Part 12 (2/2)
”Uh-huh.” Bolan was not enjoying the thoughts that were crowding his mind. ”And, of course, you share another place with Major Stone.”
”Yes.” She looked at him and smiled. ”Cheer up. I just sleep there, and even that as seldom as possible. It's a matter of family, actually. I grew up in that house.”
”And then there's Brighton.”
”Yes, well, that's my weekender. Brighton is on the sea, you know. A very nice resort, really. I love it there, by the sea.”
They drove in silence for several minutes, during which time Bolan was attempting to organize his mind. They swung past Piccadilly and began angling into Soho. The big house with the iron gate slid past. Bolan noted that the vehicles had returned. He asked Ann, ”Who's place is that?” He wouldn't have been surprised to hear her identify it as the old family home.
She had sensed his hostility, and her own mood had suffered a marked deterioration also. Coolly, she replied, ”It once belonged to the Earl of-”
”I mean now. Who lives there now?”
She shook her head and told him, ”I haven't the foggiest.”
He almost grinned and said, ”You're sure of that?”
A smile hovered just beneath the surface of her lips. She murmured, ”Whatever is the matter with you? Honestly, you're the bloodiest, most suspicious person I have ever known.”
He sighed and told her, ”It keeps me breathing, kiddo.”
”Well, please don't start to get edgy with me. I've plans for you this beautiful morning.”
”What sort of plans?”
One hand dropped away from the steering wheel and found Bolan's in a warm grip. ”I'm going to ask you to prove something to me.”
”And what's that?” he asked, though he already suspected the answer.
”It's high time I discovered whether or not I'm a natural woman. Don't you think so?”
Bolan thought so. He murmured, ”Just so you know exactly what you're doing, Ann.”
”But I'm leaving all that to you,” she said, with what he was sure was a forced smile. She was an open gal, yeah, but she wasn't bra.s.sy. ”I intend to place myself entirely into your hands.”
Bolan was looking at her and visualizing all that entirely in his hands. Either he was the most fortunate man in London or the biggest sucker. He sighed and said, ”Wrong.”
”What?”
”It's the other way around, m'lady. I have placed myself entirely in your your hands.” hands.”
She understood his meaning. She s.h.i.+vered slightly and said, ”Trust me, Mack.”
”I guess I have to,” he said solemnly. But not entirely. Bodies like that one had launched armadas, sure. They had also brought down Samsons and Caesars. No. Bolan would never be entirely entirely in her hands. Or so he thought at the time. in her hands. Or so he thought at the time.
Chapter Sixteen.
PROOFS AND SYMBOLS.
Ann Franklin's ”plans” for Bolan's morning seemed headed for a readjustment the moment they entered the club. There was a sizeable crowd in the bar, there was considerable churning about, and voices raised in loud argument were spilling into the entrance lobby. Several girls stood idly just outside the doorway to the bar, and these reacted to Ann's appearance there with noticeable good humor.
”Thank heaven you've arrived, Miss Franklin,” said a tall beauty in tight pants. ”Perhaps you could go in there and set that ruddy Donovan straight over our rest periods.”
Apparently they had walked in on a heated labor-management dispute.
”Some cleaning personnel,” Bolan remarked to Ann Franklin, looking the girls over in an overtly masculine appraisal. He knew better. The tight seated one who had addressed Ann was the blonde tube girl Bolan had seen the night before. He was wondering if Ann ”staged” the entertainment here, too. She murmured an excuse to Bolan and pushed into the bar with the girls. The blond hung back at the door to send Bolan an over-the-shoulder examination, then she smiled and went on.
Bolan lit a cigarette and paced about the lobby, wondering what the h.e.l.l was he doing there. Ann reappeared, looking fl.u.s.tered, and pressed a key into his hand. She pecked his cheek and told him, ”You may as well go on up. I'll be along as soon as possible. I've some trouble here.”
Bolan asked, ”Go on up where?”
She pointed out a drapery-concealed stairway at the end of the lobby, kissed his chin, and hurried back into the bar.
Bolan went up, with misgivings, and found a stunningly luxurious apartment. Here was no masculine austerity such as he had found at Queen's House. Persian carpets and oriental tapestries put him more in tune with the motif of the harem room at Museum de Sade Museum de Sade, and the incidental decorations did little to refute that image.
Life-sized nudes, both s.e.xes, dominated the walls and complemented a scattering of figurines and bronze castings of couples coupled in a variety of positions. Bolan whistled softly and went on through.
It was a single large room with a bed-in-the-round platform at dead center, raised several smooth steps above the rest of the place; like a stage, Bolan couldn't help thinking; and an Arabian Nights sunken bath just below with circular marble steps going down into a bubbling-fountain pool which could cheerfully accommodate a fairsized guest list all at once. It was filled with water and some sort of rotating light arrangement set into the fountain was sending sparkling psychedelic patterns all around.
A small kitchenette was thrown in, almost as an afterthought, and completing the arrangement were a well stocked bar and a tiny secretary shoved casually off to the side.
Yeah, Bolan decided, it would be a perfect spot to refresh one's self from time to time-any time. One half of his mind saw Ann Franklin fitting beautifully into the place; the other half saw her more naturally in Queen's House, at least a full world apart from the screamingly overt s.e.xuality of this unbelievable pad. A virgin, eh?
So what could it all add up to, what could it possibly mean?
Bolan found a telephone at the center of the outrageous bed. He bounced gingerly on the soft fluff, then pulled the phone across by the cord and dialed the number Leo Turrin had given him.
It rang three times before a cautious voice responded with, ”Yeah?”
”Leo the p.u.s.s.y,” Bolan growled.
”Just a minute.”
Bolan waited more than a minute. Then he heard the click of an extension phone coming off the hook and Turrin's voice asked, ”Who's this?”
”You ast me to call you when you come in.”
”Oh. This th' iron man?”
”Right.”
”Say I can't talk to you right now, kid. We got a meeting going on.”
Bolan grinned into the mouthpiece. ”Well it's your show. But you better know, I don't have a lotta time. I'm about to get tied up on something myself.”
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