Harry and the Bikini Bandits by Basil Heatter - Chapter 19

1971 Genre: Vintage Sleaze / Casino Heist

A wildly erotic novel of intrigue, suspense, and adventure...

There's a lot to be said for my Uncle Harry. Mostly unprintable. All my life I'd heard about him, and from a distance he was a kind of legend. But the moment I signed on as one-man crew to his beat-up old bucket, Jezebel, I found my hero of the sea was really a pirate. Broads and booze kept him afloat between capers—and so far, his luck was holding...

But this new harebrained scheme—to heist the loot from an island gambling casino—was the daffiest—and most dangerous yet.

And there I was. Right in the middle. Up to my virginal ears in naked nymphs and Nitrous oxide—with nothing between me and the future but a leaky getaway and a pot of gold that was fast disappearing behind Harry's private rainbow.

CHAPTER 19

Burger sent his launch for us and we climbed aboard in our party clothes. Burger was wearing a bright red evening jacket and black tie. Mrs. B. wore a white knit sheath that fit very close. Nothing underneath. Charity wore a ribbon in her straight blond hair and looked like an undernourished Alice in Wonderland.

We bombed across the still water that was lit by shafts of moonlight and passed beneath an old stone bridge and up a narrow channel. I saw that Harry was wearing Burger's thin gold watch and that he kept checking it every so often. Grogan clung to his solar topee and did not look around. He gave me the feeling of man walking through a graveyard. We rounded another bend and then we could see cars and the casino itself—a flat-roofed building lit up like a Christmas tree. I looked for the air-conditioning unit and there it was a darker lump on the dark roof.

The launch slid up to the dock. The place was well lit. Too well. People milling around. Cars in the parking lot. All that activity scared me. It would be like holding up a supermarket in broad daylight. Crazy. But if the exposure worried Harry, he didn't show it. He muttered in my ear, "Get up on that roof, Clay."

"Now?"

"Of course now. Meet us inside when you're finished."

"But Harry . . . “

"Get cracking."

The rest of them started across to the casino. Ham Burger being very affable. Miss Wong on one side, Charity on the other. I dropped back. Watched them vanish among a knot of people in evening clothes. My heart beating very hard. Sweaty palms. Like that minute or so before the coach sends you in. Crowds roaring. Everybody you know watching. Yet the worst you can do in the big game is fumble. If you drop this ball God knows what will happen. Why did I ever get involved in the first place? Why not just walk off now and forget the whole thing? Go back across that bridge and get on the first plane for Miami. No money for one thing. And for another it would be gutless. You don't want to let Harry see you that way. He did shoot down twelve planes after all. On the roof then. You can go along with it for now and when it comes to the real thing you can always back away. Famous last words.

Stroll casually toward the back of the building. Staggered a little, pretending to be drunk. Guard in the parking lot. Black man leaning against the fender of a Rolls. Who keeps a Rolls on an island twelves miles long? The guard looked at me briefly, but I pretended to be going toward a car. His eyes slid away. Why should he pay any particular attention to me?

There were a couple of hundred cars in the lot and it was easy to get lost among them. When I was well out of sight I cut in again toward the rear of the building. Nobody around and nice and dark back there. A stairway leading to the roof. All very convenient. I felt a little more relaxed now. Like when you are actually off the bench and in the game. You stop worrying then.

I bent over as if to tie a shoelace and looked around. Nobody. Slithered right up the stairs hugging the wall. Told myself that was the wrong way to do it. Don't skulk. Look casual. Young man out for a stroll. Nice view from the roof. And it was a nice view. The lights of Nassau. Cars winking like glow worms along Bay Street. Sheet of moonlight on the harbor. White finger of the lighthouse poking at the sky. Jezebel, black and lonely, swinging to her anchor. Charisma lit up like a Christmas tree. Enough stalling now. You may want to look like you are out here for a stroll, but you had better get it over with. Damn! Forgot all about timing the stairs. Have to do it all over again. Anybody watching is sure to get suspicious now. Can't be helped. Skipped back down the stairs. Looked at Burger's watch. 9:22. Back up the steps. Casual. Little evening stroll. One minute, ten seconds. Remember!

Flat roof with a low stone wall. Some kind of gravel surface. Noisy as hell. Like walking on dry snow. Damn! Damn! Everybody and his mother hear me now. Can't be helped. Carry on. Fortunately the air conditioner makes a hell of a racket. Big mother. Rumbles like a jet plane. Ten seconds to cross roof. Not so bad. Crouch low and you get a lot of protection from the wall. Right up to the unit now. Big box the size of a small garage with hot air thumping. Pen-lite flash clipped to inside pocket. Flick it on. Cover plate just as Grogan said. Big screws. Need hefty screwdriver. What if they're frozen! Hammer and chisel? Well if you're supposed to be a repairman you can carry a bag of tools, idiot. But how can you time it without actually doing it? Shit.

I bent closer with the little flash. At least the screws are not painted over. And from the scratch marks around them and the slightly chewed slots, somebody has been in there. Fresh metal not yet rusted over. Must have been serviced fairly recently. All you can do now. Split then before someone shows. I flicked off the light and skedaddled for the stairs. Down and into the bushes. Stood there a minute to cool off. Trickles of sweat down the back of my neck.

Breathing heavily. Feel half strangled. Burger's jacket too small. A breeze from the sea, but the air is warm and humid. Stroll leisurely toward the parking lot. More cars arriving. Up a curving drive toward the main door.

"Hey," said a black man in uniform. "You!"

My heart jumped.

"What?"

"How old are you, boy?"

"Old? What do you mean how old?"

"Just what I say, son. I got to know your age before you come in the casino. You twenty-one or over you more than welcome. You less why you just run on about your business."

Something none of us thought of.

"Well, I am twenty-one."

Now he'll ask for identification. Driver's license or what have you. And I haven't got a damn thing.

To my surprise he just said, "You sure about that?"

"Of course I'm sure."

"All right then. You pass."

Nutty. I mean what was the point of asking in the first place?

Harry had said the guards were a joke and now I believed him.

I went through the double door into a room about half the size of a football field. Bright lights. Shiny clothes. Spinning wheels. Click of dice. Too many teeth. Tits galore. Crazy hair. Harry off to one side, inspecting the cashier's cage, looking as out of place in Burger's clothes as a gorilla in a dinner jacket. Grogan sad and funny and professorial in white linen. Miss Wong serene and detached and incredibly beautiful at one of the roulette tables with eager males eight deep around her.

Harry saw me and beckoned. He looked charged up, eyes sparkling. I could see that he really dug the place. Drew me to one side.

"You get up on that roof?"

"Yes."

"No problem?"

"No."

"Time it?"

"Yes."

"Good. Tell me about it later. Split now." And he was off.

I wandered around. The place confused me. I mean all that kind of naked greed. Eyes gleaming, fighting for space at the tables like it was the only way they could get their kicks. It made me uneasy. I couldn't feel any sympathy for those people. They were just throwing it away. If they lost it good, and if we stole it so much the better.

Harry was at the crap table. I watched him for a little while but I didn't really understand the game. Anyway he seemed to be winning. And Burger was losing. He was betting against Harry. His face was red and he was throwing big bills down on the table. I saw Carole Burger come up to him and say something but he only shoved her away.

I wandered into the men's room to size it up. It was all pretty much as Grogan had described it. There were plenty of stalls and it would be no problem to camp in one while they fitted the gas masks.

I wandered out again and that was when I saw Charity. She had come out of the ladies' room and two kind of husky-looking guys had her blocked off. At first I thought they were trying to pick her up, but then I recognized them. They were off the Chris-Craft. They had her backed up against the wall. They looked mean. One was a big guy about thirty with a crew-cut and the beginning of a belly.

I saw Grogan. He looked more than ever like a very old child. He was watching Charity and the two men and he looked scared.

Charity was keeping her cool. She ran her hand through her hair and smiled across at Grogan. The crew-cut reached out to put his big paw on her arm. The arm, which looked like a little white stick disappeared inside his hand. Her arm was so thin he was able to close his hand completely. She winced and her eyes began to glisten with tears. He was dragging her away now toward the door.

I had seen enough. I moved fast to block his way.

"What's the trouble, Charity?" I said.

Her face was very pale. I think she was badly frightened. But she smiled and said, "Hello, darling."

"Let her go," I said.

The crew-cut was almost my height but he did have that belly.

"Move, kid," he said.

"Let go of her."

I took hold of the hand that was on Charity's arm and began to pry it loose. That was when he hit me. He did it very fast and, although the thought had occurred to me, I really wasn't ready for it. He let her go and swung at the same moment. It was a pretty good wallop. For a moment I saw stars. But I was still on my feet. I have been hit harder by a charging fullback. I don't know much about boxing and I didn't bother with it. I came forward low and headfirst and took him straight in the belly with my right shoulder. It is probably a good way to break your neck if you don't know what you're doing, but I had been practicing it for three years at Peckinpaugh High. What with jumping in and out of old tires and doing push-ups I had done like a hundred hours or so of charging a two-hundred-pound sandbag. A two-hundred-pound man was easier. And he wasn't expecting it. A punch maybe but not a line block. The air went out of him like an exploded balloon and he went down with me on top.

I got up fast, looking for the other one but I was too late. He hit me while I was still scrambling. He was not as big as his friend, but if anything he hit harder. I went down again. And that was when I heard Harry. He trumpeted like one of those bull elephants in the old Tarzan movies. Bellowed. Came away from that crap table so fast he must have knocked over half a dozen people. Climbed right up the guy's back like a man going up a slippery pole. Split Mr. Burger's Nehru jacket down the middle. Wiry red hair sprang out like the stuffing of an old mattress. Had one arm around the guy's throat and thumped him hard right on the top of the head with his closed fist. It didn't look like much, but the result was amazing. Guy went down like he had been hit by a thirty-pound sledge. Harry let him drop.

"You okay, Clay?"

"Sure."

"Charity?"

"Good-o," said she.

Crowds milling all around us now. People asking what happened. Anybody dead? Is it true somebody pulled a knife? Mafia gang war? A hit? A contract? I couldn't understand what in the world they were talking about. Harry was warding them off.

"Split," he said over his shoulder. "Fast. You and Charity. Get back to the boat."

We managed to get lost in the crowd and were gone before anybody noticed. Or at least I hoped it was that way. The casino was about the last place where we wanted to attract attention. Everybody there would remember us now. That didn't necessarily mean they would associate us with anything that happened later, but it certainly increased the risk. It had been a bad stroke of luck and maybe I had been at fault to go to Charity's rescue in the first place.

As we went through the door the man in uniform said to me, "What happened in there?"

"Man had a heart attack."

"He dead?"

"I don't think so. Maybe it was only indigestion."

"It sometime take you that way. My sister-in-law . . . We were gone before I found out what had happened to his sister-in-law. We hurried along down the winding road and past the parked cars toward the bridge.

Charity said, "I want to thank you for what you did in there, Clay."

"Don't mention it."

"Ruddy motherfuckers."

We were halfway over the bridge when I heard the patter of running feet. I looked back and there was Grogan hurrying after us, clutching his solar topee. He looked comical, like one of the seven dwarfs running through the moonlight. We waited for him and he caught up gasping.

"Charity!"

"What, luv?"

I could swear he blushed. I mean what with the moonlight and all I might have imagined it, but then I don't suppose anybody had called him "love" in an awfully long time. Like not since he was six months old or so.

"Are you all right?"

"Right as rain."

"Those swine."

"Nothing to it, luv."

"The big one? Was he the one who . . . ?"

"The one I went off on the boat with? Mmm."

"Miserable bastard."

"Oh well, I don't think he'll be interested in girls for a little while anyway. Not after the way our friend Clay here fixed him. What do you call that maneuver anyway?"

"Just an ordinary line block," I said.

"Something out of American football, I take it," Charity said.

"Yes."

"Jolly good thing to know. You must teach me."

"I don't think you have the build for it. Karate might be better."

"Oh that. I had a little Nip offer to teach me that, but as it turned out he had something else in mind. Never learned a bloody hold."

"I was about to get into it myself," said Grogan, "but I was across the room and couldn't get to you in time."

She patted his arm. "Don't give it a thought, luv. Didn't Uncle Harry come on though? Like the Queen's bleeding Grenadiers. I should think those two chaps would want to leave town in an awful hurry."

"They'd better," said Grogan belligerently.

We walked on across the bridge and said goodnight to Grogan at the pier. He stood watching us as we got down into the raft and rowed back to Jezebel. I felt very sorry for him. He obviously wanted to come with us but what was the point?

I lit the oil lamp in the cabin and turned on Miss Wong's portable radio. We picked up ZNS, the Nassau station, and a disc jockey program with records that were at least twenty years old. I was starving and poked around the galley to see if there was any of our basic stew left. It was our standard dish made of rice and tuna fish and ham scraps and onions and potatoes and garlic and anything else left lying around. You just kept throwing things in to make up for what you took out. Fortunately there was a gallon or two left in the big old iron pot, and I began wolfing it down. Charity fixed herself a drink of vodka and canned grapefruit juice.

When I had finished eating she said, "I really am very grateful to you, Clay."

"Forget it."

"If they had gotten me out of there and back onto that pig of a boat, God knows what might have happened."

"They were probably only trying to scare you."

"Not those two."

She put her arm around me and kissed my cheek. Then she kissed my mouth.

"Mmm, garlic. Luverly."

I didn't know what to say so I said nothing. She sagged up against me, and I could feel her small breast against my shoulder.

"Clay . . . " she breathed.

I knew what she meant by that. Well, here it was, my chance at last to get in some real boffing. But I couldn't take it. I didn't feel much of anything for Charity except pity, and although I did not know much about the art and science of boffing, I knew enough to know that pity was not one of the basic ingredients.

So we kissed and I breathed garlic down her throat. She was a nice girl but I didn't want her. What I really wanted was to go to sleep. Now if it had been Miss Wong or Miss McGee . . .

I didn't want to hurt her feelings.

I said, "Gosh, I'd better put up the anchor light."

There was a pause and then she gave a kind of tinny laugh and said, "Ouch. Another line block to the kidneys."

"I beg your pardon."

"Poor little Clay. A lion on the football field and a mouse off it."

I didn't see any point in arguing about it so I remained silent.

"Oh go light the bloody lamp," she said.