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Read by Angelica Robotti

Chapter One

I was naked, or nearly so.

I wore a barbaric headdress about my red hair, and a pair of simulated gold breastplates that were a bit too tiny, so that my flesh oozed out of them, and a tiny link of fake gold chains about my middle, just below my belly-button. I had nothing else on, and since my legs were slightly parted, Nicki Tarentino could see just about everything I owned.

I was Messalina.

For the purposes of the picture Nicki was painting, of course. Actually, my name is Cherry Delight and I work when not posing for works of art such as the one Nicki Tee was doing for the New York Mafia Prosecution and Harassment Organization. I wasn't working now. I was on my own time.

Nicki Tee is a well known painter in and about the Fun City scene. He had been commissioned by a wealthy multimillionaire to do a series of portraits for the art gallery he was building and donating to the city (for the purposes of a tax write-off, I believe). Those portraits were to be those of what Nicki Tee called 'the harlots of History'.

There had been a Semiramis, an Eve, and a Cleopatra.

So now he was working on Messalina.

I was reclining on a chaise lounge covered over with a leopard skin. I made rather an exotic picture, I felt, with all my flesh-tones showing and my red hair spread about my shoulders. Nicki Tee thought so, he told me often enough after he'd cajoled me into posing for him.

My eyes traveled down over my body, studying the out-push of my nipples that peeped through holes in the breastplates, at the dimpled mound of my navel and the soft swell of belly, the shapely thighs and the red puff of pubic hair between them.

I listened to the faint scrape of brush on canvas, vaguely heard the slide of oils as they were transferred from palette to picture. I dreamed a little, lying there, telling myself that this was a far cry from my usual activities, which included fighting the Mafia from one end of the world to the other.

My eyes touched Nicki Tee, found him rather handsome, big of body and lean of waist, with an arrogant Roman nose that seemed, to my eyes, to give an added strength to his big jaw and deep-set eyes. The open white shirt and the slacks gave him something of an athletic appearance.

I'd met him a few nights ago at a cocktail party I had attended with Mark Condon, my close friend and immediate superior in N.Y.M.P.H.O. Mark was off for Europe the next day to check into some Mafia goings-on over there, and this cocktail party was in the nature of a so-long gesture.

Mark had introduced me to Nicki, who had been quite struck by my good looks, or so he said. He'd been looking for a Messalina, I was just the one he wanted.

"Messalina? She was the naughty Roman empress, wasn't she?" I asked. "The one who used to leave her husband's bed and wander down to the brothels to engage in a spot of give and take?"

"The very one," Nicki beamed, showing fine white teeth in a big grin. "And you're perfect for the part."

Mark laughed. Nicki raised his eyebrows.

"Don't tell me you'd object!" he begged. "Or are you such a good girl that posing for me would trouble your conscience?"

"We—ell, I wouldn't say that," I admitted. "I'm no better than I have to be. It's just that I have a job, you know."

"We could do it at off hours, whenever you say."

I glanced at Mark. Mark Condon and I have a thing going between us, off and on, or something like that. He shrugged when he met my eyes.

"Maybe it would make you famous," he chuckled.

"I will make you as lovely as you are," Nicki Tee vowed.

What girl could refuse an offer like that? Not me. "All right, it's a deal," I told him. "Naturally, I'll pay you regular model's wages."

So here I was, stretched out practically nude and having the time of my life. Fortunately, things were a bit slow at N.Y.M.P.H.O. headquarters, and when I'm not on a case my time is just about my own. The toughest part of all this was having to maintain the pose Nicki had put me in. It was easy enough, I guess, but I was getting a cramp in my leg.

Maybe Nicki saw this, because he said, "We'll take a break, now. You aren't used to this sort of thing. Get up and walk around."

I did. I didn't bother reaching for a robe. I figured he'd seen all of me there was to see, and so what if my breasts jiggled and my behind bounced to my strides. Nicki eyed me for a moment, his eyes sliding over my curves hungrily, then he turned to his paints and began working on them.

My bare feet carried me across the room and to the slanting window that let sunlight through into the studio. It was rather high up, Nicki'd been lucky to find this place, the window gave a magnificent view of the city.

I stared out at skyscrapers and business buildings, my eyes went down to the crowded streets and the cars crawling slowly along them. I am a city girl at heart, I guess, because to me these moving throngs were as the breath of life. Not that I don't like the country, I do, but it palls on me after a time. I have to be where the action is.

I felt a breath of air. I turned around.

The door had opened. Three men came crowding into the studio and something inside me tensed and quivered. They were Mafia types, all three of them, big and burly and with heavy muscles larded over with fat. Buttons. Soldiers. Call them what you will, they were here to do what the Family had told them to do.

Nicki was staring at them, bent over his paints. "Is there anything you want?" he asked harshly. "Yeah, Tarentino. We want what you got."

There was mockery and amusement in the voice. I took a few steps forward. Nicki had straightened up, was frowning in puzzled fashion.

"What I have?"

One of the three waved a hairy hand at three oil paintings standing against the far wall. They were of Eve, Semiramis and Cleopatra. Nicki had told me that they were worth in the vicinity of half a million bucks, all three.

Nicki Tee tried to put a good face on. "I'm sorry, they aren't for sale. They've been done on commission. They're sold, in other words."

"Makes no difference. We'll take 'em as they are."

The other two mobsters brought brass knuckles out of their pockets and slid them on their fists. Nicki watched them, paling.

Their leader said, "You're gonna be a good boy, aren't you? We don't have to get rough, do we?"

Nicki opened his mouth, closed it.

I moved forward. All three of The Family boys looked at my near nudity. Their eyes slid up my legs and over my pubic region, then slid along to my breasts. They all got that male gleam in their eyes, for which I couldn't really blame them.

I went closer and closer. They weren't suspicious of me, I guess they thought I was in a blue funk, or something like it. I was a girl, I represented no threat to them.

"Not bad," one of the three grinned. "This bein' an artist is a great way to make a living, ain't it, Tony?"

Tony grunted. He was the leader, and he was eyeing my brown nipples where they poked out of the breastplate holes.

He said thickly, "We might even have ourselves a party, once we get the business end of this over, Sabby."

"How about you, Bull?"

"I'm all for it. I go for redheads."

I gave them a great big smile as I sidled still closer. "Why don't you leave Nicki here alone and just concentrate on me? I'd be a lot more fun, I can promise you that."

Nicki growled, "You don't know what you're saying, Cherry."

"Cherry, hey? I hope you are, kiddo, because"

That was when I gave Tony a backhanded blow across the eyes. Well, more of the edge of my hand caught the bridge of his nose, but I think part of a finger went into his eye as well.

He howled in pain.

The other two buttons gawked at me, which gave me ample opportunity to lift my bare leg and kick one of them smack in the jaw with the heel of my foot. Leg muscles are a whole lot stronger than arm muscles. I'll bet he felt that George Foreman had walloped him one. He reeled back and slammed into the wall with a dazed expression on his face.

Me, I didn't pause to admire him.

I launched myself at the one called Sabby and lowering my head, butted him in the nose and mouth with the top of my skull. Hard. He howled through a mouthful of blood and busted teeth, falling back just enough so that I had room between us to swing my arm and bring the edge of my hand against his throat. I have broken boards with that blow. I crushed his Adam's apple, I felt for sure.

He gagged, his breath not finding any room to get down into his lungs and his face turning purple. Both his hands came up to his throat and his mouth opened very wide. I could see by his eyes that he was in agony.

I kicked him in the genitals. He doubled up and fell to the floor.

Meantime, Tony was forgetting about his nose and eye, rearing in fury and coming for me with both arms up and hands out like claws. I swung to meet him, bellying up against him and grabbing his right arm even as my hip banged into his belly.

I performed the O Geshi—which isn't a swear word but a judo term—and lifted him high and over my bent back. I slammed him down hard on the floor, right on the top of his head.

The thud shook the building, or seemed to.

I sprang past his somersaulting body toward Bull. Bull was still not too conscious of what was going on, that kick to his jaw had really shaken him. My hands reached for his face and I dug my long fingernails into his eyeballs.

The guy screamed.

His hands went up to his bloody face and I reached inside his open jacket to close my hand around the butt of the thirty-eight he carried in a shoulder holster.

The gun came out easily enough.

I jammed the muzzle to his chest, right about where his heart was pounding. I tightened my finger on the trigger.

The noise was deafening.

"Jeez, Cherry," Nicki yelled. "What are you doing?"

I turned my head and smiled at him as the dead Bull slid down to the floor. Smoke curled up from the revolver.

"Just making sure, Nicki. Relax."

"Relax?" he howled. "How in hell can I relax with you murdering people in front of me?"

"It was them or us, Nicki. They're Mafia."

"Yes, I guessed as much. But,"

"No buts. I've fought their sort all over the world. I know what makes them tick. They only understand one thing. This."

I lifted the gun and shook it. Then I looked down at Tony where he lay outstretched on the floor. Nicki would have stopped me, I think, he took a step toward me and made a funny sound in his throat, but I waved him away.

"It's got to be done," I said gently. I shot Tony between the eyes. Nicki gagged and turned away.

Only Sabby was left. He was damn near dead, already. He couldn't breathe, his throat was clogged with blood and crushed Adam's apple, but I had to make sure. I put the muzzle of the .38 to his throat and put him out of his misery.

I dropped the gun on his belly.

"I'd better get dressed and get you out of here," I told a shaking Nicki. "I don't think you want to paint any more today."

"Paint? How can I paint with—with those de—dead bo—bodies lying on the floor?"

I beamed at him. "Exactly what I was thinking. So I'm going to take you and your paintings, all your equipment, to my pad."

He stared at me as though my brains had run together. "Your pad? Do you think I can paint there? I need light, atmosphere, all my equipment! I'm not a house painter. I'm an artist!"

With all the artistic temperament, I thought. But I remained my cheerful, friendly self.

"Nicki," I explained patiently. "You can't stay here. The police will be here in a little while. I'm going to have to make explanations."

"They'll throw you in jail," he exclaimed in horror.

"No they won't. I have a license to kill. I've done it before, I'll do it again. I work hand in glove with the cops against the Mafia."

He stared at me, putting a hand to his brow and rubbing his forehead. "You did say something about a job with an organization that fights the Mafia..."

"You'll be a marked man after this, Nicki. Don't you see?"

His eyes were big. "Marked man?"

"The Family lost three buttons in your studio. They won't take kindly to that, now will they? They're very liable to send more men after you, if not to beat up on you, then certainly to steal your pictures."

He sat down on a hassock, limply. His face was very pale, he looked sick to his stomach. "Why did this have to happen to me? Why, Cherry?"

"You're a very famous artist. Your paintings are worth a fortune."

"What in the world does the Mafia want with my paintings? They aren't devotees of art."

I grinned. "They're devotees of money." My hand waved at Eve, Semiramis and Cleopatra. "Those things are worth half a million bucks, you said. That ain't hay, even to the Mafia. Hmmmmm!"

An idea was percolating itself into my head.

There had been a rash of art robberies lately.

Nobody at N.Y.M.P.H.O. had connected the Mafia with them, but just suppose? I bit my lip, nibbling at it, and scowled so blackly that Nicki Tarentino became alarmed

"What is it? What's wrong now?"

"I'm not sure. Just thinking, just thinking. I want to see Avery King about this. He's the Coordinator of N.Y.M.P.H.O. He'll have to be told about the dead bodies, anyhow."

Nicki said, "You do this sort of thing often?"

"All the time, when I'm on assignment. I'm not right now, but I have that inner feeling that I will be, very soon. Just as soon as I clue Avery King in on what happened here."

Nicki looked helpless. I guess I didn't blame him, he was an artist, not a Mafia-fighter. I clapped my hands.

"All right, let's get cracking. Pack what you need, Nicki. I'll carry those paintings down to your car."

He stared at me bewilderedly. "But—but I can't do that. I work here. "

"You'll die here if you don't do what I say. You think The Family's playing games? They don't send their soldiers out on games, they send them to get a job done. If you don't come with me, they'll send three more soldiers to bust you up."

Nicki swallowed. "What'll I do?"

He was so helpless in practical matters that I smiled. "Pack what you'll need, I'll grab those pictures. Come on, now. No excuses. I've taken a liking to you, I don't want anything bad to overtake you."

I marched the bod across the floor and lifted two paintings. They hadn't been framed yet, they were light enough to carry. I took them downstairs and over to where Nicki had his station-wagon parked. I slid them inside, then trotted back upstairs for the other one. By this time he was throwing clothes into an over-nighter, looking around him as though he were lost in the Twilight Zone.

I pushed him aside. "Here, let me take over."

In time, I got him out of his studio and moving down the stairs of this old walk-up. He was still a bit dazed, but he went where my hand at his shoulder pushed him.

We put Cleopatra in with Eve and Semiramis, then I got behind the wheel. When Nicki glanced at me inquiringly, I told him, "You aren't in any condition to drive. Let me handle the wheel."

He didn't argue, just handed over the keys.

Traffic was reasonably light at this hour of the day, so I made good time uptown to my apartment. I helped Nicki carry the paintings upstairs, and saw them safely stored. Then I suggested we take my car and go see Avery King.

"Just in case the Mafia boys know your car," I added. "They won't know mine, they won't be suspicious if they see my car parked in front of the N.Y.M.P.H.O. offices."

It was late afternoon by now, and we found the going heavy. Still, we managed to catch the bossman before he left the office.

He glanced up in surprise as we entered. Avery King is very British, though he's an American, handsome and tall, on the lean side. He wears his Brooks Brothers clothes the way a manikin does. They drape on him. His hair is black, tinged with gray, and he has an alert, intelligent look, which just about tells the truth about him.

"Nicki Tarentino," he said with a big smile, extending his hand when I introduced them. "Whatever brings you and Cherry to see me?"

I told him about the buttons.

He nodded, saying quietly, "I'll arrange matters with the police, naturally. I'll take all that off your shoulders, Cherry. You're here, of course, to make certain nothing happens to Nicki."

"And to ask about the art robberies."

He raised his eyebrows. "You see a connection?"

Avery King knew as well as I did that there had been a rash of art thefts all over the city, very recently. He keeps his fingers on the pulse of such matters. Maybe he was just testing me, he does that upon occasion.

"There have been too many, sir," I explained, leaning forward on my chair. "They aren't just individual thefts, as there has been in the past. I get the feeling these are organized robberies."

I did not mention the Dulwich art robbery, nor the Riviera bit, where eight million bucks worth of great art had been stolen. The Charpentier Galleries in Paris had been victimized, and the Colombe d'Or.

These had been the work of individuals, clever and eager to steal and sell to unscrupulous buyers. We were confronted now, or so I believed, with a mob effort to denude galleries of their most precious and valuable-works of art.

I explained something of all this to Avery King, with Nicki Tee sitting rigid as a statue, listening. From time to time Nicki gasped or muttered something under his breath, that indicated his surprise at my knowledge of the subject.

I flashed him a smile. "I keep up on this sort of thing, it's part of my job."

Then I swung back to Avery King. "I could be wrong, but I certainly feel it's worthwhile looking into."

"I couldn't agree with you more," he beamed.

Sometimes my bossman astounds me. He rarely gives compliments, he expects, like Lord Nelson at Trafalgar, 'every man to do his duty'. This expectation applied as well to the Femmes Fatales branch of the N.Y.M.P.H.O. service, of which I was a member.

So when he said he couldn't agree with me more, it was his way of patting me on the back. I knew what was coming next. He didn't disappoint me, either.

"Cherry, you keep up on this so well, I think you ought to take over. Make sure nothing happens to Nicki Tarentino, and break up this Family caper about art robberies."

Just like that, as though he'd asked me to go down to the corner and get him a cheese Danish and a cup of coffee. Then he turned to Nicki.

"Do what she tells you," he said soberly. "Cherry's one of our best agents."

Nicki chuckled. "I saw her in action. I am afraid if I did not do as she tells me, she would kick me in the jaw."

Avery King permitted himself a smile. "She knows what she's doing."

I damn near swooned.

From the glint in his eye, I gathered that our little talk with Avery King was at an end. I stood up. Nicki Tee glanced from my bossman to me, and then he also rose to his feet.

"We will dine together, love," Nicki whispered as we left the office. "I find a need in me for food. It has been rather a hectic day."

Frankly, the idea appealed to me, I hadn't eaten since breakfast. I tucked my arm in his and asked, "Where to, then?"

"A little Italian restaurant I know. Not far away, I shall give directions. Their osso buco is out of this world, as is their chicken cacciatore."

"Sounds scrumptious."

It was even better than he had described. I began with antipasto, a platter filled with Genoa salami, ripe olives, Mortadella, artichoke hearts, Provolone cheese, sardines, pepperoncini, radishes and pepper rings. I could have made a meal of this, I almost did.

But there was osso buco coming, and after that potato gnocchi and a mixed green salad, so I put the curb rein on. The osso buco was served with Gremolata garnish, which added a piquant flavor.

There were oranges in wine for dessert.

I was stuffed when we finally staggered out into the night. It was cool, very pleasant, and we stood a moment or two on the sidewalk, breathing deeply of the air. For a change, it was unpolluted.

Nicki said suddenly, "There are things I would like to get from my studio, Cherry. We left so suddenly today that I didn't bring along everything I'll need."

"Well, that's no problem."

Nor was it. We were downtown in fifteen minutes, had parked, and were moving up the flights of stairs to the top floor studio.

It was as Nicki was inserting his key in the lock that we heard the shrilling of the telephone.

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