It's What Up Front That Counts Page 8

  I looked around the room once again, hoping I might spot Andi or one of the others whose photos I had studied. At first I saw no one whose face looked even vaguely familiar. Then I did saw a lean, hawk-nosed guy who looked very much like a pimp whose mugshot had been part of Andi’s dossier. He was sitting at a table near the maître d’s desk, accompanied by a tall blonde with a Harpo Marx hairdo and a well-dressed man of sixty who was eyeing the blonde like a buzzard eyes a newly dead carcass.

  I was sure that neither the blonde nor the older gent had been represented in Walrus-moustache’s photo file. But I was sixty percent sure that the hawk-nose was the pimp whose photo I’d studied. I wanted to make a beeline for him right then and there, but I figured the move would be too risky. So I decided to wait until the show was over and make my play then.

  After giving the room another once-over in search of additional familiar faces, none of which was to be found, I tuned in again on the stage action. By this time the conga player had managed to hoist his standard to half mast. Evidently he didn’t dare risk suffering a reverse by going for broke, because he quickly shoved his second fellatrice away and leaped into place atop the still-supine maiden. She received him with open thighs, and the two of them pumped away vigorously for a minute or so. Then, forcing what was supposed to pass as a grin of triumph, he got up off her and trotted down the runway and out of sight. I’d’ve bet my bottom dollar that he hadn’t come. The climax, as I said, was anticlimactic.

  “Ladies and gentlemen,” the offstage emcee said, his voice no longer as confident as it had previously been, “you have just witnessed the famous Bantusi marriage rite. In a few minutes, you will observe an even more exciting spectacle: the sacrifice of a captive white maiden to the chief of the Nairobi tribe. First, however, there will be a brief intermission.”

  The house lights went on and the waiters descended on the tables like a swarm of bees. I quickly slipped out of my scat and made my way through the crowd toward the table where I had spotted the familiar-looking hawk-nose, but he and his two companions had left their table at the same time that I had left mine. By the time I got to where they had been, they had gone through the street door. I dashed out after them, but I wasn’t quick enough. I looked carefully up and down the street and even investigated the alley which began a few buildings away from the club. Neither Hawk-nose nor his pals were anywhere in sight.

  Dejected beyond belief, I started back inside the club. “Looking for someone, sir?” the doorman asked me.

  “Yeah,” I said, mentally kicking myself in the pants for not having questioned him before I went looking. “A skinny guy in his thirties with a tall blonde and another guy.”

  His eyes stared off into the distance, as if he was racking his brain for any memory of someone who might fit that description. “A thin gentleman, you say?” he mused. “And a tall blonde woman, accompanied by another gentleman, this one a bit older, perhaps in his late fifties?”

  “Right!” I beamed, “which way did they go?”

  He smiled cryptically. “Sorry, sir, I can’t say I recall seeing anyone who matches that description.”

  “But they came out right before I did, And you just said—”

  “Nossir, can’t say I recall anyone who matches that description.” His smile broadened and he greeted me with an outstretched palm. “Now, if you took it upon yourself to refresh my memory . . .” He let the sentence trail off.

  I got the message. Thrusting a ten shilling note into his hand, I snapped, “Where did they go?”

  His eyes took on another far-away look. “Can’t say I know, sir. Don’t believe they made any mention of where they were going.”

  “But you did see them.”

  “That I did. Hailed a cab for them just a few seconds ago. They headed down that way.” He pointed to the East. “But, of course, all cabs do, this being a one-way street.”

  I gripped his arm. “Look, pal, let’s stop playing games. It’s very important to me that I find them, and I”ll make it worth your while if you help me. Now tell me everything you know about them—who they are, what they do, where I can find them . . .”

  “You’ll make it worth my while, you say? How worth my while?”

  “Ten more shillings.”

  “Ten, hey? How about a hundred?”

  I was going to resist, but I remembered that I was on an unlimited expense account from The Coxe Foundation. “Okay, a hundred shillings—five pounds. Now tell me what you know.”

  He grinned mischievously. “Suppose you let me have the fiver first.”

  What I wanted to let him have was a fist in the face. But I kept my emotions under control. Stuffing a five-pound note into his hand, I said, “Let’s hear it.”

  His face took on a studious expression. “The elderly gentleman I can’t tell you much about. Never saw him until a week ago, and never saw him again before tonight. Both times he was in the company of the younger gentleman. The lady’s first name is Melissa. Her last name I don’t know. She’s something of a newcomer here too. Only saw her once before and don’t know anything about her.”

  “What about the young guy.”

  “Him I know. Name’s Peter Blaine. Comes here quite a bit Nice chap. A bit quick-tempered, somewhat like yourself, but on the whole a pretty agreeable sort.”

  “Where can I find him?”

  “Can’t say I rightly know, seeing as how he just rode off in a cab with the other two for points unknown.”

  “I mean,” I said impatiently, “where can I find him later?”

  “Can’t say I know that, either. Fellow of irregular habits, Mr. Blaine is. Quite a bit later, though, you might try his apartment.”

  “Do you know where it is?”

  “I do.”

  “Well, for goodness” sake, man, where?”

  He drew a stack of business cards from inside his coat and dealt one off the top. “Here you go, governor. Address, telephone number and all. He has an answering service, by the way, in case you care to leave a message.”

  I looked at the card. It was one of those costly engraved jobs, and it stated simply: “Peter Blaine, 14 Williamson Mews, London W1, Telephone Regent 7711.”

  “Pretty fancy calling card for a pimp,” I mused under my breath.

  “Now, now, guv,” admonished the doorman, “no disparaging remarks, if you please. As the saying goes, let the gent who’s without sin roll the first stone.”

  “Well, just for the record, pimping is Mr. Blaine’s business, isn’t it?” I winked conspiratorially. “I mean, I’d hate to chase him all over London only to find that he couldn’t set me up with what I’m looking for.”

  “No worry on that count, guv. He’ll set you up with anything your heart desires.” He lowered his voice. “Meanwhile, of course, there’s always the possibility that it may take you a day or two to get hold of him. And when a gent feels the urge, so to speak, he doesn’t always feel like waiting a day or two to satisfy it, if you get what I mean. Now, if I might be of any assistance . . .”

  He let the sentence trail off.

  “You just might,” I said, suddenly aware that this conniving character could be infinitely more useful to me than Peter Blaine. “I’m looking for a girl named Andi Gleason. Ever hear of her?”

  He nodded. “Certainly have.”

  “Do you know where I can find her?”

  “Certainly do.”

  “For goodness” sake, man, where?”

  I got a repeat on the outstretched palm routine. I replied with another five-pound note.

  “Well, guv,” he smiled, “here’s what you do. You go back inside the club, and you sit at your table. Then you look up at the stage. And”—he glanced at his watch—”in about a minute or two, that’s where she’ll be.”

  “You mean she’s performing here? Tonight?”

  “Couldn’t’ve put it more succinctly myself, guv.”

  “I was told that she quit.”

  “Matter of fact, she did.”


  “But now she’s back on the job?”

  “Matter of fact, she is.”

  “I want to meet her—personally.” I winked to give the “personally” emphasis. “How’re my chances?”

  “Matter of fact, pretty good.”

  “Well, earn your five pounds, man. How do I go about it?”

  “Send a message backstage with one of the waiters. Give the waiter a fiver for himself and another fiver for Miss Gleason. Then wait. You won’t have to wait too long.”

  I grinned. After all the hassles I’d suffered thanks to the Law of Averages, I was about to get my bone—in the form of Andi Gleason.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  “Ladies and gentlemen,” announced the emcee of The Safari Club, “we now bring you a spectacle of African folklore unsurpassed in literature and the arts. As is well known by anthropologists, certain tribes in Africa’s Nairobi region equate beauty with fairness of skin. One of these tribes, the Angustani, has the tradition of presenting to its chief, for his sexual amusement, an annual birthday present of the most fair-skinned maiden that can be found. All year the Angustani prowl the jungles for white women—some who have come to Africa as nurses, others as members of hunting expeditions. When a beautiful white woman is captured, she is held prisoner until the evening of the chief’s birthday. Then, in a ceremony which now will be reproduced on our stage, she is offered to the chief.”

  The lights went out, and a spotlight picked up a bare-breasted Negress on one of the runways. She was one of the three acolytes in the previous spectacle. She carried a censer which emitted puffs of incense as she swung it before her, making her way down the runway and to the center of the stage.

  She was followed by two more girls, also holdovers from the previous act. They walked backwards, carrying beautiful white feathers all of four feet long, with which they fanned the path behind them.

  The feather-girls were followed by a tall, black-skinned man—the conga player who had remained offstage while his partner played husband to the Bantusi maiden in the previous act. He wore white silk pantaloons, a white silk turban with an enormous false gem over his forehead, and a chain of shark’s teeth around his neck. He was followed by the erstwhile Bantusi maiden, who swung another incense-puffing censer.

  The blatant falseness of the spectacle amused me. There was, of course, absolutely no evidence, anthropological or otherwise, that any Nairobi tribes subscribed to a tradition of gifting its chief annually with a fair-skinned sexmate. There was, in fact, no tribe known as the Angustani—obviously a made-up name, more Indian than African—and even if there had been, the tribesmen couldn’t well prowl the jungles for white captives; Nairobi was a desert region, and the nearest jungle was hundreds of miles away. Incense was of European and Oriental origin, not African, and the Nairobis almost certainly never had heard of it. The feathers were a Pakistani touch, and the pseudo-Nairobi chief’s costuming was more Saudi Arabian than anything else.

  But this melange of phony touches didn’t seem to bother the audience, to whom the play evidently was the thing. And The Safari Club players, probably West Indian immigrants, went through the motions of their ludicrous charade with all the solemnity of Hollywood extras doing the Cecil B. deMille thing.

  When the pantalooned pseudo-chief reached center-stage, he lowered himself regally into a thronelike wooden chair. The two feather-bearers positioned themselves at his flanks, dutifully continuing to fan him. The incense-girls sat cross-legged at his feet, their censers sending up clouds of sweet-smelling smoke.

  The chief then clapped his hands twice, whereupon another dark-skinned man—the conga player who, last time around, had had such a hard time getting his equipment in working order—materialized on the runway. He was clad only in a loincloth and was shouldering a silver platter, much in the same manner that a waiter shoulders a tray of dishes. On the platter, decked out in a billowy, gauze-thin green gown, was none other than Andi Gleason.

  It was time for me to do another of my double-takes. Having seen the photos of her in Walrus-moustache’s dossier, I had expected to find a beautiful young partygirl, perhaps frayed a bit at the edges as partygirls are wont to become very early in their careers, but nonetheless eminently appealing and appetizing.

  The Andi Gleason now being served up to The Safari Club’s black pseudo-chief was neither appealing nor appetizing—nor young. I guessed her age at twenty-seven or twenty-eight, which isn’t terribly old, even for a partygirl. But the toll which her years on the circuit had taken of her was considerable.

  Her face wore the beaten look of a Charles Street B-girl at five o’clock Sunday morning. Her eyes sported more crows-feet than any five aviaries, and her heavy make-up called attention to them rather than disguised them. Her mouth was a thin, expressionless pencil-line of bored detachment.

  Her body had once been very good—the breasts small but provocative, the legs long and lithe, the curves clean and sexy. But too many years of too much booze and drugs, and too little sleep, had aged her prematurely. Her muscle tone was shot, and her spine had surrendered to a perpetual slump. She had defeat written all over her in capital letters.

  I marveled that she had looked so good in her photographs. But then, cameras have been known to lie—or at least to bend the truth a little. What was more remarkable was that an M.P. like Christopher Smythe, who obviously could’ve done better, had managed to get hooked on her. Walrus-mosutache seemed to think drugs or some other persuasive agent was involved. Seeing her in the flesh, I was inclined to agree. One thing was certain: Andi had to be holding Smythe by some means other than her raw sex appeal, which was, to put it charitably, minimal.

  When the ex-conga player who was carrying her on his silver platter reached center-stage, he knelt in front of the pseudo-chief’s throne. Andi then stepped tiredly off the platter and stood waiting for someone to tell her what to do next. She looked dazed, and I was willing to bet that she’d prepared herself for the evening’s performance by getting stoned on marijuana or something stronger.

  The pseudo-chief got up and began pacing around her, as if inspecting the merchandise. He opened her gown, tweaked her breast experimentally, then gave her buttocks a pinch. She continued to stare dazedly ahead, as if totally oblivious to his ministrations. The other man and the four Negro girls exchanged nervous glances. Obviously Andi wasn’t playing her part the way it was supposed to be played.

  The pseudo-chief paced some more. Then he ripped the gown off Andi’s back and gave her a resounding slap on the buttocks. She jumped slightly, and said, “Ow, cut that out!” Then she slipped back into her daze.

  The other members of the cast exchanged a few more nervous glances. The pseudo-chief paced some more, seemingly at a loss. Finally he turned to the platter-bearer. “The girl act funny,” he said, adding to the evening’s store of anachronisms the spectacle of a Nairobi chief who spoke English—with a Jamaican accent, yet. “She don’t seem afraid.”

  “She very afraid earlier,” replied the platter-bearer. “I give her leafs from peyote plant to calm her down.”

  The audience obviously sensed that something was amiss. There were murmurs of disapproval, accompanied by the shuffling of feet. “Me no like calm woman,” ad-libbed the pseudo-chief. “Me like lively woman.”

  “Me sorry,” apologized his partner. “Me no think peyote leafs make her this calm.”

  The audience grew more restive. The murmurs increased in volume and two or three men began calling out loud for a new girl. My monocled tablemate, now back on the scene, whispered, “Something is wrong. The girl is supposed to be fighting, and the men aren’t supposed to be talking.”

  The pseudo-chief paced some more. After a moment he evidently had an inspiration. “Me wake her up,” he grinned. “Me show her how to be lively woman.” Seizing her roughly by the arm, he tipped her over his knee and began to administer a vigorous spanking.

  The first few blows failed to disturb Andi’s drug-induced torpor. But the next few
made her squirm, and the few after that—sharp, resounding blows that echoed throughout the room—really got her moving. Her arms and legs began flailing wildly about. “Stop it, for Chrissakes!” she yelled. “What the hell’s the matter with you?”

  The pseudo-chief, grinning, hit her all the harder. Her creamy white buttocks took on a bright pink glow. He hit her some more. The pink rapidly turned to red.

  “Hey!” Andi was screaming. “Lay off, will ya, ya stupid spook! What”re ya tryin” a do!?”

  The audience roared its approval, and the audience’s reaction—combined, perhaps, with a few sadistic leanings of his own—inspired the pseudo-chief to new heights of energy. He swung harder and harder still, and the more fiercely Andi struggled to escape the blows, the more energetically he administered them.

  The spanking lasted for all of two or three minutes, by which time Andi’s bottom had already begun to turn black and blue. The pseudo-chief then dumped her roughly onto the floor, tore open his pantaloons, and, brandishing proudly the proof of his masculine prowess, proceeded to rape her.

  It was a genuine rape, because Andi by this time had had her fill of the game and was fighting desperately to resist his advances. But he was much too strong for her, and her resistance served only to prolong her agony. I watched the spectacle with a feeling of pity and disgust. But the audience obviously loved every minute of it. They had expected only a pretended rape, and now they were getting the real thing. They couldn’t have been happier.

  I had little doubt that many of the members of this audience were the same people who supported publicly The Big Prig’s campaign against the free dissemination of erotic literature. I was sure that a few of them were sincerely convinced that the sexual permissiveness of England’s young people was proof positive that the Empire was in a state of decay. Yet here they were, these same pompous hypocrites, enjoying amidst the posh surroundings of The Safari Club perverted sexual pleasures that the young people they condemned would never think of. It was enough to turn one’s stomach.