It's What Up Front That Counts Read online

  She gave me a dirty look. “I know all about you, Damon. You’re a pervert and a despoiler of innocent women, and your books poison the minds of helpless children all over the world. I may be forced to work with you on this mission, but that doesn’t mean I can’t still hold you in utter contempt.”

  “Holy Moses,” I wheezed, unable to think of anything else to say.

  She gave me another few seconds of her withering gaze, then turned and started down the narrow path leading to the sidewalk. Walking behind her, I got a good look at her flip-side. It was every bit as inspiring as the what’s-up-front that the cigarette ads tell you is supposed to be what counts. Her buttocks—ungirdled, naturally—were big and firm, just like her breasts. They alternately rose and sank in cadence as she walked, and my imagination conjured up all sorts of delightful little games to play with them.

  I decided to try warming up to her—in my own weird way. “Uh, look, whatever your name is,” I fumbled, “I don’t know what charm school you went to, but didn’t they ever teach you that you can catch more flies with sugar than with vinegar?”

  “I’m not interested in catching flies,” she deadpanned.

  I still couldn’t believe that a doll who looked and dressed like she did would hold me in contempt for being a devotee of sex. “Uh, this may sound like a line,” I said, taking another stab at warming her up, “but I’m sure I’ve seen you somewhere before.”

  “You’re right,” she replied tonelessly.

  “Where did we meet?”

  “We didn’t. What you’re right about is that it does sound like a line.”

  “But I have seen you. I’m sure of it.”

  “Well, I’ve never seen you before in my life. And it would suit me fine if I never saw you again.”

  By this time we were at the curb. She gestured with her flashlight toward a parked Volkswagen. I got in the passenger side. She walked around to the driver’s side, slipped in behind the wheel, kicked over the ignition and pulled into traffic.

  “Uh, look,” I said, making one last stab, “you might hold me in utter contempt, but that doesn’t mean we can’t still be friends, does it?”

  “It does in my books,” she said, not taking her eyes from the road.

  That ended our conversation, and as we rode along in silence, I permitted myself to entertain a few nasty reflections about The Coxe Foundation, about its present emissary, about the man with the walrus-like moustache who seemed to be the brains behind the organization, about life in general, and especially about a very-mature-looking sixteen-year-old who was, in a way, the main reason The Coxe Foundation had its hooks into me.

  Until a few years ago, if anyone had told me I would one day risk life and limb playing spy games with America’s enemies, I’d’ve laughed in his face. I was very comfortably ensconced in my position as associate professor of sociology at one of the major universities in the northeastern United States, and I got all the kicks I needed from my work with the League for Sexual Dynamics.

  The League was something I had cooked up in my predoctoral days when I was a sex-happy young student trying to figure out a way to both have my sociological cake and eat it too. I applied for grants from knowledge-hungry foundations and used the money to study the sexual mores of various segments of contemporary society. My findings were published in all the major journals, earning me a reputation as one of the country’s most distinguished behavioral scientists, and my field studies led to my bedding down with some of the grooviest chicks ever hatched.

  My first project had been a study of the sexual behavior of American coeds, my next a study of parallels between the sexual behavior of American coeds and contemporary non-college females. Subsequently, I had studied the sexual behavior of female grad students, of female Ph.D.’s, of female college dropouts, of female college kick-outs, of suburban housewives, of urban housewives, of rural housewives, of New York Career girls, of Los Angeles career girls, of London career girls, of Paris career girls and of Rome career girls.

  Somewhere along the line, my studies must have come to the attention of the Thaddeus X. Coxe foundation, an ostensibly right-wing front-group for the United States’ most secret espionage agency. One night while I was playing research games with one of my students, I was interrupted by two hoods from this agency. They took me to the boss, an elderly man with a shaggy, walrus-like moustache and a W.C. Fields sense of humor and whose name I never was able to learn and whom I thereafter referred to simply as Walrus-moustache.

  Walrus-moustache had learned of a plot by a group of Neo-Nazis based in Hamburg, Germany, to lure the United States, Russia and China into World War III. He also had learned of the aforementioned very-mature-looking sixteen-year-old, who had participated in one of my early research projects. Since carnal knowledge of a person younger than eighteen is, in my state, statutory rape, punishable by twenty years imprisonment, I had two choices: (1) Go to jail, or (2) become a Coxeman and spy on the Neo-Nazis. I chose to become a Coxeman and stopped the war before it ever got started.

  I was sure I had dispatched all of Uncle Sam’s enemies once and for all, but I was wrong. No sooner had I returned to the university and settled down with my work than Walrus-moustache found another Coxeman caper for me. Then another and another, ad nauseum. Now, evidently, I was being tapped for another mission—and unless I wanted to have those statutory rape charges brought against me, I had no choice but to go along. Cursing my fate, I slid down in the seat of the Volks and stared blankly out the front window.

  After navigating through the traffic on Campus Avenue, my unfriendly chauffeuse wheeled onto the main highway. Less than a mile later, we passed a moving van which was parked at the side of the road. The lights on the Volks blinked, and the van lights blinked in reply. Then the van lumbered onto the highway behind us.

  Slowing to a crawl, the Volks pulled to the right of the highway and let the van pass. A moment later the back doors of the van slid open and a ramp was lowered for the car to enter the van. Then the doors closed and my companion ushered me down a narrow corridor to a tiny office located up front near the cab.

  My friend with the walrus moustache was seated behind a desk which occupied a good fifty percent of the office’s floorspace. When he saw me, he stood, smiled engagingly and thrust out his hand. “Damon, my boy,” he beamed, “how nice of you to drop in! Long time no see, as the saying goes.”

  “Stash it,” I growled, “What’s the pitch this time?”

  His face took on an expression of sincere hurt. “Ah, Damon, after all weve been through together, you’re still hostile. What a pity, because I genuinely like you. Do you suppose your hostility has deep psychological roots? Perhaps your mother toilet-trained you improperly? Have you thought of consulting a psychotherapist?”

  “I’ll tell you why I’m hostile,” I said angrily, “and it has nothing to do with toilet training. Tonight in the middle of a very private affair you sent this underdressed ice cube”—I looked around for my escort, only to find that she had left—“you sent this broad who says she holds me in utter contempt because I’m a sex researcher—“

  “Ah,” he smiled, “you mean Miss Randall.”

  I stopped short. I had wondered where I’d seen the ice cube before, and now I knew. She was Robbi Randall, the starlet whom all the Hollywood columnists were touting as a sure thing to become the screen’s number one sexbomb!

  She came into the public eye with a big, resounding wham! when she appeared completely nude in a Broadway play. Then she appeared completely nude in three low-budget movies, the last of which depicted her engaging in coitus with two men, at more or less the same time. Now, according to the newspapers, she had been signed for a big-budget film to be made by a major studio. And when she bared her charms in that one, she was sure to be well on the way to superstardom.

  “Robbi Randall!” I whistled under my breath. “How did you get your hooks into her! And where the hell does a broad like that come off saying I’m a despoiler of i
nnocent women?”

  Walrus-moustache smiled. “Miss Randall is a method actress.”

  “Marlon Brando is also a method actor, but he never told me that my books poison the minds of helpless children all over the world! And he never balled two girls on screen in full Technicolor nudity! Robbi Randall is a first class hypocrite—and she has a lot of nerve to boot!”

  Walrus-moustache’s smile broadened. “Miss Randall is merely playing a role she feels compelled to play under the present circumstances. When the mission is over, you’ll probably find that our female Coxeman is as eager to hop into bed with you as you are to hop into bed with her.”

  My eyes widened. “Female Coxeman?”

  “The first. Sit down,” he said, taking a bottle of Johnnie Walker Black from a nearby liquor cabinet and pouring me a stiff drink. “I’ll tell you all about it.”

  Actually, sitting down was the last thing in the world I wanted to do, but I remembered those statutory rape charges which still could be brought against me. And, frankly, I remembered what Robbi Randall had looked like with her unholstered thirty-eights poking out at me through the sheer fabric of her sexy see-through. So she was the first female Coxeman in the history of the Foundation, was she? And she’d be eager to hop into bed with me when the mission was over, would she?

  “Okay, tell me,” I said, grinning. Taking a healthy swallow of Johnnie Walker Black, I sat down.

  CHAPTER TWO

  “Damon,” said Walrus-moustache gravely as he peered at me over the top of his desk, “the nation is in serious trouble. Unless The Coxe Foundation acts quickly, the enemies of freedom may acquire a weapon more terrifying than the A-bomb, more terrifying than the H-bomb, indeed more terrifying than any weapon now known to man. Moreover, even if they don’t acquire it, they can do irreparable damage to America’s cause. As things now stand, the sun may be about to set on the British Empire. Every minute lost puts the Communists a step closer to taking over England. If that happens, of course, the world balance of power will shift against the United States—perhaps for all time.”

  He poured himself a drink and held it up to the light, as if examining it for foreign particles. “First let’s talk about the Communists.” He sipped the drink. “You probably didn’t know they were on the move in England, did you?”

  “I never really thought about it,” I admitted.

  “Well, apparently neither did anyone else until one of The Coxe Foundation agents uncovered a little stunt that seems to be their doing. Do you remember the Profumo scandal of 1963?”

  “Who doesn’t?”

  “Two very highly placed Members of Parliament evidently don’t. If they do, they seem not to have learned a lesson from it. They’ve taken up where Profumo left off.”

  I grinned. “You mean Christine Keeler has come out of retirement?”

  His wince told me what he thought of my sense of humor. Continuing as if I hadn’t interrupted, he said, “One of the M.P.’s is Christopher Smythe. You may have heard of him. He’s the fellow who’s always making those vituperative anti-Russian speeches in the House of Commons that get so much play in the right-wing press over here. The other is James Whelan. He’s in the House of Lords and is pretty much unknown on this side of the Atlantic, but his reputation as a Russophobe is strong in England and on the Continent. Both of these gentlemen are married and the fathers of children. Yet, both are carrying on shamelessly with London playgirls of the lowest level. Smythe’s friend is a Soho hooker named Andi Gleason. She used to be a performer in one of those private clubs where the evening’s entertainment includes girls making love on stage with snakes, among other disgusting doings. Whelan’s girlfriend is another prostitute, by name Diane Dionne. She’s never made it publicly with a snake, so far as I know, but she’s done just about everything else, and she’s reportedly very heavily involved in London’s underground drug scene.”

  He paused, as if to make sure that everything he’d said had sunk in. I nodded to acknowledge that it had, but my expression also let him know that I didn’t see what the big deal was. “So two married men have shady ladies on the side,” I said. “It’s been known to happen before.”

  “Yes, and when it happened to John Profumo the reverberations almost toppled Prime Minister MacMillan’s government. What do you suppose would happen now—in the face of the devaluation of the pound, and all the other problems the British have been having—if a scandal broke involving Smythe and Whelan, two men who play a far more crucial role in Prime Minister Wilson’s government than Profumo played in Prime Minister MacMillan’s?”

  “Wilson’s regime would be in trouble?” I replied, playing the straight man.

  “To put it mildly. More likely than not, Wilson would have to seek a vote of confidence. And if he did, his government might fall. Even if it didn’t, the scandal still could be catastrophic for the United States. You see, Smythe and Whelan are two of the best friends we have in Parliament. Time after time they’ve advanced our cause when most other M.P.’s were against us. Without them on our side, England would not be nearly so willing to see things our way when international disputes arise.”

  He took another sip of his drink. “Now,” he continued, “both Smythe and Whelan are up for reelection. They’re being opposed by candidates whose views are much more to Russia’s liking. One candidate is an avowed anti-American, and the other is a middle-of-the-roader who has taken occasional anti-American stands. If these candidates win, we’re in genuine trouble. And if a scandal breaks involving Smythe and Whelan, these candidates almost certainly will win. As you can see, it’s quite a problem.”

  “Maybe I’m obtuse,” I said, “but I don’t see the problem at all. If we’re so concerned about a scandal, why don’t we just call Smythe and Whelan aside and ask them to lay off their girlfriends—at least until after the election?”

  His sad smile told me that he deemed me something of a novice about international politics and the modus operandi of the Coxe Foundation. “We did ask them to lay off. We approached them on a very high diplomatic level and pleaded with them to walk the straight and narrow. Despite the fact that we presented them with irrefutable evidence that they’re carrying on, they flatly denied all charges and told us to buzz off.”

  “I don’t get it. If our evidence was irrefutable, how could they deny the charges?”

  He took a packet of snapshots from his jacket pocket and tossed them to me. “Here’s the evidence. Judge for yourself if it’s irrefutable.”

  I examined the photos. There were ten in all. The first four showed a lean, silver-haired man engaged in a variety of sexual gymnastics with a tall, leggy blonde. The next four showed a paunchy guy in his fifties playing sadie-massie games with a hefty but pretty brunette. The last two were newsmagazine headshots of Smythe and Whelan, included presumably for comparison purposes.

  “Well?” Walrus-moustache prodded. “Is there any doubt in your mind that the men with the girls are Smythe and Whelan?”

  “They could be just look-alikes,” I reminded him. “Or the photos could have been doctored.”

  “Out of the question. The agent who took these pictures is one of our most trusted men. He tailed both Smythe and Whelan to the apartments where the pictures were taken, and he tailed them home afterwards. We have no reason to believe that he’d lie to us. In fact, the only reason he took the photos was so we could show them to Smythe and Whelan as proof positive that we knew what they were up to.”

  “And they still denied the charges?”

  “Yes. They claimed that the men in the photos had to be look-alikes—even though we knew this wasn’t the case. That’s one of the reasons we think the Communists are behind this whole thing.”

  “You just lost me on the clubhouse turn. How does their denial suggest Communist involvement?”

  He took another sip of his drink, then leaned back in his chair. “Through the years that we’ve been dealing with them, Smythe and Whelan have shown themselves to be eminently astute and
pragmatic politicians. It’s virtually unthinkable that either of them would jeopardize his career just because he’s taken a fancy to a pretty girl. We can only conclude that they somehow or other have lost control of their actions. Perhaps drugs are involved, or perhaps there’s been some subtle form of brainwashing employed. In any case, Smythe and Whelan seem to be hooked on the girls—so hooked that they won’t attempt to extricate themselves, even though their careers and their lives will be ruined if a scandal breaks.”

  “That still doesn’t mean that the Communists are involved.”

  “True, but all indications point that way. This sort of entrapment tactic is very definitely a part of the Communist espionage network’s way of doing things. Also, both playgirls, Andi Gleason and Diane Dionne, have been seen in the company of a man whom we know to be one of Russia’s top British spies—a double-agent, in fact, who hasn’t reported a word of the Smythe and Whelan business to his superiors in Her Majesty’s Secret Service. Conceivably it’s all a fantastic coincidence. But I doubt it. From where I sit, the whole deal looks like a Commie operation from start to finish.”

  I polished off my Johnnie Walker Black and handed him my glass for a refill. “Okay,” I said, “suppose it is a Commie operation. Suppose the Reds did use Andi Gleason and Diane Dionne to get Smythe and Whelan hooked. If the Communists are really behind this thing, they’ve had at least as good a chance of photographing Smythe and Whelan flagrante delicto as The Coxe Foundation had. And if they’ve got the photos, they can set off a scandal any time they please. What can we do at this point to stop them?”

  He handed me a fresh drink. “Not much, I’m afraid. We’re compelled to conclude that if the Communists do have the photos, which we may assume they do, they don’t plan to use them to help Smythe and Whelan’s opponents win the election.”