SAMPLE THE STORY BY READING CHAPTER ONE

The girl was naked on the tiny, blue-draped stage that formed a corner of the Jolly Roger Club. I sat at a darkened table not far away, watching her out of the corner of my eye. She was a brunette, with long brown hair that flew this way and that as she gyrated her hips and shimmied her shoulders.

I was not so much interested in the brunette as I was in one of the men who was dividing his glances between her charms and mine. I thought it a little unusual; the girl was absolutely stark-naked and I had all my clothes on. Of course, there was no bra under my mini-skirted dress, and my nyloned legs were visible more than halfway up my thighs because my legs were crossed, but still and all.

He was a dark type, with curly black hair and an olive tint to his skin. His lips were full and red, and his eyes were bright and black. He had good shoulders on him, but whether this was due to good tailoring or a splendid physique, I couldn’t tell.

I turned my eyes back to the girl. She had big breasts the size of melons and they looped and swung so much that I thought they must get a little sore after every performance. Her nipples were bright red (maybe with lipstick added?), and rather large. There was a mass of brown pubic hair at her groin.

You ordinarily don’t see performances like this—stark-naked, I mean—in the greater New York area. Oh, once in awhile a club will defy the laws and have nude dancers, but it isn’t as prevalent as it is in say, San Francisco. This one was in Westchester, along Central Park Avenue. You had to be a member, or flash a member’s card, to get in. I was using Mark Gordon’s card, being out on the town on my lonesome for the evening.

The girl spread her legs, starting to do a split.

I had a good view of her white thighs, of the straining muscles, and of her privacy that lay between those thighs. The dark man saw her also in her exposure, but he didn’t seem as excited as he should be. He appeared more interested in me to tell the truth.

Now I am woman enough to be flattered by such attention, especially in the face of such opposition, but a little voice in my head whispered be careful.

Which was kind of funny, in a way.

My name is Cherry Delight. I work for the New York Mafia Prosecution and Harassment Organization—commonly known as N.Y.M.P.H.O.—and am well able to take care of myself in any given situation, no matter how dangerous. I am an expert in judo and karate, and I carry a Gold Cup Colt automatic in my Gucci shoulder bag with which I am a sharpshooter.

So you see, there was no need to be fearful for my bodily safety. Still, the little voice kept whispering.

I knew the reason why, of course. The dark man was a Mafia type, Italianate, and dangerous in a smoldering way. If I’d been on a case, and felt he might be involved, I would be the one to be giving him the eye. Instead, he was eyeballing me all the way up from my Beth Levines to my red hair that was done in an up-sweep, with occasional pauses where my thighs were showing bare above my stockings and at my breasts that are somewhat overlarge, but lovely just the same.

I told the voice in my head to take a running jump.

My lips quirked into a faint smile directed at the dark man. He brightened at the sight of it and lost some of his seemingly perpetual gloom. He shifted slightly, made as if to leave his chair and join me at my table, and hesitated.

Maybe he didn’t want to interrupt the performance. Because the girl was in a full split now, her legs drawn backward so that she was resting the balls of her feet on the stage, her knees pointed outward at the audience.

She widened her thighs and did a modified hula.

It brought the house down.

The stage went dark.

I could hear the girl panting from her exertions as she darted off, and the next moment I felt someone brush by me and place himself in the empty chair at my table.

“Don’t mind, do you?” the dark man asked.

I gave him a smile. “All depends,” I told him.

“Oh? On what?”

“On who’s doing the treating. I’m ready for another drink after that performance.”

He chuckled, leaning forward. “You’n me, we’re going to get along. The drinks are on me, of course, and anything else you want. Call me Gobbo.”

I wondered. There was a Gobbo Ragusi who was up in the higher echelon of The Family. As a matter of fact, Gobbo Ragusi, Willie Ciabatta and a capo di tutti capo named Augie Impiccato just about ran this town, where the Mafia was concerned.

Could it be?

I wasn’t about to ask any stupid questions. I merely leaned forward, batted my long-lashed eyes at him, and murmured, “I’m Cherry.”

He was delighted. “Not really!”

“It’s just my name, not my condition. It’s because I have red hair.”

“All over?”

“That’s up to you to find out.”

Gobbo laughed full-throatedly. “I like you, Cherry. By God, I do. You sound like you know the score.”

“I try to keep up,” I murmured modestly.

Gobbo lifted an arm, snapping his fingers. A waiter hurried over so swiftly that I felt sure he’d had his eye on this Gobbo character for some time. Another indication that he might be Gobbo Ragusi?

If I played my cards right, I might get some info that would help N.Y.M.P.H.O. in its perpetual fight against organized crime. Every so often I go out on the town like this, frequenting dives where I hope to pick up tidbits of news about the Mafia or some of their related activities. You’d be surprised—or maybe you wouldn’t—at how much a man will spill in his cups to a sympathetic girl who’s also a good-looker.

We got our double martinis in double-quick time. Gobbo eyed my frosted glass of mixed gin and dry vermouth.

“You drink many of those?” he wondered.

I wriggled the swizzle stick. “Not many. They’re pretty potent.”

“I know.”

He looked at his own drink almost with distaste. Italian men are not big drinkers, if you discount wine. They don’t go in too heavily for Manhattans or martinis. I wondered if Gobbo were having his because I was having one. An imp inside me told me to get Gobbo drunk and see what I could learn. Me, I have a pretty good tolerance for the sauce.

I lifted my glass. “Cheers.”

He raised his own glass, but he only sipped. When he put the glass down you could hardly tell whether he’d had any or not.

I decided the idea of getting him drunk was lousy, I could scarcely grab him and pour the liquor down his throat. So I decided on another approach.

Drawing a deep breath, I leaned toward him. This had the effect of expanding my boobs, which I all but shoved under his nose. He had a short fuse. His black eyes lighted up and his tongue came out to slide about his lips. He could see my nipples, at least the shadows they made in the dress. And my breasts slid about loosely when I moved.

Gobbo hunched his chair closer and put a hand on my nyloned knee. His palm was hot, but dry. “Why don’t we get out of here?” he asked softly. “I got a pad in the City we could go to, and some great wine.”

“We-ell, maybe,” I smiled. “But not just yet. I hardly got here, it wouldn’t look nice.”

“I like a dame with class,” he nodded.

The club was pretty dark, they had about one candle to every three tables, or something like that. As a result, you could hardly see your hand in front of your face, or anybody else’s hand, for that matter, no matter where it might be. This made for great male-female relationships, especially with a few drinks under your belt.

Gobbo had moved his chair around until it was right next to mine. His hand was above my stocking too, sliding up and down my bared thigh. He kept glancing down as his hand uncovered more and more of my leg.

He must have liked what he saw, even in that dim light. He started breathing a little heavily. I managed to lean my breast against his chest every so often, just to make sure he discovered how firm it was.

We bandied some small talk back and forth. Nothing serious, just teasing words, hints and innuendos, that sort of thing. He was getting hotter and hotter. My hand would brush his lap every so often as I gestured and occasionally I let my long-nailed fingers linger as though hesitant to move away from what he had growing between his legs.

Another performer came on, this time a little blonde girl who didn’t seem to be more than fifteen. She was, of course, but she had a gamine look about her, almost a virginal appearance, that added to her appeal. I guess her appearance added to the lustful feeling every man in the club was getting at just about that moment.

She did a strip, sliding sensuously out of the little-girl frock, and moved naked around the little stage, humming a nursery rhyme she had set to music. She had little nubbins for breasts, but very shapely legs. It was the Lolita bit, in spades. She didn’t even have hair on her pubic area—it had been carefully shaved.

This was all the incentive Gobbo needed, if indeed he needed any at all. His hand moved up the inside of my thigh to my bikini panties, where his hand cupped me. I wriggled a little, the naked girl and his fingers were getting me into what the French call aiquiser ses outils sur les meules, in other words, sexually excited.

By this time, I was growing bolder myself. My hand that had merely brushed his organ, was now gripping and squeezing it convulsively. He drew back a little, after a time, to pull my hand away.

“Why?” I whispered into his ear. “I was having fun with it.”

“You were having too much fun,” he chuckled hoarsely.

We sat sedately for a time, staring up at the girl, who was examining herself as some girls do before a bath. This seemed to lead her into playing with her tiny breasts, she groaned and closed her eyes as her fingers toyed with her protuberant nipples, as her hips lurched and danced.

In time, her hands wandered down her belly past her navel, and settled at her pubic dimple. Gobbo was sweating, panting like a spavined horse. I heard other men panting, and some women, too. Maybe even I was breathing somewhat faster.

We watched her performance in utter silence, except for all that heavy breathing. When she was done, collapsing on the stage panting and sweating, there wasn’t a dry forehead in the house. She ran off with a thunderous applause ringing in her ears.

“Let’s get the hell out of here,” Gobbo muttered.

“It was pretty exciting, wasn’t it?”

“Does something like that get to you women, too?”

“It’s been known to. It stirs the imagination, maybe it makes some of us remember when we were a lot younger and—not quite so sophisticated.”

Gobbo muttered, “I got a pad just waiting for us.”

“Sounds nice,” I remarked, gathering up my Gucci bag.

He paid the tab for both of us, against my feeble protests, and escorted me from the club with a hand at my elbow. On every side, at the tables past which we brushed, men and women were in intimate embrace, while a line of men without women and standing at the long bar, eyed their fellow males in something like jealousy.

The night air was fresh and crisp in this late summer of the year. An autumnal tang was in the air, a sense of change about to come in the body itself. I love the fall of each year, with its hint of decay in the air and memories of cold cider and fresh doughnuts in the mind.

I didn’t get too much chance to enjoy the air or the thoughts of fall. We were hardly outside the clubhouse when Gobbo grabbed me, swung me around and plastered his mouth on mine. His hungry hands roved down my body, settling on my buttocks which he fondled and then squeezed with all his strength.

He was a big man in the genital department—I could feel his full strength against my thigh when he shoved his loins into mine. Well, this was fine by me. I have a low boiling point and after watching those performances, I was ready for a bed bout, even with a guy like Gobbo.

Maybe even more “with a guy like Gobbo, because he was The Family, and I felt that maybe I could squeeze an iota of news out of him that would help me do away with him and his kind.

I made myself very accessible to his hands. I writhed against him, rubbing his swollen organ with my thigh and moaning and groaning through my wide-open lips that slid about on his.

“You’re a hot one,” he praised me, panting all the time.

“I have my moments,” I admitted.

“Come on, my car.”

“Hey, now,” I protested. “I came here with wheels, too. I’m not about to leave them for somebody to vandalize.”

“Nobody’ll touch your car.”

“Damn right they won’t, I’m driving it back to the City.”

He looked put out, maybe he figured on some zig-zag in his own car on the way, while he parked in some out of the way spot. None of this for me. I was more than willing to share a bed with him, but it had been a long time since I was young enough to try the back seat of a car.

Finally he shrugged, laughing ruefully. “Okay, okay. Have it your own way. Just follow me.”

“I may lose you in traffic.”

He gave me an address on the East Side, and his apartment number. I knew the huge apartment building he mentioned; it was very posh, very affluent. I told myself that this must be Gobbo Ragusi indeed, if he could afford to live in a place like that. Oh, I could be wrong about the Ragusi part, but that same inner voice that had warned me about him was still whispering in my ear.

We set out at a sedate pace, down Central Park Avenue to the Deegan, but we made time on that highway at this time of night. If Gobbo was in a hurry to bed me, I was in something of a fever myself.

We drew up before his apartment house. I parked on the street, finding a spot only recently vacated, while he swung his car down under the building itself. I locked the car and moved toward the big glass doors of the entrance. I didn’t want to go in without him at my side, so I walked back and forth on the sidewalk until he joined me.

The doorman touched his cap and gave Gobbo a brief nod as the glass doors opened. His eyes touched me for a single instant before he looked away. It made no never-mind to him who Gobbo brought up to his pad for a drinkie, or for anything else. I had the impression this doorman was a well-tipped man at Christmas time, maybe even at odd moments during the year.

The lobby was elegant, all in marble and imitation gold, with a lot of fancy mirrors set into the marble so the girls could see how gorgeous they were on the way upstairs, no doubt. I know I gave myself a raking-over with my green eyes, just before Gobbo touched my elbow and led me to the elevator.

Inside the elevator, after the doors were closed, he grabbed me and fastened his mouth over my lips. His hands slid up my front to clutch my breasts and give them a not-so-gentle squeeze.

I am sure he would have loved to have thrown me down on the car floor and to have had me right then and there, and maybe I can’t exactly blame him, but the journey was far too short, even for a quickie.

The car bounced, dislodging his hands that were sliding under my mini-skirt and along my bare thighs above my stockings.

“Come on,” he panted, grabbing me by the wrist and dragging me along the thick carpeting. His free hand was in his trouser pocket, reaching for his keys.

“Hey, wait up,” I told him. “I’m all disheveled You can’t expect a girl to rush into lovemaking quite so fast, now can you?”

“But I want you!”

“Sure you do, I’d belt you one, if you didn’t. And I want you, too, Gobbo—but have a heart.”

He saw the sense in that, I guess, though he did a little dance outside his door showing me that he needed some sexual assuagement, but fast. Let the guy wait. He’d be all the better for a little delay.

As I started to slide my compact back into my Gucci bag, he slid a key into the lock and turned it. He threw open the door and stepped inside.

I started for the door myself.

My eyes picked up a big, dark blob that could have been a man inside the room. I’d been in the lighted hall; my eyes didn’t adjust too fast to the darkness of the apartment, I could only detect an outline.

One thing I did see, very clearly.

A blob of flame as a gun fired. I heard the shot at the same time and felt a bullet whiz past my left ear.

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