Atomic Blonde by Monte Steele - Chapter 01

1963 Genre: Vintage Sleaze / Wanton Woman

IF she's a sexy looking blonde with a flat tire—stop if you want but be careful! She may steal your car and steer you into a mess of trouble. Insurance investigator, Johnny, lost his car but later found the blonde, and in a motel learned that her thermostat was set high for everything she did.

She was wearing a tight jersey dress. I ran my fingers up and down the back of it until I found the zipper.

"What are you doing?"

"This—"

I gave the zipper a pull and her dress fell away. She laughed gaily and let it slide off her shoulders. She even wiggled her hips and torso a little to help it along.

The dress ended up on the floor around her ankles. She stepped out of it and fitted her plush thighs tightly against my legs.

I looked down and saw the fullness of her creamy breasts within the bra she was wearing.

Sliding my hand up, I unsnapped the hooks in back and pulled the bra away. I saw her breasts then, hanging heavily. They were big and ripe, with large red nipples.

I stroked my hands over them, feeling the soft ripple of flesh, the warmth of her body. I pinched the nipples and made them stand erect.

"Where did you ever learn to do that?” she said mockingly. "I've been around.”

"I'll bet you have . . .” she murmured throatily.

Chapter 1

Maybe I'm stupid, but every so often I let some dizzy dame make a sucker out of me. Which is a pretty good sign of stupidity. This particular dame wasn't dizzy, but she really made a sucker out of me before it was over.

I had gone out to Appleton to check on a stolen car, a 1963 Dodge, license SN-7421, blue Tudor sedan. I carry facts like that around in my brain like a filing cabinet. Not that I enjoy doing it, but it happens to be my job.

It was the third car in a week that had been reported missing, and the office was beginning to get hot about it.

Even an outfit as big as Vesuvius Insurance, which insures cars in seven states, can't begin to pay off that many thefts in one district without feeling it where it hurts. Or at least the big brass tries to make you think it's hurting them, personally, the way they hop up and down.

I was driving into Desert City about sundown, when this beautiful—and I use the word without reservations—blonde passed me in a flashy yellow convertible so fast you would have thought I was standing still.

I got only a momentary glance at her, but she was some dish, and any man would have had to look at her twice.

The car was a block long and the same color as her hair. She didn't give a look my way as she went by, just lifted her chin an inch higher and pursed her crimson lips with a kind of pouting defiance.

It's funny how a dame like that will set you to thinking about all kinds of things. I got to figuring some way to get acquainted—if I could wangle the opportunity.

There was only one problem. I couldn't begin to keep up with her in my buggy. She disappeared over the next hill as I shifted into second and stepped on the gas for the climb.

I kept thinking about the blonde. You see something like that—its like a kid in a toy store—you want to touch it. But she lived in some other world, so I'd already given up hoping that I'd ever see her again.

Then, two miles up the road, I found her parked on the shoulder, standing with her hands on her lovely hips, looking disgustedly at a flat tire.

I thought Johnny Stone's luck had begun to change.

I stepped on the brakes and pulled off the road in front of her convertible. When I climbed out and went up to her, she didn't even bother to look at me.

I wasn't a part of her world.

"Having trouble?" I asked.

I gave her a big friendly smile.

"What do you think?"

She said it without looking my way. I could see I was making a big impression on her.

"I'll have it fixed for you in no time," I assured her.

"Don't worry about a thing."

She turned her big blue eyes on me.

"I don't need any help," she said coldly.

“Well," I said persistently. "It's easy to see that you could use some help, and I can't stand the sight of a lady in distress. Where are your tools?''

"Please don't bother ..."

"But you can't change that great big tire all by yourself," I said. "Besides, you'll get those lovely little pinkies dirty, and that would never do."

It didn't go over at all. She turned away and walked nervously up and down the highway beside the car.

She fit the tight Bermudas she was wearing like she had been squeezed into them. She had a perfect heart-shaped behind that wiggled in a fascinating manner with each step she took.

She came back again to me and I got a good look at the front of her then. She put up quite a front. The twin plush domes of her breasts weren't over-sized, but they were close to it. Yet they were pointed nicely on the ends, which protruded against the taut silk of her blouse.

She stopped and looked at me a moment and said, "Can you drive me into town?"

'Well, I could—" I replied, still smiling. "But don't you have a spare?"

I was still trying to play boy scout.

"Yes ... no," she said, glancing toward the trunk of her car. "It's too much trouble. Just drive me into town."

I don't know why I was so damned persistent. I guess I just wanted to make a big impression. I reached behind the steering wheel and took the keys.

"It won't take long," I said. I'll have you fixed up in no time at all."

"No„" she shouted. There was an angry note in her voice. "I don't want it fixed ..."

But I ignored her. I opened the trunk, and what I saw cut my breath off short in my throat. There was a man in the trunk who must have been dead a long time.

His arm had stiffened in midair where he had raised it before his face. His arm was blue, and twice its normal size. The sleeve of his sport shirt had split halfway to his shoulder from the swelling.

He was a short stocky man of about fifty, and he fit nicely in the trunk doubled up. He was suntanned, and he had a trim sandy mustache that showed touches of gray.

I stood with my mouth open for a while before I heard the sound of the rattles and saw the snake looking up at me from the dark interior.

Its body was coiled up by the man's belt.

I got the hell away in a hurry. I didn't need the sound of the rattles, even in that light, to tell me it was a diamond-back rattler.

I was still staring from a safer distance, still feeling my flesh crawl, when I heard a motor start and the gears of my car grind.

I looked up. in time to see it going out of sight around the next curve.

It wasn't much of a car, but with the mess the blonde left me in, I didn't think the swap was even. It was almost dark, and I was stranded in the desert with a flat tire, a dead man, and a rattlesnake.

The sun was out of sight now behind the cactus-covered hills. I could still make things out, but in that kind of light your eyes can play tricks. I wanted to know where that snake was at all times.

I looked back at the trunk. The snake was coiled on the man's chest, taking a good look at me.

It's been a long time since I've seen anything so cold and deadly-looking. The snake's eyes were like buttons, and it kept them fastened on me as its tongue flickered.

I moved back further and looked around on the ground until I found a heavy rock about the size of a football.

The snake was moving.

It slid over the mans body and dropped to the ground, made a quick coil, arching its neck into a striking position.

The rattles buzzed menacingly, a sound that would make anybody shudder.

I raised the rock high over my head and walked slowly toward the snake. I took my time. The head followed me, the whole body quivered with power.

I heaved the rock It landed squarely on top of the snake with a dull thud. The snake stretched out. It rolled and coiled on the ground for a minute or two. Then the rattles were silent.

I took a long stick which I found on the ground and dragged the dead snake away from the car. Then I went back to the trunk.

Maybe I wasn't thinking too fast just then. A car came over the hill and I banged the cover down just as the headlights caught the plaid of the dead man's sport shirt.

After the car was past I began to wonder why I had done it. I had nothing to hide. I only wanted to get to town and turn the whole thing over to someone else.

I fumbled around in the glove compartment and finally found a flashlight. It worked, though it wasn't very bright.

I hoped it would burn until I got the tire changed.

Before I pulled the man's body out to get at the spare tire, I poked around inside the trunk with the stick.

There weren't any more snakes.

But you never know.

As they say—an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure. And I didn't have any snakebite medicine with me. I was wishing I did. About a fifth of Jack Daniels.

It wasn't much of a job to change tires. The hardest thing was getting the body to one side and then stuffing him back again.

I sure didn't want him to ride up front with me. If he couldn't fit in the trunk then he would have to stay in the desert. I finally got him crammed back in, but it took a lot of heavy pushing.

As I drove along I began to wonder how I managed to blunder into a mess like this. I figured it would be a long time before I ever trusted another woman, even a lovely blonde dish like the one who had stolen my car.

That type especially.

You never know how they're going to turn out.

All I wanted to do was help, and this was the thanks I got. I didn't particularly like driving a yellow convertible along a desert road at night, carrying a dead man. It was a little unusual, even for an insurance adjuster.

When I rounded Jackson Peak, I saw the lights of Desert City spread out far off in the valley. And closer to me were the lights of Hilldale, a small town ten miles this side of Desert City. It was the first settlement, and I intended to stop there. I didn't want to drive this big yellow hearse a mile farther than was necessary.

I started down the long grade that leveled out on the valley floor just this side of Desert City.

And then I noticed the car, which had been on my tail for a couple of miles, start around me. We seemed to be the only people on the road. There were no headlights for several miles ahead.

The big car drew up alongside, and I could see that it was a black Cadillac. I thought the driver was going to pass. By the dash lights I could see two men, and both of them were looking my way.

That must have been what warned me.

They stayed even with the convertible for a moment and then inched ahead.

I hit the brakes, but I was too late.

The left front fender of the convertible locked for an instant with the Caddy. I tried to hold it on the road, but the Caddy was too much. I felt the convertible begin to tilt as it was driven into the ditch.

Because I had shoved on the brakes, the two cars didn't stay together. The Caddy shot ahead.

I felt the right front wheel of the convertible digging into the rocky cut. It was lucky that I slowed down enough to keep from rolling over.

I got stopped first.

The Caddy went ahead about thirty yards up the road before it slid to a halt.

I was out of the convertible and across the road and under a bush when they began sweeping the road with a spotlight.

This was something I didn't like at all.

A man stepped from behind the Caddy and walked to the edge of the road where the brush and cactus began. They swung the light up and down the road, and then on the convertible.

One of the men walked up to the convertible and looked in the seat. A stub gun shone blue in the light.

The beam of the spotlight went up the side of the mountain away from me. It bounced around for a moment and then came down. The man with the gun, a heavy-set man with long arms, pointed to the place where I lay.

The spotlight swung around and I was outlined for a second as the beam cut through the night.

I got up quickly and made a run for it up the hill toward a thick organ cactus.

The ground was loose.

I slipped and sent several rocks hurtling down the slope. The man with the gun fired. The bullet whistled above my head.

I dove for a pile of brush just as the light Hashed past me again. When it swung back I was lying flat on the sandy ground with my head behind a bush.

The man on the road swore loudly.

The driver leaned out of the Cadillac.

"We'll never find him up there," he growled. "Let's get back to town. See if you can drive the convertible ... "

The man with the gun climbed in the car I had just left. A few seconds later the starter ground. The engine caught. The headlights flashed on. When he straightened the front wheels, the convertible rolled silently.

They went on down the road toward Desert City.

I sat on the ground and smoked a cigarette as I watched the headlights of the two cars drop down into the valley.

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