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Pete McCauley, retired Army officer and sometime CIA operative, is furious when he discovers that his Nemesis, Grantland Farrow, is on the verge of winning the New Right Party's nomination for a U.S. Senate seat from California – and appears to be a shoo-in for election. He sets out to reveal Farrow for the monster he knows him to be, and discovers that Farrow is even worse that he imagined. But McCauley can't bring Farrow down without doing irreparable harm to the life of a former film beauty, the enchanting Tiger Lily, who now devotes herself to saving discarded wild animals.
I was mixed up enough trying to figure out this kid who was wandering around in the body of a woman and not really knowing what to do with it. She could get into a lot of trouble, I thought. She was like a child playing with a loaded weapon, and she didn't realize how dangerous it was. But she seemed to enjoy flaunting her attributes, knowing full well that others enjoyed them as much as she did. But why would a girl like this hit on an old guy like me?
"Maybe it's a father fixation," she said.
"Psych 101?"
"No. I read Freud."
"Really? I've heard of him, believe it or not. But if you've got a father fixation, how come you're here in a bar with me and your father's out there?" I asked, nodding toward the marina. Most of the boats were lit up now and the sounds that came from them were not vespers. "You're probably missing a great party."
"I suppose you'd like to take me home," she said coyly.
"Nonsense. You're too big a souvenir. I wouldn't know where to keep you."
"I know where you could keep me," she purred. She was a gamine now, toying with me. I'd seen an act like this before, and I wasn't about to be taken in by it. On the other hand I had no idea how I'd ever get her back to Daddy.
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"I'd be happy to take you home," I said, "if I had a little dinghy."
She suddenly dissolved in a fit of giggling, holding her hand over her mouth as if I'd broken some teenage taboo. She might have been any high school girl, embarrassed by sex, yet fascinated by it, finding sexual meaning in every innocent word, every innocuous comment. It didn't seem to jibe. She might have been a kid from the neck up, but from the neck down she was all woman, too much of a woman to find sex just a laughing matter. It was several moments before she regained her composure.
"I'm sorry," she apologized, "but that word always breaks me up. It's a funny word, don't you think? I can't hear it without laughing."
"So I noticed. But to get back to my point..."
Again she broke into uncontrollable laughter, but this time it had nothing to do with funny sounding words. She was laughing at herself, at us, at the fact we had come together and that it was apparent to both of us that sex was exactly what she had on her mind. She knew perfectly well that she had made the air electric with sex. I felt it myself and I was neither turned on by it nor amused. Her weird behavior was beginning to attract the attention of the young crowd in the bar. Some of the guys were sizing me up as if they wondered why a graybeard like me was hitting on a kid Dena's age.
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"Look, maybe we ought to get out of here," I suggested. "Let's walk around a bit. There are still a few shops open. We could walk down the street, get a cup of coffee, and then walk back again. That ought to clear our heads."
That set her off again. There was nothing I could say that her twisted little mind didn't turn into sexual innuendo. The wine and the gin had given her a real buzz by now and I had to help her to the stairs and down into the plaza. Midway into the street she paused, leaning heavily on my shoulder, and slipped out of her pumps, flipping them casually into the air. Barefoot, she leaped up into the circular planter in front of the Villa Portofino and struck a series of provocative poses for me and for anyone else who might be watching. Then she began a strip tease, slowly, sensuously slithering out of her jacket and twirling it in tempo with some bump-and-grind number only she could hear. I glanced nervously over my shoulder at the boats bobbing in the bay, wondering when Daddy was going to start wondering why Dena hadn't come home yet. A small crowd began to gather around her makeshift stage, and I figured I'd better get her out of there before a cop joined the audience.
"Come on," I demanded, hauling her down. "I'll take you home."
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"You can't. You don't have a little dinghy!" She threw her head back to laugh, but her eyes rolled back and she collapsed in my arms. I steadied her and aimed her toward the Villa Portofino. The woman at the night desk shot me a frown of disapproval as we passed by the window on our way up the outside staircase. At my door I leaned Dena against the wall and fumbled for my keys.
"You shouldn't be doing this, you naughty man," she gushed. "I'll bet you brought me here to show me your . . . " I clapped my hand over her mouth and hustled her inside. I'd had it with her juvenile jokes. I settled her onto the bed and unlocked her arms from around my neck. I had just turned to close the door when from out of the darkness a beefy fist buried itself in my face.
I stumbled across the room and crashed in a heap against the far wall. I could hear a struggle on the bed, but I was too stunned to do much about it until my head cleared. By the time I'd regained my senses
dippy Dena and the intruder were gone. I could hear her screaming down the back passageway and struggled to my feet to give chase. I brushed by the night clerk at my door and ran into the street. But Dena was nowhere to be seen. Then I heard the engine of a muscle truck kick over and roar to life. The tires screeched into motion and the vehicle raced up the side street and into the night. |
