'So this mean bastard has brought his own transformer,' Maxie went on. 'After him we screened the gear people bring but this was earlier. Gets Lucille in the chair with the straps on and the head terminal down on her and the mask he leaves off and he cranks his own machine. Both. You believe it? Lucille's expecting to imitate when he fires but she don't have to do no imitations. You should have seen the fucking burn marks he leaves on her. Real nice bastard. Even had the nerve to query the bill. Some guys you don't have back. And we search bags since.'
Sir Arnold added the Dungeon to his list of future viewings. He also came up with an important question. 'Got any bondage freaks use the Dungeon?' he asked.
Again Maxie Schryburg smirked. 'Mr Cope, have we got bondage...Man, we got every kind of kook you can name and some you never heard of. Had a publisher in the other day wants to shrink-wrap Pauline. "Shrink-wrap her?" I says to him. "What you mean 'shrink-wrap'? You gonna suffocate her." You know what he says? Says he wants her shrink-wrapped because he wants to use her as a dump bin. There's some things in this business I don't understand and I been in it so many years and dump bin is something too much. Right? And I say so to Pauline. I say, "You got a guy in there wants to have you shrink-wrapped in plastic for a dump bin." Jesus, that Pauline took off. She's a sassy girl too. Water sports, wind surfing, husband and wife, the two-way stretch with muffins, she's not fussy. So when she says dump bins is out, boy, they're definitely off the menu. You think that guy takes it easy? He gets real rude and mean. So, he's in the door, he's a member since he's here and I don't want no trouble because he's a big-time publisher from London. So I tell him he can't have Pauline, he'll have to take pot luck like out of house and I calls Mrs Ferrow and she says sure she'll do it just so the guy doesn't see her face. She don't want to be known, though everybody I know knows her. Fine with me. Who wants to look at Mrs Ferrow's face? Only one thing is I tell her, "This customer wants you down under." Fine with Mrs Ferrow. Wants to know what sort of fucking animal, like a koala bear or a kangafuckingroo. Must be pissed or something. So I go back to this big guy and say which way he wants the dump? He looks at me he doesn't understand what I'm asking. Miles of fucking cling-film he's undone already all over the fucking floor and he doesn't want the dump. You know what he says? He's never heard of it like that and I believe him. Practically throws up when I tell him. Dump bins in his world are things you stack books in not Mrs Ferrow assfacing him and '
'Maxie, I don't want to hear,' said the Chief Constable, who knew Mrs Ferrow by sight and didn't like to think what was coming. 'All I want is all the names of your bondage freaks and men who drug young men. All, you understand, all the names.'
Maxie pulled a long face. 'Come on, Mr Cope, you know I don't '
'I know you don't, Maxie,' Sir Arnold said in a conciliatory fashion, 'that's one of the things I like about you. And you know I never make any use of any information anyone can trace back to you. That's good insurance for us both. So you got any information about guys who like boys out of their skulls on LSD, I want it.'
Maxie Schryburg relaxed. 'You want that sort of thing I can supply it easy,' he said. 'You want it private is fine with me. You want to be the boy, eh? Nothing easier...' He stopped. The Chief Constable was turning a very nasty colour.
'You just want the names, sure,' Maxie said hurriedly, trying to make good his mistake. 'Sure, I'll get it now.' And before the Chief Constable could tell him what he thought of him, he was off.
For the rest of the evening Sir Arnold sat back and watched the mixed grill on the water-bed. But every now and then he would switch the button marked D and study the apparatus in the Dungeon with interest. He'd get Maxie to show him round it in person. Only trouble was he had never gone further than the video room he was in and he didn't intend to now. No one was ever going to catch him on tape.
At 11.30 he left cautiously by the covered way and drove back to Tween. He had a list of names in his pocket that might lead to the boy in his bed and he was feeling rather satisfied with himself. In fact he was thinking of having some relaxation and Glenda never went to bed before midnight. Unless he was there, of course. On the whole, he thought not. He'd had an exhausting weekend and he had to get to work in the morning.
Chapter 19
Far away to the south Auntie Bea was doing her best to persuade Lady Vy that she must take her case to her father. 'Darling, you must see that it is the only way you can save yourself. Arnold's trying to blackmail you with unfavourable publicity and getting your name in the tabloids. If you get your father to act now...'
'Oh but Bea, don't you see Daddy would be so shocked,' said Lady Vy, looking vaguely round the restaurant as if for support. Le Clit, decorated in a specious art deco and newly opened in a renovated garage in the Fulham Road, didn't seem the right atmosphere in which to talk about Daddy. Sir Edward Gilmott-Gwyre held strong views about women like that. 'And anyway,' she went on, 'even if I do tell him, what can poor Daddy do? He's almost eighty and he hasn't been at all well '
'Tosh,' said Auntie Bea masterfully. 'Your father is a very fit old man and he loves nothing better than demonstrating his power of influence. If you tell him what Arnold has been doing '
'Oh, but I couldn't,' said Vy. Auntie Bea's gloved hand closed firmly on her wrist and the fingers tightened on her painfully. She looked through half tears into Bea's eyes. 'You're asking too much of me.'
'Suppose I said I was going to be asking so much more of you later on,' Auntie Bea hissed softly. She moistened her lips with her tongue and Vy felt hopelessly weak. 'And I am. You will go to your father in the morning and tell him everything. Everything, do you hear?'
Lady Vy nodded. Her soft blue eyes had misted over. 'Everything? About us too?' she asked in a girlish whisper.
The gloved fingers bit deeper into her wrist. 'No, not about us,' snapped Bea fiercely. 'Of course not about us. About Arnold and the young man in your bed.'
'Oh no, Bea, I couldn't. Don't you see Daddy would believe I'd asked him to come to bed with me. He wouldn't believe I hadn't. He's never believed anything I've said. He thinks I'm '
'Yes, dear,' said Auntie Bea hurriedly, and considered this new problem. Sir Edward Gilmott-Gwyre's stated views on the place of women in the kitchen, and silent women at that, were well known. It was even rumoured that he had stopped his eldest daughter from having an abortion on the grounds that if she must behave like an elephant in musth she had better learn to live with the consequences. The fact that only male elephants got in musth was of no influence on Sir Edward's opinion that all women were by nature driven by obscure and sinister sexual urges which had to be tamed or, better still, ignored. Lady Vy had particular reasons as well for fearing his anger.
'Now, listen, darling,' Bea went on, using her eyes to will Vy's obedience and still grasping her wrist, 'you must tell him straight away that Arnold put the boy there himself with the deliberate intention of involving you in his own crimes.'
'But Bea, I don't see how.'
'Doesn't it tell you anything about Arnold's proclivities that the boy was naked and tied up in bed linen and that Arnold kept drugging him with Valium?'
'Well, I suppose he could be a bit that way,' Vy admitted. 'He can get very violent and I'm sure he has a bit of fluff in Tween somewhere.'
'But is it just a bit of fluff? What about a pretty boy?'