Chapter 04 of Lay Me Odds - Book #2 of the Lady from L.U.S.T.

Genre: Vintage Sleaze / Lady Spies / Sexpionage

ASSIGNMENT: LOVE THE ENEMY TO DEATH

LAY ME ODDS — if you have the guts. My name is Eve Drum. I'm THE LADY FROM L.U.S.T. — the wildest, nuttiest secret agent who ever drove the Kremlin out of its vodka-guzzling skull. They aren't kidding when they call me the sexiest spy in the world. As Agent Double Oh Sex I take on the kind of assignments Jimmy Bond can't handle. All hell breaks loose when I go into action against the sinister forces of H.A.T.E. Don't tangle with me because I'll love you to death. I have a license to kill and I don't care whether I use my body — or a bullet. Sex is my deadliest weapon, but I'm just as good with a knife. Don't tell me about Judo or fast cars or brainwashing because I know it all. I'm good and you know it. Watch me use exotic Eastern sex techniques to turn H.A.T.E.'s villainous spy-masters into helpless blobs of desire. Swing along with me as I bump and grind through London strip clubs in pursuit of missing microfilm. Join the fun as I mix business with pleasure, martinis with molotov cocktails. With a Beretta in my bra, I'm an updated Fanny Hill, a tastier brand of Candy, a lethal Lolita. My crazy life is just filled with bloodshed, bedrooms and belly laughs.

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CHAPTER FOUR

Here we go again, I thought, turning my rented Austin Healey into the tree-bordered drive to the Downes manor house. I was going to hunt for that cursed microfilm all Over again.

The weather did nothing to cheer me up. It was raw and drizzling, and visibility was rather limited. I kept thinking The Satyr and regretting my red-hot patriotism that had made me push him away in the shower. I gritted my teeth.

Some vacation I braked the car and ran for the front door, hoping it wasn't locked. It was opened to the touch of my hand on the knob. I walked down the hall.

The study door was closed. I felt a queasiness in my stomach, hoping the authorities had taken poor Eric away for burial. I opened the door and gave a sigh of relief. There was no dead body lying on the rug.

Instead, three very much alive bodies were turning to stare at me. The bodies belonged to big, husky men, Slavic types with blonde hair and high cheekbones. They looked very muscular. They had turned the study upside down, so that it was really quite a mess.

These men were H.A.T.E. I turned on a spike heel and started my run to freedom. I got halfway down the long hall when a hand grabbed my shoulder. I reached back for the hand, grabbing its wrist with both hands, then bent over suddenly.

One of the Slavic types went up into the air, upside-down, and hung a moment before he fell. I was stepping around his falling body when a second blonde rammed into the backs of my legs. I went down hard.

Number three Slav was right behind the number two boy. He came for me in a long, swooping dive. I had no chance to try the stomach throw, so I did the next best thing. I tried the uki waza, the floating drop.

I caught the sleeve of his jacket with my left hand and its padded left shoulder with my right. At the same time I hit the insides of his ankles with both my shoes. His legs went out sideways and he pitched forward through the air. The sound of his fall shook the house.

Number two boy slammed a fist in my belly. Now I'm no super-woman. The breath whooshed out of my lungs and I was sick. I lay there gagging as number two gave numbers one and three a hand, helping them to their feet.

"She is a wildcat," Two said admiringly. "She is a dammed bitch who ought to have her arms broken,” grunted One, rubbing the growing bump on his head. His eyes were close-set and mean.

Number Three chuckled. "Carl, you are always angry when things do not go your way. You must learn patience. Look on the bright side of things. For instance, we have caught a L.U.S.T. lady, I believe.”

I gagged for breath, my hands moving tenderly over my belly. I decided I would live, even if I didn't feel much like it.

“What's L.U.S.T.?" I asked weakly. Three laughed softly. “She is an actress, too. An athletic actress. A very fascinating character, this L.U.S.T. lady. She must know things it would be good for us to know."

I said something unladylike.

Carl laughed harshly. "We have ways to make athletic actresses talk, especially ones with spirit." There was cruelty in his eyes that went over me slowly, from my alligator Pappagallos up my nyloned gams and my two-tone, long-sleeved casual to my face. "Many ways.”

I shivered.

"Take her outside,” said the leader, number Three.

They took me outside. Number Two led me about a mile away with a Russian Nagant revolver in my back, toward a big black Bentley. I tried to strike up a conversation. I promised him anything (but I'd give him carnage). He wanted no part of me.

He pushed me into the rear seat of the car and got in beside me. I hiked my skirt up to the middle of my stockinged thighs, letting him see bare flesh and a garter plus clasp.

"You're being very foolish," I told him. "You can have me and fifty thousand dollars and asylum in

“Sei still!”

The Nagant poked its cold barrel into my ribs.

I seid still.

A minute or two later I saw my Sprite coming down the drive with One at the wheel. I guess he was going to lose

it somewhere between here and London. Number Three

got out of the Austin Healey and came toward us. The Sprite drove off.

Three got in behind the wheel without even glancing at me. The Nagant went away from my ribs, but not far enough so that I could ignore it. Three started the car and we began our drive to London.

I knew what was going to happen, all right. I was going to be tortured so that H.A.T.E. could learn what I knew. I was sweating with fright. I knew what accomplished H.A.T.E. torturers could do, by personal experience.

I told myself Two would not shoot me. Not really. H.A.T.E. wanted me alive. So I lunged for Two, hands scrabbling at the revolver in his hand, I heard Three curse softly and risk a glance behind him at me and Two where we were struggling silently, viciously. I aimed a karate chop at his temple. He ducked and took it on the top of his blonde crew-cut. I brought a knee up into his face. His nose went all bloody.

“Veddannts!" he sobbed. The Bentley braked sharply, flinging me backward. Three turned and chopped at my neck with the edge of his ham-like hand. At least, I guess he did. Something swatted me there and. . . .

I opened my .20-20s to the sight of a man bending over me. I tried to scratch his eyes, but my arms and legs and middle were strapped down on a bed. The man smiled.

"Spirit. Yes. That is good. You will not break easily. I do not like people who break easily. It spoils the—fun."

I screamed. The man laughed softly, nodding. "Good, good, pretty one. Let out your excess energy. You have a wait of about three hours."

I stopped screaming to ask, "Why?"

"The show goes on at nine.”

“The show?"

"You will see, you will see.” I saw, at about quarter to nine in the evening. Dark man and a hard-faced woman came into my little room. The woman had a scissors in her hands. She started at the hemline and ran the shears up my floral casual. She threw back the flaps of my ruined dress, chuckling as my overflowing brassiere and sheer panties came into view.

Dark man whistled, leaning closer. The woman slid the scissors into my bra, between the D cups. In a moment, my mammary development was bared to dark man whose eyes bulged a little. The woman hit him with an elbow.

"Adolph! Attention to business,” she snapped. Adolph frowned, but he shrugged and asked, "Do you know where the microfilm is?"

"Up yours,” I smiled sweetly. Adolph looked puzzled. "What? What kind of answer is that? Do you mean it is hidden in . . . but no, it could not be."

"Forget it," I muttered. “The microfilm, You will tell us where it is.” I just sighed. The man grinned wickedly, the woman frowned. She muttered, "Is better you tell him, lady.”

"I know, I know. But I won't.” The woman scowled, then lifted a strip of medical adhesive tape from the pocket of her smock. She tore off a piece and gripping it between forefingers and thumbs, pushed it down across my lips. Well, I certainly couldn't talk now.

“Ja! Iss gut,o she nodded, staring down at me. Adolph said, "When and if you're ready to talk, nod your head three times. Is it understood?"

I just looked at him. Now they unfastened the leather straps and rolled me over on my front. My arms and legs were too cramped by inactivity for me to put up a fight. The woman grabbed my wrists and yanked them around behind me. She tied them real tightly.

Dark man patted my buttocks, making them jiggle. “Adolph, stop that. Get her on her feet,” ordered the woman.

I stood up in my nylons and black garter-belt. Otherwise it was all me tottering there in my Pappagallos. A hand in the small of my back pushed me forward.

I walked ahead of them out the little room, along a hall and into what looked like a forest of stage props. Heavy sandbags were overhead, hung on cables, there were painted drops waiting to be lowered, there was a little stage.

They shoved me out onto the stage. I felt my flesh creep as I saw the simulated stones of the backdrop that resembled a medieval torture dungeon, complete with manacles and Iron Maiden. From above, a chain had been lowered, with some cords hanging from it. The cords looked a little worn and my pride whispered to me, They don't even give you new ropes, honey child! I heard a murmur of voices.

A little startled, I turned and stared out across a row of footlights at about fifty tables where men and women were sitting. I damn near died. Even while the chain was lowered and the ropes were being bound about my wrists, so I could be hoisted upward, I found myself admiring the nerve of these H.A.T.E. bastards.

This was a private club. It catered to sadists and maybe even a few masochists. They got their jollies by coming here and watching girls get whipped.

There are a number of such clubs, here and there in the world. They are very sub rosa in most places, but openly flourishing in certain spots, as in the city of Saseibu, Japan, or in Acapulco, or on trysting boats in Bangkok, for instances. In the Profumo-Keeler scandal in London, the world came to understand that this practice of pain-pleasure is far more widespread than was ever before suspected. Clubs can be found everywhere to cater to these deviates. Like, man, I was in one now.

The chains jerked. The ropes caught my wrists and yanked me upward. I hung there with my toes brushing the floor, rotating slowly. A man with a purple hood over his face came out of the wings, snapping a whip. I tried to yelp for help but the big plaster strip across my lips turned it into a whine.

The man came to a halt five feet from me. He shook out the whip and snapped it. I shuddered at the sound. Then the whip was snaking out behind the man in the purple mask—and coming for my naked pelt.

It stung, wrapping about my hips. It was a tongue of fire against me for a brief instant—and my body responded, jerking, heaving. My muscles strutted. The whine in my throat grew shrill.

The whip went away, as reluctant to leave my flesh as the hand of a lover. Again, the whip grabbed my hips. Again. The pain was sickening. I fought the ropes that held me, I yanked and tugged on them. The ropes were worn and frayed, but they were still strong.

I could put my toes on the floor, however. Maybe I had stretched the ropes, I thought. At least I was able to get a purchase on the bare wood with my bare toes, so I tried to dodge the whip.

The audience applauded lustily at sight of my breasts flopping and my buttocks jiggling as I threw myself one way and then another, dancing about. I faced the glare of lights and unseen eyes. If there was a streak of masochism in my makeup, it might have come out then and there. There was only my normal self, anxious to get away from that damned whip that bit and stung like a thousand bees. I glanced down at my hips, saw only faint markings. The whip-man was an expert. He could hurt without marking up his victim. I guess he had to be an expert, because paid actresses hung here where I was hanging during their regular performances, and he couldn't beat up on them too badly.

Funny thing about people. Some of them get their kicks from hurting other people. Man is the only animal on the face of the Earth who preys on his own kind. No kidding. The wolves all hang together, so do the tigers, the lions, the bears, the foxes, the panthers. Not man. Man loves to kill and main his fellows.

Donatien Alphonse Francoise, Marquis de Sade, taught the world all about pain and pleasure. Not that it did not exist before him, he merely gave his name to it, and in a number of novels and literary exploits, examined the subject most thoroughly. Those who like to inflict pain are sadists; those who enjoy receiving pain are masochists, derived from Sacher-Masoch, author of Venus in Furs.

The spankers, the whippers, all take an interest in this infliction of pain. Usually the causative agent of this deviation is to be found in early life, where a spanking is associated in the mind with pleasure, and becomes a conditioned reflex in later life. Often latent homosexual instincts, or guilt feelings, play a large part in this deviative development. It is a mental regression to childhood, with its attendant pleasures and its lack of responsibilities.

Both my feet were on the floor by this time. I glanced upward, rolling my eyes a little—as if I were on the verge of fainting. I played up to the audience—there is a little ham in all of us—but I played up to the H.A.T.E. crowd even more. I wanted them to think I was ready to collapse and admit I was beaten.

Actually, I was looking at the ropes around my wrists.

To my surprise, I saw that they had not stretched. Therefore, since I could now stand on the floor, the chain had come down a little. Maybe the winch that supported those links had weakened.

The whip curled about my buttocks.

The man in the purple hood whispered, "Will you talk? Ordo I put the lash a little harder?”

The audience could not hear him, but I could. He had come a little closer, a step or two while he whispered. I jumped up. My fingers caught the chain.

I kicked outward with both bare feet.

My heels took the man right in his purple mask. I felt nose cartilage crunch.

I am an athletic sort of girl, upon occasion. I hauled my body upward so my mouth was level with the ropes that held my wrist. I hung by one hand and caught the medical plaster with forefinger and thumb.

I yanked.

"Spies!" I screamed. "These men are Commie spies! Go call a bobby—a dozen bobbies! Alert the War Department and M.I. 5!”

The audience was on its feet, muttering.

“This isn't part of the show, Goddammit!" I screeched.

I started going up the chain, hand over hand. My wrists were still roped to the chain, but a big loop of chain dangled below me as I climbed. There was no one above on the catwalk, but there would be somebody there mighty soon.

I climbed faster. But not fast enough.

Dark man was running out onto the walk now, his shoes making a metallic thunder at each footfall. He looked a little frightened. He was in the proverbial quandary. I had raised such a stink there might be an investigation of the club. For this, he ought to shoot me.

But—

I was too valuable a property to shoot down dead. I was a L.U.S.T. agent, and as such I knew things H.A.T.E. would like to know. So dark man was going to be a real hero and capture me all by himself.

Well, maybe not all by himself. Now there were two more men behind him, also running toward me. I climbed faster. I put a hand on the catwalk. I hauled myself up, I hooked a naked leg over the metal rail. I gathered the long loop of chain in my hands. I swung that loop as if it were a baseball bat.

The chain took dark man across the side of his head. He let out a single scream as his body went sideways, slammed into the rail and fell over it to the stage. The sodden thump of his body on the floorboards was the fuse that set off the stunned audience.

There were screams, some curses. I heard feet running. I braced my feet and sent my chain swinging in a loop over my head. The first man within range of those heavy links took them across his face. He did not fall over the rail, but he sank to his knees, his features all over blood. He was moaning, moving his face around in his now—bloody palms.

The second man halted, turned back. I bent over the railing, began to work the ropes back and forth, picking the most frayed part to break. After a few moments, the ropes sprang apart. I twisted my wrists free and rubbed then a moment.

The moaning man had a shoulder holster on with a Russian Nagant in it. I grabbed for the gun, yanked it free. I lifted the gun.

I put a bullet in the middle of the back of the other man, who was almost at the end of the catwalk by now. He fell face down on the metal flooring and skidded.

I ran after him, stark naked and mad as hell. My hips still stung from that gee-damned whip. If I caught sight of any of those H.A.T.E. bastards, they were going to suffer.

I went down the little metal ladder. Three men came out of the shadows and looked up at me. One of them was Number Two—the boy with the mean eyes—another was Number One. I did not recognize the third character.

I halted my downward progress. I put the Nagant on Number Two and squeezed trigger. I caught him smack in the middle of his forehead. Too late, Number One clawed for his own gun. I guess he still thought he could re-capture me. My bullet made a red mess of his belly.

The other joe started to turn. He was almost directly under me, so my bullet took him in the middle of his balding pate. I breathed a sigh of thankfulness for those torturous hours of target practice that had enabled me to win my sharp-shooter medals with .22, .38 and 45 revolvers.

I ran for the dressing rooms. I needed clothes. The hefty woman with the hard face came running from a doorway, holding a short club in her hand. Lucky for her she didn't have a gun. I swung the Russian revolver and took her across the temple with its barrel. She went down like a sack of grain.

I skidded into the dressing room.

I had no hope of finding my own clothes. I snatched up a pert Lady Windsor raincoat—it was something like a trench coat, only on more classic lines—and wrapped my nakedness in it. Then I found a discarded pair of pumps in a pile of dirty clothes and slipped my feet into them. They made a tight squeeze, but I could stand a little toe-jostling.

I ran for the stage door.

There was no doorman. I guess all the underlings had fled the coop at the sound of the gunshots. I opened the door and ran out into a rainy fog. Bless this London weather! It would keep anybody from paying too much attention to me as I hot-footed it down the alleyway and out onto a neon-lighted street.

I was in Soho. It took me less than five minutes to reach Berwick Street and a taxi. I flung myself into the back seat.

I had no money, of course. I had searched the pockets of the raincoat three times, without luck. The fare would not be much, ten shillings at most. I hoped the doorman would pay it.

The doorman looked at me oddly, but when I told him I would double what he gave the driver, he smiled and said, "Guess I can take the chance, miss. Bit of a time you've had, eh?”

I patted his cheek. “You darling!"

The crowd in the glass-walled lounge eyed me curiously as I sped naked in the Lady Windsor to the elevators. The clerk at the key desk raised his eyebrows, but he recognized me and handed over the key to 402. I scampered for the elevator.

I opened the door to a darkroom. Arms went around me, gripping me like a python. The Nagant was in the raincoat pocket out of reach so I did the next best thing. My naked body turned inside the Dacron polyester raincoat—and my knee jammed upward solidly.

There was a grunt and the arms went away. I lifted my hand to karate-chop the man who was bending over, moaning a little and clutching himself.

"Eve,” he whispered. "It's—"

"David!” I screamed. "Oh my poor, poor darling!” I hit the switch with a hand and bending, caught David and helped him into the bedroom. I stretched him out on the bed, undid his belt and zipper and yanked down his shorts. Then I ran for the bathroom.

I soaked a hand towel in cold water and ran back. I wrapped the towel about his aching parts and stood up, breathing heavily.

He grimaced at me. "I was going to surprise you.”

“You did, darling. You did, indeed! But you see, I've had a brush with H.A.T.E. I just finished killing four men and I sort of figured you were in on the deal.” He patted the edge of the bed with a palm. I told him everything that had happened to me since I had come to London town, omitting only the more esoteric details of my date with The Satyr. David, I knew very well, could fill in those gaps from past experience.

David Anderjanian is a big blonde Viking of a man. He stands six feet four and weighs maybe two-twenty, all of it solid bone and muscle. He is also quite a man in the male-hood department. I hoped I hadn't ruined him.

"Where are you staying?" I wondered. “The London Hilton, just a few blocks south of here. I was going to ask you to join me over a steak in their London Tavern—but now I know what delayed you, I'll give you a rain check."

“I’ll call room service. You've reminded me I haven't eaten since lunchtime in Salisbury."

I ordered over the phone, then rejoined David. "I brought along a few odds and ends for you, Eve,” he told me. "Things I had the General order a rush job on. Earrings, a bracelet, things like that.”

"All lethal, I hope?" I asked, remembering the whip. He grinned. I got to my feet and hoisted the Lady Windsor, showing him my legs and behind all welted and red. David cursed softly.

I turned around. The towel was making a bit of a tent. I do have a nice behind, I must admit. I gurgled laughter. “Well, I'm glad to see you're feeling better, chief.”

He looked a little wan, but he managed a smile. "I'm going to kiss those wounds of battle. Double Oh Sex—and make 'em all better. Just as soon as I'm myself again.”

I removed the towel, smiling down at him. "That won't be long," I giggled. "I'll go wet this again, to hurry up the process.”

When I finished draping the cold towel about him, there was a knock on the door. David pulled up his shorts and pants. I went to the door and let the uniformed waiter in. He was polite, he merely glanced at my raincoat. I am sure he was thinking that nobody could explain the crazy Americans.

We had Scotch on the rocks, club sandwiches and coffee. When we were done, I lighted two cigarettes and passed one to David.

"What's the plan of action?” he asked.

"I've got to meet this Thom Morris, He's the only one who can tell me where he got the microfilm.”

David dragged smoke into his lungs, let it out slowly. "You're going to backtrack? What good will that do you—unless there's another microfilm?"

"It's what I'm hoping. I don't even know what's in the damn thing. Do you?”

"All I know is, it's a formula of some sort. What it is, what it does, I haven't the foggiest notion.”

"H.A.T.E. doesn't have it, I know that much. If they had, they wouldn't have been ransacking Eric Downes' study when I walked in on them.”

"He picked a damned good hiding place if neither you nor H.A.T.E. can find it. My own curiosity is up and quivering, now."

I glanced at him, smiling. “Your curiosity isn't the only thing, darling. You do feel better.”

I put out a hand toward the wet towel.

The telephone rang.

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