I swiveled around on my barstool. Behind me, there were more booths. There were curtains on these, gauze curtains. Behind some of them, I could make out couples dancing or something. More probably, “or something.” This would be the private area where the B-girls hustled the suckers. I guessed—-correctly as it turned out later—that there were probably doors leading to private rooms behind the booths.
Suddenly my view was cut off by a bra-less bosom shoved right under my nose. “Hello, honey, want some company?”
She was young, and not bad-looking if you like them on the tough side. Her hair was raven black, her eyes lost in pools of mascara, her body plump but fetching under a skirt slit up to her hip and a bodice with a V cut literally down to her navel. She wriggled her belly and the navel popped into sight as she gave me the come-on.
“And why not?” I looked her up and down the way I figured an on-the-make tourist sucker would. I wanted to pump some info on the Naked Grotto and Ophelia Tietz out of somebody, and I figured her for as likely a girl to start with as any of the others.
But I never got past the first sip of her champagne cocktail with her. The reason was just as she was taking it, who should materialize out of the darkness but Ophelia Tietz herself. “Hello, Steve,” she greeted me. “Small world, isn’t it?”
“I thought you were going to take a hot bath and go to bed,” I said with a grin.
“And I thought you wanted to get some shuteye yourself.” She smiled back.
“Say!” The B-girl at my side was indignant. “What gives here? Things is tough enough, Ophelia, without you coming by and stealing my tricks. Why don’t you leave the customers to us? After all, I don’t get up on the stage and strip!”
“If you did, sweetie,” Ophelia told her, “you’d empty the place faster than a four-alarm fire. Believe me, the world isn’t ready for your brand of saggy sex.”
“Well, of all the nerve-—!”
“Look, honey, buzz off, will you?” I handed her a ten-dollar bill. “The lady and I have things to discuss.”
“Well, all right,” she muttered as she backed off. “But I’ll get even with you, Ophelia. I’ll put cement inside your pasties or a burr on your G-string or some- thing.”
“Cute kid.” I laughed.
“Typical of the breed around here. But tell me, Steve, what did bring you here so late at night -- or, rather, early in the morning?”
“Curiosity,” I answered honestly enough. “After I left you, I found I was still so stimulated that I didn’t feel sleepy. So I went down and asked a hack driver if he knew an afterhours place where I could get a drink. He mentioned two or three, and this was one of them. It rang a bell since I’m meeting you here tomorrow night, and so I told him to bring me here. Now how about you? What brings you here?”
“Just business,” she answered evasively. “I just remembered something I forgot.”
Her evasiveness nudged another hunch to the outer edges of my mind. I had the feeling that Ophelia had come to the Naked Grotto to report to someone about the evening we’d spent together. Yes, I had the uneasy feeling that she and her people—-whoever they might be—-somehow knew about me and my mission. More. I suspected that she had come to consult with them about what they were going to do with me after she’d lured me to the Naked Grotto the following night. If that was so, then my being here now might throw them off, foul them up before they had a chance to make plans. On the other hand, it could decide them to merely act a day sooner. In any case, I’d soon find out.
Very soon, as events proved. “This is quite a place,” I remarked to Ophelia.
“Yes, isn’t it?” she agreed. “Carefully designed for the fleecing of sheep. Would you like to look around?”
“Sure.” I got off my barstool and followed her toward the rear.
She led me through the gauze curtains into one of the booths. There was a small table with a cozy little divan in front of it. There was also about two square feet of floor—no more. “That’s for dancing,” Ophelia explained. “It costs the suckers ten bucks to spend a half-hour here with one of the girls. Plus the fact that the waiters are trained to keep the champagne cocktails coming. The girls get forty percent of everything the sucker buys.”
“And what does the sucker get for his money?” I asked.
“This.” Ophelia took my hand and pressed it to her breast. “A little of this.” She bit my ear. “And a smidgeon of this.” She rubbed her belly against mine suggestively. “In other words, a lot more come-on and little else.”
“What’s the come-on for?”
“To get him to shell out another twenty-five smackers for a half-hour back here.” Ophelia took my hand and led me through a door at the back of the cubicle into another small room. A pair of candles flickered here, revealing a couch and nothing else.
“Do they take him on here?” I wanted to know.
“Not on your life. It’s all come-on. What they do here is heat him up. Maybe the top of the dress comes down.” Ophelia shrugged her shoulders and her breasts were bared to the shadows. “They let the fish play a little.” She took my hands and guided them over her breasts. “And while the fish’s mind is on such things — Voila!” She leaned away from me and held up my wallet.
“Suppose the sucker raises a beef.” I grabbed for my wallet, but Ophelia darted playfully out of reach.
“There’s always somebody standing by to take care of that. Watch. I’ll show you.” Still dancing out of reach, Ophelia sang out. “Reuben-Reuben-Reuben.” It was a yodel, like the way they call pigs.
A pair of hogs answered. Two-legged hogs, all beefed up with a little too much muscle for my taste. They shot through a door hidden in the shadows and grabbed me with practiced efficiency. Before I knew what hit me, I was flat on my back, looking up at the jut of Ophelia’s bosom—which even from that position was pretty scenic viewing.
“Very neat,” I said with equanimity. “But suppose after you rough him up the sucker goes to the cops?”
“They never do,” Ophelia told me. “They’re almost always married. They’d rather lose a few bucks and take a little beating than get involved in a scandal. They don’t want publicity. Just like you don’t want publicity, Mr. Victor.”
I let that pass. “Real efficient,” I said. “Now how about calling off the demonstration? This floor is hard.”
“Get with it, Mr. Victor.” Ophelia’s voice was suddenly cold and hard. “This is, no demonstration. You see, we know who you are. I hate to disillusion you, but it wasn’t your charm that swept me off my feet this afternoon. I was waiting for you, just as you were looking for me. And now you’re our prisoner and there are a few things we want to know.”
“Watcha want us to do wit’ him, Miss Tietz?” one of the plug-uglies asked. “Should we give him a goin’—over an’ dump him in da alley?”
“No. Bring him in back and tie him up.”
Five minutes later I was spreadeagled on a bed, my ankles and wrists tied securely to the four bedposts. Ophelia clambered over me and knelt on my chest. Her knees dug into my ribcage so hard that I could scarcely breathe. A cute little Cuban-style stiletto appeared in her hand and she pricked my throat with it. “All right, Mr. Victor,” she said sweetly, “talk! Who put you on my tail? Why the hurry—up hop from Tokyo? What are you after? Yes, that’s most important, what are you after?” Her bare breasts were swinging in my face, the erect nipples grazing my cheeks. She was getting a kick out of this, an erotic kick, but that didn’t make the knife at my throat any the less dangerous.
“I don’t know what I’m after,” I told her. It was the absolute truth.
“What did they tell you in Tokyo before they sent you here?”