Mickey Spillane - Survival... ZERO!

I got that grin again. "I asked around about more than Woody Ballinger." Once more I got that provocative, tilt-headed glance. "I didn't think you were so sensitive." Then she sway-walked over to me and held out her hand. "Can I take your hat?"

"Don't be smart-ass," I said. "Just make me a drink."

"They were right." She stepped back and looked at me with feigned wide-eyed amazement. "They were really right."

But she made the drinks, a long cooler for me and a short one for herself, and sat down opposite me in all that colorful nudity and crossed her legs like she was at a tea party in a Pucci dress and let me have the full impact of that little eye in her navel that never blinked and just looked at me with an unrelenting stare.

"Uncomfortable?" she asked flippantly.

But age has its benefits and experience its knowledge. I tossed my hat on the couch and grinned at her. "Nope."

Her smile turned into a mock frown. "Damn, I hate you older men. You have too much control. How do you do it?"

"Science, kitten."

"Impossible."

"See for yourself."

"I do but I don't believe it. How can I turn you on again?"

"By quitting the damn hippie talk and answering some questions."

Heidi raised her glass and tasted it, her eyes on mine. "One favor deserves another."

"Where's Carl and Sammy? And Woody?"

Her glass stopped just short of her mouth. "What?"

"You heard me."

"But ..."

"I told you to pass the word along."

"Mike ... I told them what you said."

"No reaction? No nothing? You aren't the type of broad they pick up at a bar and not one they leave alone. Those damn slobs can buy tail or crook a finger and it'll come running out of their stables for them. You're a class broad and for you they'll give an excuse. They were both on the make the other night and the way they were pushing they wouldn't just bust out of a date. Where are they, Heidi?"

Her fingers were stiff around the glass and she had tucked her lower lip between her teeth, looking at me intently. "Mike ..."

"Sammy ... he ... well, he wanted to see me again and we, well, we sort of made a date, but he called and said it would have to wait."

"Why, honey? Girls don't let a guy off the hook that easily."

"Woody wanted him to ... do something. He couldn't cancel it."

"Has he called again?"

She nodded, glanced at her drink, then put it down. "Today. An hour ago, I guess."

"Where was he?"

"He didn't say. All he told me was that he'd see me tonight. His job would be done then."

"Where'd he call from?"

"I don't know."

"Damn it, think!"

"Mike ..."

"Look," I told her. "Remember back. Was he alone? Quiet?"

"No," she said abruptly. "It was noisy, wherever he was. I could hear the tooting."

"Tooting?"

"Well, it was like two toots, then while we were talking, three toots."

"What the hell is a toot?" I asked her.

"A toot! You never heard a toot? A horn toot. No, it was a whistle toot. Oh, balls, I don't know what was tooting. It just tooted. Two, then three."

"Heidi ..."

"I'm not drunk and I'm not high, damn it, Mike . .."

"Sorry." I let a little grin seep out. How the hell can you get sore at a naked dame four feet away who was so excited she even forgot and uncrossed her legs like she had a dress on. "He say when he was going to see you?"

"Just tonight." She saw the look on my face and frowned too. "If it helps ... he said he'd call me today sometime to let me know when."

"There are a lot of hours in the day, kid."

"Well, I got mad and said I'd be gone all afternoon and if he wanted to call me it had better be before noon."

I looked at my watch. Noon was an hour away. And in an hour anything could happen. "Let's wait," I said.

Heidi grinned and picked up her drink again. The eye in her navel seemed to half close in its own kind of smile and never stopped watching me. She got up with studied ease, little muscles rippling down her thighs, her breasts taut and pointed and came across the few feet that separated us. Very gently she sat down on my lap.

"Hurt?"

"No," I said.

"Ummmm." Heidi finished the drink and tossed the empty glass on the sofa, then turned around, her hand behind my neck. "I really don't want to see Sammy anyway, Mike."

"Do it for me."

"I owe you more than that."

She squirmed and the glass almost fell out of my hand. She was all sleek and sweet smells and the heat from her body emanated in all directions like some wild magnetic force. Her hand found mine and pressed it against her stomach and all the concerted thought I had had for what was happening outside started to drift away like smoke in an updraft and her mouth kept coming closer and closer, the lips rich and red and wet.

But the phone rang, that damn, screaming, monstrous necessity with the insistent voice that demanded to be answered.

I had to push her to her feet, put her hand on the receiver and wait another second until the shock of the change registered sadly in her eyes.

"Get it," I said.

She picked uh the phone, my ear close to hers at the receiver. "Hello?"

The voice was partly hoarse, a muffled voice trying to be heard over some background noise. "Heidi?" Something rumbled and I heard three short faraway sounds and knew it was what she had called toots.

"Hello ... Sammy?" she asked.

Then there was another voice that said, "You crazy!" and the connection was chopped off abruptly.

Heidi let the phone drop back into its cradle, her face puzzled. "It was him."

"Somebody didn't want him making a call," I said.

"I heard those toots again."

"I know. They're blasting warnings around construction sites. Three of them was the all-clear signal."

"Mike ..."

I reached for my hat, feeling the skin tight around my jaws. "He won't be calling back, Heidi. Not right now."

Someplace things were coming to a head and here I was fiddling around with a naked doll, letting her wipe things right out of my mind. I picked up the phone, dialed my office number and triggered my recording gimmick. One call was from a West Coast agency wanting me to handle some Eastern details for them, the other was from a local lawyer who needed a deposition from me, and the third was from William Dorn who wanted me to call him as soon as possible. I let the tape roll, but there was nothing from Velda or anybody else. I broke the connection, waited a second, then dialed Dorn's office. His secretary told me that he had been trying to reach me, but had gone to a meeting in his apartment thirty minutes ago and I should try him there. She gave me the number and his address and hung up. When I dialed his place the phone was busy, so I gave it another minute and tried again. It was still busy. I said to hell with it, hung up and slapped my hat on.

Heidi had made herself another drink, but none for me. She knew it was over now. I said, "Tough, kitten. It might have been fun."

She took my hand and walked the length of the corridor, then turned and stood on her toes, all naked and beautiful, and reached for my mouth with hers. I let my hands play over her gently, my fingers aching with remorse because there wasn't time to do all the things I wanted to do with her.

Gently she took her mouth away and smiled. "Another day, Mike?"

"Another day, Heidi. You're worth it now."

"I think it will be something special then." My fingers squeezed her shoulder easily. "Dump those bums of Woody's."

"For you, Mike, anything." She stepped back two paces, an impish grin teasing her mouth, and did something with her stomach muscles.

That nutty eye that was her navel actually winked at me.

The doorman in the towering building on Park Avenue was an old pro heavyweight decked out in a blue uniform trimmed with gold braid that was too tight across his shoulders and his face was enough to scare off anybody who thought they could cross those sacred portals without going through the elaborate screening process that was part of the high rent program.