tried a tall office building, took an elevator up ten floors, a second one down eight, walked three flights of stairs to the basement, exited through the service entrance – and found Vlankov waiting for me. He trailed idly behind me by half a block as I sauntered up the street and tried to figure what to do next.
Inspiration came from a large truck parked at the curb of a side street down which I aimlessly turned. The truck was unloading some gook via a mechanical chute, a sort of a metallic conveyor belt running down into the cellar of a large building. On the spur of the moment, I hopped on the belt and was propelled downward. I landed on something that felt like soft, gooey mud. More of the same poured over me from the chute.
It was pitch black as I crawled away from the icky cascade. I couldn't feel any floor under me as I tried to lose myself in the darkness. It was like trying to move over toasted marshmallows, only the stuff was more powdery than that. Just about the time I settled into a squishy corner, as I'd expected, Vlankov came sliding down the chute. He wasn't taking any chances. There was a big, fat gun in his hand as his eyes tried to pierce the darkness.
Like me, he crawled out of the path of the torrent behind him. Fortunately for me, he crawled in the opposite direction. Once he was out of the beam of daylight coming through the delivery hole, I lost him in the blackness of the cellar.
I bided my time. There seemed no end to the stuff pouring down the chute. The bin – or whatever it was we were in – really began filling up. As it did, the chute retracted automatically so that it wouldn't be submerged by its cargo. I kept brushing the stuff off me climbing higher as it mounted around me. I presumed Vlankov was doing the same.
Finally the avalanche petered out, and the conveyor belt of the chute ground to a halt. I watched as the chute itself began retracting through the delivery hole. I waited until it had only a few more feet to go, and then I dived for it. The sockets of my arms strained as it pulled me back to the surface with it.
I stayed aboard right back into the van itself. At the last minute Vlankov grabbed the tail end of the chute and was also pulled to the surface. I let him claw his way to the open truck door and then brought my heel down hard on his fingers. I couldn't resist laughing in his face as he let go and fell to the gutter. He was clawing at the gun in his belt, his face red with rage as the van pulled away.
I rode the truck for about twenty minutes, then hopped out when it stopped for a traffic light. I noticed the lettering on the back of it for the first time as it pulled away. It said ACME FERTILIZER COMPANY. Just under that, in smaller print, was their slogan:
My nose confirmed it. James Bond smelled like this. The way the driver of the cab I hailed wrinkled up his faced seconded the motion. I waved enough money at him to make him stop sniffing, and he hauled me to Ilona Tabori's hotel.
She was sunning herself on the balcony outside her room, and she spotted me as I got out of the cab. 'Hello there,' she called. 'I'd just about given up on you. Come on up.'
I went up.
'What happened to you?' She stepped back in astonishment as I came through the door.
'It's a long story.'
'And a dirty one, from the looks of you,' she opined. 'What that dreadful odor?'
'What does it smell like?'
'Not roses, that's for sure.'
'Answer the question.'
'I'm too polite. I'd hate to tell you what it smells like.'
'You guessed it. That's what it is, too.'
'It makes me nostalgic. I used to be a farm girl.' But the look on her face was more kittenish than nostalgic.
'Is that so? And where was that, Ilona?' I fished.
'When I was a kid.'
'Not when. Where?'
'Do you like to ask questions, Mr. Victor?'
'I like to get answers.'
'Later. I'll tell you the story of my life later. For now why don't you get out of those smelly clothes and take advantage of my shower in there.' She pointed at the bathroom.
I took her up on the offer. While I was scalding the offal aroma off my hide in the stall shower, I thought about Ilona. She was a puzzle, all right. In the short- shorts and halter she'd been wearing to sun herself, she looked like a sexy volcano ready to erupt. And if I wasn't mistaken, I'd detected traces of bubbling lava in the throaty way she'd swapped dialogue with me. There was a certain steaminess in the way those near-black eyes had raked me over too.
She was a long drink of vodka, only two or three inches shorter than my six-foot- one. With that wild, long black hair and those ball-bearing hips, she looked more like a leggy invitation to love than a dedicated and anti-sex member of S.M.U.T. And if she was that anti-sex, how come she'd volunteered for the brothel bit in the first place?
I turned off the shower, dried myself, wrapped the bath-towel around me and rejoined Ilona. She raised an eyebrow at my appearance. 'What the well-dressed man will wear,' she commented.
'I'll get dressed if you want,' I offered.
'You're kidding.' She waved towards the balcony where she'd put my clothes to air out.
'So I won't get dressed.' I sat down opposite her.
We looked at each other in silence for a long moment. It was the look of wrestlers sizing each other up just before they come to grips. The way I sized Ilona up, it was going to be quite a clinch.
The straps of her halter hung loosed in front of it, grazing the tips of her breasts. The tips were outlined clearly under the white material hugging them. Her shorts were of the same material, and just as tight. The way she was sitting, they creased into an erotic V bisected revealingly at the base. I sensed more than saw the faint, hungry pulsation there. She moved uncomfortably under my gaze and the flesh of her thighs quivered slightly.
'Why are you staring at me so?' Ilona finally broke the silence.
'No reason.' I shrugged.
'Your towel says differently.'
She was right. Her sexiness had affected me. There was a terrycloth tent rising from my lap. I felt like a schoolboy caught short without any textbooks behind which to hide the naughtiness of his aroused puberty.
'Why, Mr. Victor, you're blushing!'
'Sorry.'
'Don't be. It's sweet. But very unexpected from a man of your experience. After all, you are the man from O.R.G.Y.'
'Even Casanova was capable of being embarrassed in a specific situation. But how come you know about O.R.G.Y.?'
'Oh, word gets around,' she said evasively.
'And,' I added, 'your frankness isn't really very consistent with your membership in S.M.U.T.'
'Let's forget about S.M.U.T.,' she cooed. 'Let's just stick with the situation at hand.' She unfolded her charms and sauntered over to me. 'You're putting an awful strain on that towel,' she murmured, standing over me. 'The hotel isn't going to like it if you rip through.' Her hand hung directly over the top of the tent, the fingers dangling
