Silken Baroness Contact by Philip Atlee - Chapter 01
1964 Genre: Vintage Paperback / Secret Agent Man
THE SILKEN BARONESS CONTRACT
Joe Gall, the man who draws the line at nothing, and whom they call The Nullifier, is sent on a mission so secret that not even he is informed of its real objective. The deadly game begins in the Canary Islands, and it's played with a stacked deck-but Gall plays his cards as they come...
CARD ONE is an authentic baroness, who seduces him, apparently without rhyme or reason.
CARD TWO is another American agent, a practiced double-talker and quite possibly the joker in the deck.
CARD THREE tries to boil Gall to death in a steam bath.
CARDS FOUR AND FIVE are a pair of snipers in Barcelona.
CARD SIX is a Swedish girl with a great complexion and some rather astonishing morals.
Chapter 01
THE ISLAND was filled with noises. Elemental, midnight noises. I stood motionless on the terrace of the villa, sorting out the wild symphony. Far below my high eyrie, the waves of the Western Ocean were pounding the black sand beach, smashing themselves to foam on the moonlight littoral. And all around me the wind freshening off the sea was slatting banana fronds, fraying their edges, but I didn't care. They weren't my bananas.
Behind me in the glass-walled sala, only the dials of the big high-fidelity cabinet were visible. From its three-throated speakers, the Beethoven Fifth was thundering out defiance of nature's contrapuntal themes.
I was hoping she would come, but I had been hoping that for some time. Nearly a month. Going to the corner of the windswept terrace, I looked up at the snow-capped peak dominating the island. The Pico de Teide. Once, on Ptolemy's maps, it had marked the western-most edge of the known world; the Greeks of his time had thought these Canary Islands the Elysian Fields, where dead heroes came to dwell.
Puerto Cruz was a warren of crooked streets and dim lights below. A half-African, half-Spanish fishing village where no one fished anymore, a haven for sullen, chill-eyed natives and unwashed priests in rusty black. A cheap holiday resort for scrubbed Swedes quacking like ducks and a parade ground for bull-necked, bad-mannered Germans. Shoving their way arrogantly past wan English residents, kept permanently listless by island fever.
Sliding one of the glass panels back, I stepped inside the sala and went to pour a drink of Carlos Primera brandy. It rekindled the glow in my stomach, and I stood wondering whether to mark the night off and go to bed. But I wasn't sleepy so I dropped into a chair and listened to the Fifth surge against the angry sea.
I was sprawled there, angry at something unplaceable, when the front doorbell jangled suddenly. Racketing down the dark hallway. I got up and went to answer the summons, switching on lights.
She was standing there, tall and unsmiling, a short cape billowing behind her shoulders and a karakul shako rakish across burnished red hair.
"Baroness, an honor, this is your house...”
She nodded. "I was passing and heard the music. Beethoven, at this hour! It is permitted to enter?"
"...chante, madame." I stepped aside, bowing, and when she entered took the cape from her shoulders. She was wearing an ebony rajah coat of raw silk under it. When I gestured toward the sala, she moved ahead of me imperiously, sweeping off the shako and shaking out her hair This lithe grace was natural; her dossier recorded that she had once been an exceptional· ballet dancer, of possible prima assoluta class, but an ankle fracture had ended that. There was no trace of the injury as she moved When she was seated, with a cigarette lighted, I touched the change button on the record console. Eartha Kitt clicked on, singing "Lilac Wine," and Baroness Tamvelius clapped her hands in delight. I stood beside the cabinet watching her, tightening the cord of my dressing gown. Her green eyes flickered, from me to the overstuffed German furniture to the glass walls to the study beyond, and came back "An ... unusual place," she said, and I laughed.
"If you mean by that, a Teutonic horror, yes Will you have brandy, champagne, or Scotch?"
The green eyes flicked again, at me, off me "Brandy, please."
I poured her a triple, in a flaring emerald goblet, and her thin face twitched with amusement. "It is a big drinking night for you, then? I am told there are many big drinking nights in this house."
"Your information is correct. I am an American barbarian, and like to drink."
"Why?"
"Oh ... it burns people's defenses down. Sometimes they even tell each other the truth."
"So?" She nodded, but doubtfully. The stiff collar framed her throat; a single jet button between her breasts held the rajah coat together. "And you write, when?"
"As I make love, Baronesa. When I feel like it ,"
She laughed. "And it comes out well?"
"Well enough. I'm told 1t comforts showgirls with tired feet."
She nodded "Yes, I understand you do very well with showgirls." There was something predatory in her patrician face and full mouth. "And I may ask a question, isn't it?
Why, after meeting me weeks ago, have you not invited me to one of your big drinking evenings? When every slut on the island has been, to listen to your fabulous record collection ... Am I so ill-favored?"
When I bowed, irony was in my tone. "Baroness, pardon It was simply that I took you for a more classical type."
She really laughed at that, and the way she did it bothered me. It was no simpering social merriment; she fell back in the big chair and laughed heartily and honestly You have to watch people who do that. As I refilled her glass, she stretched and spread her shapely legs.
"The excusada, where?" she asked, and I escorted her across the hall and through my bedroom, into the huge marbled bathroom which looked like a Lucullan design modified by Bismarck.
When she returned to the sala, pale lipstick renewed and flaming coiffure in place, she was shaking her head in wonder.
"Gruss Gott," she murmured, "two bidets! I call that handsome." Her accent was Scandinavian-cum-Oxford. Nestling back into the big chair, she curled up, exposing considerable thigh. "And so, more truly, why could I not qualify for one of your musicales?"
I was across the shadowed room, hands in the pockets of the white robe. Turning away from her, I stared through the glass wall at the raging sea. "Madame," I said curtly, "I have been married twice, and am no nearer a state of grace.
These others are frivolities, and different rules apply. Women like you are something else again. You cannot get along with them, but you try, and before long you cannot get along without them. I've had my share of that, the burns that will not heal."
"Burns?" The Baroness was frowning; I could see her reflection in the glass wall. "You're a curious man," she added, and I shrugged. The cabinet clicked again and massed violins began to wail through the song from Moulin Rouge;
the stringed lament poured across the dimly-lit sala. "I worry ... and wonder ... "
"Come dance with me!" she commanded, and I turned and took four steps. She met me; we poised, and then our feet went whispering over the parquet floor. Nothing more was said; we only turned to the wailing violins, but I realized that she could have unpelled rhythm into a stone Outside, the swaying mimosa tree tapped its golden balls against the glass wall, in soft applause The next number was a blue tango. This tango does not depend on gyrations, clutchings, or simulated copulation, and yet there is more sexuality in it than any other dance The movements are all grace and pointed pause, m slow time, and in them the man defers to the object of his chase So I led her lightly, fingertips and hip. and we moved to the controlled tempo When that dance was ended, I did not step away. Instead, I thrust my hands under the rajah coat and cradled her firm breasts.
''There are two ways out of this room," I said ''One leads out the hall, and the other goes to my bed "
She shivered but did not flinch from the urgency of my hands; she was quite naked under the coat. "Nor even a friendly kiss, to begin with?" she asked in mock-seriousness.
''The kisses are in the bedroom."
"So?" She was watching my face, tracing over my lips with a cool forefinger. "I thought you didn't want any more trouble like me?"
"Baronesa," I said, "get your beautiful ass in my bed, or get it out of my house."
She crowed with delight, and the silken coat flared as she pirouetted across the hall and into the master bedroom. I lighted a cigarette and took a few drags from it, in case she had any incantations to make, or incense to light. Then I followed her. She was stretched out in the canopied bed like a latter-day Maja, watching me approach I cannot say, truthfully, that I made love to her, or the other way around. But whatever happened was quite an erotic explosion. We enjoyed each other with controlled intensity, and once when I would have set her for a real Louisiana hayride, she twisted free.
"No!" she cried, "this is my position!"
It was, too. The shredded banana fronds went on thrashing around and the implacable waves went on smashing against the tropic shore …
Some minutes, hours, or centuries later, we were clinging together, motionless, our heads cradled on the huge down bolster. Pressing closer, she murmured "Min alskade" into my ear.
"Which means?" I asked, stretching in the wonderful animal ease of surfeit.
"My darling."
"Nuts." I lighted two cigarettes, gave her one, and slapped · her flank lightly. "How can I be your darling," I continued reasonably, "when I don't even know your first name? I'm just a drunken American writer who has watched your elegant derriere swing by, escorted by a dozen haughty dons, and tried to avoid it. So how could I be your darling?"
"Merde!" She gave me a sudden hard squeeze which affected all my risibilities, and I ripped off the satin coverlet and leaped out of bed.
"Lady," I asked, "how would you like some champagne, before the real trouble begins?" She sat up in bed, and gave me a solemn, flat-out British salute.
"Onward!" she cried. I returned her salute jerkily, clapping my bare heels together. Then, leaning forward, I went walking out of the bedroom on my hands. Behind me, the Baroness was clapping with delight and shouting "Toro!"
When I was in the hall, I let my feet down and began walking on them, as every proper primate should do. In the sala, I had another big drink of brandy and listened to Eartha's phrasing on "Under The Bridges of Paris." When that was over, I put a Ray Charles drive on and could almost see the black guru himself, rocking and pumping behind his midnight shades. When he said it was all right, I walked into the study, closing the door behind me.
I had to crank at the ancient French handset several times before the Santa Cruz operator answered. My number burred on and on, until finally a sleepy male voice said, "Bueno?"
"Don Luis," I said crisply, "put the affirmative signal through. I'm in, in Puerto Cruz."
The voice at the other end of the line brightened.
"Amigo, I'm so glad for you, and Washington will be pleased. Besides, I understand it's great for the complexion."
"Old friend, spare me your stale Iberian jokes. Just report the connection established."
"Servidor. And your next move? I'm supposed to report that, too."
"My next move, companero?" I crushed out my cigarette.
"Inform them that I have followed orders faithfully; all systems are go. Now, being neither coward nor vegetarian, I am returning to bed."
Then I hung up on Luis' chortle of pure delight. All those Latins are oversexed.
Please let us know if you like this story in the comments. If there is enough interest, we will publish more of this story.