Stewart Sterling
Hot, Willing — and Deadly
Chapter I
The girl might have been a teen-ager. There were no lines about the slightly pouting mouth, no shadows beneath the dark and brooding eyes. There was a certain juvenile angularity in the sulkily handsome face. The chartreuse scarf bound about her chestnut hair, in high-school fashion, set off the delicately arched charcoal of the long brows, the raspberry oval of her lipstick. Only her figure suggested she might be more mature than a glance would have indicated.
As she sat gripping the wheel of the Chewy the tight high-necked chartreuse jersey outlined the nipples on her full breasts as if she had been naked. Her short heather skirt was pulled up over her knees; her legs were long and slim and a compliment to the nylons.
She took the sharp S curve just before the bridge over the East fork with the nonchalance of one who knew this lonely part of the main highway well. At the top of the long grade which dipped down to the river she slowed. There was no traffic coming. The car made a sharp U turn, heading back up the hill a hundred yards from the crest. She ran it off onto the right-hand shoulder, cut the ignition.
From the glove compartment she took a sheet of coarse sandpaper, a red mesh-bag containing three oranges, a pair of sport-weight binoculars. She slid over to the right-hand side of the front seat, opened the door, put her right foot down on the brown clay of the shoulder. Then she pulled up her skirt, tucked it up beneath the waistband so her right thigh was bare to the lavender rayon scanties. With the sandpaper she began to scrape at the pink and tender skin of her thigh.
A truck-trailer combination zoomed over the peak of the rise, thundered down past her. She pulled down her skirt swiftly.
After a dozen puffs on the cigarette, she laid the abrasive sheet aside, began to pound the redly inflamed area on her leg with the oranges, swinging the bag with short and punishing blows.
At intervals she would stop, pick up the binoculars, turn to inspect the rise of the highway on the opposite side of the little valley. The late afternoon sun caught each westbound car as it topped the distant hill; splinters of reflected light from windshield and hood were clearly visible among the golds and reds of the September foliage. But it was difficult to be sure of the make and model at that distance.
After a quarter-hour’s alternate peering through the glasses, and pounding with the oranges, she swore beneath her breath, thrust the sandpaper into the net bag, hurled the whole thing into the dense thicket at the right side of the road. She slid beneath the wheel, leaving the right hand door open. When she had the motor running, she ran the car up the grade a few yards further and off the shoulder so its front hubs were hidden in the underbrush.
A pickup truck came bowling up from the river. It slowed as the husky overalled driver saw her standing forlornly beside the ditched Chewy. The youth in overalls braked, pulled off the road ahead of her.
“Need any help?”
“No. Thanks a lot.” She shook her head. “My husband just got a lift into town. He’s going to bring a wrecker back. I’m all right.”
The youth was disappointed. “Lucky you didn’t take a header through that windshield.” He jerked a thumb at the Chewy.
She said coldly, “It didn’t hurt anything except that front axle. My husband’ll be back in ten minutes.”
“Okaydokus.” He waved, revved up, rolled on.
She used the binoculars once more.
On the grade across the valley the sun glittered on a swiftly moving car with much chrome to reflect the light.
She touched a finger-tip to one of the small raw spots on her leg, smeared a thin streak of blood across her cheek-bone beneath her right eye. Quickly she concealed the binoculars beneath the cushion of the front seat. Slowly she limped to the edge of the concrete.
The car crossed the bridge over the river, roared up the hill toward her.
She began to cry. Her lips quivered.
The speeding Cadillac swung to the middle of the road, but didn’t slow.
She could see the man at the wheel clearly — a middle-aged man with no middle-aged plumpness but a hard, winter-tanned firmness of flesh in the solid, squarish face.
She waved, hesitantly, hunching her shoulders as if afraid to ask for help.
The Cadillac cut down to fifteen but rolled past. The man squinted at her, suspiciously; his eyes flashed to the ditched Chewy.
Thirty yards past her, he stopped. The big car rolled back toward her slowly. Its right-hand whitewalls glided onto the shoulder.
She made no move to approach him, but bit her lips as if to keep from bawling.
He got out.
“Seems to be the trouble, sis?”
“One of those big trailers,” she wailed. “It came right at me, over the top of the hill. It was right in the middle of the road. It wouldn’t give me an inch. I had to go off the r-road.” She turned away, sobbing.
“That’s lousy.” Sympathy came into his voice. “Bust anything?”
“I... I don’t think so.” She blinked away tears. “It threw me right out when I hit that ditch. For a while I thought I might have broken my wrist, but it was only numbed, I guess.” She flapped it, worriedly.
“Meant the car. You bust a wheel or anything?”
“I don’t know.” She shuddered. “But even if it’s all right, I wouldn’t drive it now for a million dollars. I’m too shaken up. I just want to get back to town. I’ll get someone to come out and bring the car.”
“No difficulty about that. I’ll take you in to town.”
“Oh, if you would!”
“Sure.” He opened the door of the Cadillac for her. “You live in Vulcan City?”
“Oh, no.”
She winced as she climbed in. Her skirt rode up to show the black and blue marks, the clotted spots of blood.
He said: “Say, by God, you did get banged up pretty bad!”
She lifted the skirt gingerly to let him see the extent of the injury. “I guess I’m lucky not to have broken my neck. But it gave me such a shaking up. I feel all — kind of quivery, inside.”
“Sorry I don’t happen to have any liquor in the car.” He got the big car rolling. “But maybe we can find a place down the road. Little drink would drown those butterflies for you.”
She murmured demurely, “All right — if you think so.”
“Say you don’t live in Vulcan City?”
“No, I’m from Niles. My name’s Lulie Jessop.”
“Miss Jessop?”
“That’s right. I’ve been up to Easton, delivering some hunting dogs. My brother and I breed Bassets.”
“That so?” He glanced at her with interest. “I do a little shooting, now and then. Maybe you and I can make a deal for one of your hounds.”
She smoothed down the jersey over her breasts, aware that he was watching her out of the corners of his eyes. “Do you come from around here?”
He smiled. “I’m from Buffalo. Name’s Deland. Ralph, to you, Lulie. Say, how about that place ahead, there?”
“Oh!” She seemed flustered. “It’s a motel, isn’t it?”
“Ye-up.” He read the green neons, “‘Ravenwood Lodge.’ But they have a bar and café. What’s the difference?”
She said, “It’s all right with me.”
The Cadillac swung into the parking crescent.
The middle-aged man driving it could not guess that he was heading directly into a trap, baited by the sex lure of this teen-age girl — or that when next seen, he’d be a mangled corpse...
Chapter II
By tilting back in his swivel chair Tony Quinn, newly elected D.A. of Vulcan City, could look down across the air-shaft from his third floor office to the narrow, barred windows of the city jail. Every time he did a curious intentness came into his expression. He turned his head a little to one side as if he was trying to catch the meaning of some indistinct murmurings.