Peter Jensen - The blackmailed mother book I

The naive element of Rapier City and surrounding country would be most shocked to learn that yes, things could happen… and did! Using an elevator artfully out-of-the way in the back and carefully watched by a concealed guard, approved and selected clientele could go and gamble, or stop off on the second floor, where extensive changes had been made. Madame Kores would be disheartened not to find any of her fallen women plying their trade – now the willing escorts of sexually active men were customers to a lewd and erotic floor show which rivaled the wildest to be found in Tijuana, Juarez or Copenhagen.

Zeigler had been clever in using the general layout already there. Madam Kores had used the downstairs as her home and general bar and "parlor" for the gentlemen callers. The third floor – all changed now – and the second floors had been identically built for quick turnover. Her cribs were built along the four walls, all opening out to another "parlor" and bar (nowhere near as opulent as the one downstairs) which was in the center of the floor – like a courtyard in a Spanish villa. The girls would sit on the velveteen sofas and wait for their johns, and then use any of the free rooms. There were the usual escape passages: long, narrow halls running the circumference of the outside, the bedrooms opening out on their other side to them.

Zeigler made the escape passages into main halls, the little rooms soundproofed and luxurious, and the walls facing the old parlor tinted glass. With the lights out in the rooms, one couldn't see in, but if the occupants turned the lights on, they and their antics would be in full parade. The parlor was now a raised dais, used for dancing or mixing inbetween the shows… and then a large white-covered round bed would be lowered on gold chains for the show. If that's what the show called for…

Being Friday night, the rooms were full by ten; it was after eleven now and two shows had already gone on and at one o'clock there'd be another. Zeigler glanced at his watch and sipped his martini and hoped that this Mrs. Oliss and her girlfriend would soon show up. He'd not been too happy about reserving a room; lost money on a busy night like this; but Oliss had been insistent, and carefully explained how important it was for the good of his long-range plans.

The gangster sat in the downstairs bar, as he mostly did when he wasn't in his office – what had once been the dining room of Mrs. Kores' apartment – and inbetween the occasional smiles or waves or couple of words to friends and steady customers, he mused over the culpability of the Olisses. Zeigler was not stupid; a successful criminal in today's big-business method of vice and corruption would never be promoted. He had a college education, and had even considered going into teaching once. But the call of easy money and the lure of constant supply for his unquenchable lusts and his totally psychopathic personality suited him to the life he was leading now. He was happy, contented, and like the egomaniacal streak inherent in born criminals, was contemptuously smug.

He'd known of the Carmel development from the trade journals which crossed his desk, and was alert to any chance of getting his hands on it once he found out that Carmel lived in Rapier City and that Skopos was a local company. There had to be some way… and then two incidents happened which placed the invention almost in his lap. One was the request by the swap club to reserve the whole second floor for a private orgy. Zeigler was the kind who couldn't understand how people would pay through the nose for a shot of liquor when a whole bottle could be gotten for one hell of a lot less in the long run at a store, nor how some could fritter away hard-earned money trying to beat Lady Luck and his rigged percentages and then complain about always being broke. But he was always one to go along with sex games. Those he loved and sympathized with; the lavish and personal interest in the shows proved that. Not that he would have turned away the swap club any more than he openly displayed his disdain for the other vices – he was in the business to take, not judge.

He'd let them have the second floor on an off-night, giving them a bulk rate on the condition he could participate. He did, and that night was the first time he'd used a dog in the show – a specially trained German Shepherd from Mexico – and the first time he'd seen his then current girlfriend, fucked by another man. Christ, his cock had leaped at that sight – and he had to return the favor by fucking the seducer's wife. And that swap had been the second incident.

Mr. and Mrs. Martin Oliss had proved to be a well worth-while aquaintanceship. Oliss-Skopos' sales veep! What a stroke of luck! Nothing like selling a salesman, he'd found; Oliss had been putty in his hands, for if the man had been enough of an opportunist, and he had, to fuck his, Zeigler's girl, at the price of letting his wife be laid by the dog, he was sure to be greedy enough to see the pot of gold Zeigler dangled in front of him. All he had to do was get the plans or a mock-up of the invention, and Zeigler would handle the rest. And Oliss' promised cut would make him richer than his fondest dreams. His wife, the greedy, self-centered bitch, had urged her husband on, overcoming his initial reluctance.

Things hadn't been so damned easy after that, though. Zeigler couldn't tolerate excuses, yet that's all he'd gotten from Oliss. If he didn't know the sucker better, he'd almost suspect he was trying a double-cross… but he was too naive to believe in the old adage: "honor among thieves". Too bad Zeigler didn't – that is, Zeigler laughed silently to himself, too bad for Oliss. Oliss wasn't going to end up with anything when this was over, except a long jail sentence and a ruined reputation if he squealed. But Carmel's plans and models were in Kirsten, Nevada, and Oliss hadn't been able to come up with an excuse to go there until today. And now it was going to be nip-and-tuck to see if the invention could be wrenched from Skopos' control before the unveiling.

Zeigler was impatient and frustrated, and damned irritated at how close, and yet how far away he was. His superiors would brook less mercy on him if he failed than he was with Oliss. They already had the contacts lined up and the legitimate front organization with which to make a quick bleeding of the invention's worth. He had to succeed, and that was the only reason he could see for going along with this hair-brained, eleventh hour scheme of Oliss'.

To fuck some woman he'd never seen before! And a woman who never had laid for any man except her dippy husband! God, Zeigler could just imagine what Mrs. Carmel was like if she didn't like to fool around much. A sexless, horse-faced old prune, not withstanding Oliss' assurances that the wife was a looker. They always said the blind date was a stunning wanton, but if that was the case, why was she a wall-flower? Zeigler conjured up a skeletal-type in her late forties with damp-looking, string-like brown hair. She'd be wearing a limp dress with damp spots under her arms, and talk with a nasal twang.

And Zeigler could just imagine how smart she'd be. He'd tell her all the crappy lines and look mistily in her eyes, and all he'd see is vagueness, as if she'd just come up from a basement and didn't know quite why. He sighed and ate the olive and shoved his glass across to Louie, the bartender. Jesus and Mary, Mother of God, the things he had to do to make a buck these days.

"Why hello, Sam," came a familiar throaty purr, and he turned around, taking a deep breath as he started his act. He smiled in warm, yet surprised greetings to the sultry blonde standing next to him.

"Mrs. Oliss," he said with honeyed tones. "What on earth are you doing here?"

"It's Cylvia, remember?" she grinned back, and then added, "We came here for dinner. Oh – I'd like you to meet my very best friend, Lonnie Carmel. Lonnie – Sam Zeigler. A dear old friend of the family."