Harry and the Bikini Bandits by Basil Heatter - Chapter 09

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 9

All she said was, "Ciao."

She swam off with her dead fish. It took me a while to climb back aboard. Dreamy.

"Fix that exhaust," said Harry.

There was about eight feet of busted pipe running under the cockpit floor. But how to get at it? By removing most of the first layer of skin from my shoulders, I wriggled into a space about six inches square and whacked away at it with a ball peen hammer. The hammer broke. Harry produced a rusty hacksaw blade. No saw, just the blade. It was like trying to cut down an oak with a letter opener. I lost two fingernails and some blood but made progress. All the time remembering Miss McGee.

You can't win for losing, Coach Rasmussen used to say. And tonight was Christmas Eve in Peckinpaugh.

Sweat ran into my eyes and I had not even room to raise my hand. What if after all this we cannot find any pipe to replace what I have already hacked out? But there were buildings on the island and where there were buildings there must be plumbing. Anyway there was no hurry. Hopefully it would take a long time to replace the pipe and I would spend a lot of that time with the adorable and uninhibited Miss McGee.

Probably Harry was in a hurry. But he was not. That was, you know, like Harry's Law. Don't sweat it, man. The Lord will provide.

Or somebody will. In this case, Burger off the Charisma. The yacht was too big to follow us through the reef and she had anchored outside while we had entered. But Burger was hot on our trail and arrived at thirty miles an hour in a Boston Whaler. With him Mrs. Burger and the yacht's skipper. Waving like crazy as if we were long-lost children.

I began to see what it was all about. The Burgers had all that money could buy. But fun. Harry had no money but lots of fun. For fun read sex. Sex is fun. Harry just naturally attracts sex. Flies to honey. Look at the way Miss McGee came swimming out to us. Harry was where it happened. He was like some kind of guru and the Burgers wanted instruction. But you couldn't buy Harry. He was too cool for that. So now we were all milling around waiting for something to happen. Mrs. Burger wanted Harry. Hamilton Burger wanted Miss Wong. I wanted Miss McGee. The monkey wanted the cat. But who did Harry want?

So Harry sat back under the shade of the awning. I sweated over the pipe. The Burgers bustled around looking for some way to help. When I explained about the new pressure hose we would need Burger promptly ordered his skipper back to the yacht to fetch some. The Whaler buzzed off.

Harry remained as indifferent as the Aga Khan, and Miss Wong lay silent on the fore-deck in her orange nylon. Hamilton Burger stared at her in amazement.

I'd had it. I mean I was stinking with sweat and sick of it. I wriggled up out of my hole and jumped over the side. Was that barracuda's brother down there? To hell with him.

The water was cool and unbelievably clear. White sand and coral and waving fronds. Striped fish with pink eyes.

Crayfish scuttling backwards into their holes. The water was what it was all about.

I swam across the channel and beached myself near the plane. There was a man who might have been the airport manager stretched out on a bench beneath the straw roof.

"Excuse me," I said, "I'm looking for a girl."

"Ain't we all, man?"

"Well this one is special. Miss McGee."

"What's she look like?"

When I described her he shook his head. "She does a lot of skin diving," I said.

"She can't be no Bahamian. Bahamian gals won't step in the water. Could she be from the States?"

"Maybe."

"You know her real well, don't you? Could that be the senator's girl friend?"

"Senator who?"

"We only got one senator around here. Sounds like her."

"Well if it is, where would I find her?"

"The senator might not like you messing around with his chick. On the other hand it's no skin off my ass. That house over there."

A modern house for this part of the world. Built of concrete block and painted an awful lime green. With a lime green bicycle beside the door and over the handlebars her black rubber flippers. What was the senator like? Would he punch me in the nose if I came calling on his Miss McGee?

I snuck around to the back, hoping she might be outside somewhere. But she wasn't. Instead a man was cutting up a turtle, a great green sea turtle as big as a Volkswagen. Lying on its back with tears running down its cheeks. Always thought man was the only creature that wept. But pigs scream. The head fell off into the sand and the flippers continued to paw the air. Murder.

Just then she came out of the house and said, "What are you hanging around here for? What's on your mind, Garble?"

"Why I just happened to be passing."

"Pass, friend."

"I was wondering if you might like to go swimming."

"Don't get any freaky ideas, boy."

"I just meant . . . "

She smirked. "I know what you meant."

I looked at the turtle's head lying in the sand and rubbed my neck. Could almost feel the knife. Off came a flipper.

"Listen, are you planning to eat that turtle?"

She nodded. "Very good for the libido. Turtle soup twice a day. Dynamite."

"Oh?"

"Goodbye," she said. "Goodbye."

She called after me, "I might bring you a bowl of turtle soup one of these days."

The road was six feet wide and unpaved and bore a sign reading, QUEEN'S HIGHWAY. A Jeep came along. Back of the Jeep loaded with whiskey bottles and beer cans. Never saw such a place for booze. Principal industry. Must sell it to each other. Everybody smashed.

Walked out of town to a little rise overlooking the sea. A white church, and palms bent by the wind. Fleecy clouds and the great purple living mirror of the sea. Like a Winslow Homer painting. Cool breeze on my body and dried salt on my skin. Sun biting the back of my neck. Triangular wedge of sail on the horizon. Stopped feeling sorry for myself. Good to be alive. Turtle soup my ass.

I let out a whoop, and ran down the path into the water and stayed under until the bubbles overhead were exploding like galaxies.