SAMPLE THE STORY BY READING CHAPTER ONE

David Anderjanian held out the check. Idly, I glanced at it. It was made out in my name, and the sum indented into its sum line was... 

I sat up straighter. I squealed, "For me?" The check was for one million dollars. My case officer grinned. When David Anderjanian grins at me, I know it means trouble. But everybody should have such troubles, because he was assuring me it was all mine. 

“You have to spend it, though. No hoarding it. L.U.S.T. will demand a strict accounting." 

I gurgled my pleasure. L.U.S.T. is the League for Underground Spies and Terrorists. It is a by-blow of the C.I.A. and the N.S.A. It does things those reputable organizations are not permitted to do: fight flame with fire, kill when it becomes necessary to the national safety, steal when it is ditto. 

I am Eve Drum, girl spy for L.U.S.T. 

I have killed, stolen, lied my way in and out of dozens of tight spots, ditto beds for good old Uncle Sam. Between jobs, I live high; as a witness my posh apartment in the Sixties here in Little Old New York and the original 

Anne Fogarty dress that draped my contours, as I sat on my divan and stared at the million dollar check. I was so excited, I forgot to ask the proper question. 

"Don't you want to know why?” David wondered. 

"Quite honestly ... no. A million dollars. All mine! Am I dreaming, David?" 

"Not yet. The nightmare doesn't begin for about forty eight' hours. Until then, you have time to live a little." 

When this big blond Viking of a lover-boy talks like that, I shiver. David Anderjanian has sent me off on some wild jobs, so that I've grown to accept the fact that he doesn't balk at danger. Danger for me, that is. So when he gets this serious, I begin to worry more than usual. 

I sighed. "Okay. What do I do?” 

"You own an Italian villa, darling. You're going to throw parties, hold love-ins, buy yourself expensive cars, much jewelry, hire the finest chef in the whole world." 

That did it. I threw up my hands. "Get yourself an other girl. Not me. When that's the pitch, I run scared." 

David laughed. He is six feet, four inches tall and weighs about two-twenty, all bone and muscle. His laugh can be a frightening thing, especially when it is directed at my fate. As his laugh went on, I shrank more and more inside myself. When David became hysterical, I knew I was going to face quite a problem. 

"All right, you want the bad part? I'll give it to you," he said, wiping away his tears of laughter. "You've got to find the bastard who murdered our girl in Rome, Penny Madden. Her job was to find three former Nazis— each of whom has come out of hiding recently in a disguise nobody can penetrate." 

"Talk about your mission impossibles!" 

"Well, not exactly impossible, but damn hard. Even I will admit that. But Eve honey," he murmured, leaning forward to pat my knee and smile tenderly at me-I tensed when he did that, David Anderjanian is no A. K. artist—"General Moffitt says nobody but you has a chance. That's the highest compliment our boss has ever paid anybody." 

"You're breaking me up, David," I snarled. 

"Never mind the comments, just listen," he soothed, in his official voice. “Somebody got to Penny Madden two nights ago. Put a bullet right between her breasts. She never knew what hit her, poor kid." 

"And I'm her substitute?" 

“Right the first time. Penny has been trying to learn the identities of the three ex-Nazis. Without success, as far as I know. In her very few reports she did hint that if anything should happen to her, her name was a clue to the game. What that means, I haven't the faintest." 

"I'm with you there, chief." 

"Who these three men are, nobody knows. I don't believe Penny knew, either." 

"What makes them so important?" 

"You've been reading about the political troubles they've been having in West Germany. The Socialist Ger man Student League for one, not necessarily the most dangerous, but certainly the most violent, is an out and out threat to return to the days of the brown shirts, when Hitler and his crew took over the country with violence. 

"When publisher Axel Springer protested these young communist activities, the students turned on him, burned his trucks, set fire to his printing houses. It was a return to the days of those-who-disagree-with-us-must-go. Freedom of speech for the commies only, not for their opponents. 

"And when the shooting of Rudi Dutschke led to the student riots and the deaths of two men, it was money from the liberal hands of these three ex-Nazis that helped pay the bills arising from those riots. Smear tactics, burn and batter techniques, these are the old methods that are coming out of oblivion today. 

“That's why these three men are dangerous," David said quietly. "They are ghosts come back to life, ghosts that must be laid to rest before they go too far." 

In politics, the fast growth of the Neo-Nazis, the National Democratic Party, is credited with being, if not the brain child, then certainly the favorite nephew of these same three men. Their money has paid for votes, according to L.U.S.T. thinking, and will go on buying men and votes until the Neo-Nazi party is strong enough to do more than possess a name and thirty-thousand members. 

And so, the trio of expatriates must be caught before the damage they plan becomes a reality. If someone had stepped in when Hitler had been beginning, maybe there would never have been a World War II, I was reflecting. 

Another thought touched me. "Hey, what's with this chef I'm to hire? I'm not all that fussy an eater." 

David spread his hands. "The chef, Giuseppe Vico, has a photographic memory and possesses the ability for total recall for anything he has ever seen or heard." 

"So?" 

"Giuseppe Vico has cooked state dinners for such men as Adolph Hitler and Benito Mussolini. He has seen every important Nazi party member who ever lived: Goebbels, Goehring, Hess, Eichmann. He will have seen the three we're after: Heinrich Muller, Wolfgang Oehler, Hans Köening." 

David went on talking, explaining that these men would have changed their faces, altered their appearances, but that Giuseppe Vico might know them by some mannerisms which they would still retain from their old Nazi days. A man often makes little gestures out of long habit. Our hope was that the trio of expatriates would continue to make these gestures and that Vico, with his powers of total recall, would be able to identify them positively. 

"It isn't much to go on. All we can do is trust in that photographic memory," he concluded. 

"All right, I'll look him up and hire him," I nodded. “When do I leave?" 

"Tomorrow evening, on Alitalia, on a direct flight from Kennedy Airport to Rome. You do speak Italian, don't you?" 

We L.U.S.T. agents are well trained. "Like a Calabrese," I boasted. “My spaghetti sauce is the real thing too." 

"You and the chef can trade recipes on rainy afternoons, then," David nodded. He put his hands palms down on his thighs, which is a signal he is going to stand up and that my briefing is at an end. This time was no exception. 

"You'll probably want to get some sleep, Eve," he added. "I'll be a good sport and cancel our date to go see that new show at ..." 

"The hell you will," I snapped. My hand went out to my pigskin gloves and my Saffian leather handbag. "I can sleep all I want over the Atlantic." A horrible idea came to me. "You were able to get tickets, weren't you?” 

"Oh, sure. No problem. Two on the aisle, row C.” 

My fingers wriggled at him. "Lead on, MacDuff. To night I am on vacation. Tomorrow or the next day, I will go see Naples and die, as the saying has it." 

"I hope not,” David said soberly. "You and me both," I nodded. 

The hit show was great. I laughed and cried a little; I 

clung to David during a couple of the more stirring moments. Afterward, we went to the Round-table and watched the belly dancers. David enjoyed the tummy tossers more than I did, but then he had nothing on his mind; he had done his job of cluing me in on mine. My job hadn't started yet. 

We parted company at my apartment door, "I'd ask you in, honey," I told him, but I really do need my slumber. It's well past three o'clock in the morning." 

"Spoil-sport," he laughed. 

David and I have a thing going for each other. It would have been nice to have him put me to sleep with some copulative calisthenics, but my heart just wasn't in it. I would have to be satisfied with a sleeping pill. 

Gaaahhhh! No sleeping pill in the world has sex. 

My nickname with the L.U.S.T. agents is Double Oh Sex. For a while the appellation used to annoy me. Now I accept it in the spirit in which it is meant: I am a girl who enjoys life and who takes the fun when it comes along, because the misery is always somewhere waiting in the wings. 

Next day, I was whisked in a limousine out to Kennedy Airport. A L.U.S.T. man, posing as a travel agent, was on hand to ease the way for me. All I had to do was walk to gate seven and hand over my papers, then beat feet toward a big Alitalia jet liner, waiting for my bod. 

Belts on, cigarettes out, all the normal routine. We ate lunch eastward at six hundred miles an hour over the Atlantic. Shades of Chris Columbus! I chatted with one of the stewardesses, a pretty brunette from Naples. Baiae is close to Naples. I told her I was inheriting the Madden villa at Baiae. 

"You must be very rich," the stewardess murmured wistfully. 

"Not me; my cousin Penny. She's the one in the family with the moolah. The bread, honey. Money." 

Her laughter was a song. Her brown eyes sparkled. "You Americans, you are a funny people. You have so many words for things. It is very difficult to know what you are saying." 

"I'll bet you don't have troubles like that," I chuckled, taking in the stockinged legs, very shapely, the trimly rounded hips in the tight uniform, the twin bulges of her breasts. Luisa Geraci was a dish. "Say, if you get time off from flying back and forth, why don't you come spend a few days with me in my villa? I'll be throwing some parties. Pretty girls always go over big at parties." 

She was grateful, patting my hand and saying, "Grazia, Miss Drum. I may accept your invitation. I've never been to Baiae." 

I got great service the rest of the trip. 

In Rome, Luisa appointed herself my companion. She got me through Customs; she hired us a taxi; she made a telephone call to the hotel to confirm my reservation. 

As we stood on the sidewalk outside the Hilton Cavalieri, she promised she would come to see me in Baiae. She had to hurry now; she must visit her brother and let him know she had made the trip safely. Her brother was a great worrier where her safety was concerned. He did not trust airplanes. 

I signed in at the Hilton Cavalieri. The view from the Cavalieri is magnificent: all Rome stretches out before your eyes. There is a fancy pool and a beautiful garden attached. 

I stripped, as soon as my room door closed behind me, and took a hot shower. The time differential between the states and Europe always throws me a little, so I lay down and napped for about three hours. 

It was mid-afternoon by this time. I hired another taxi and gave the driver an address just off the Pizza Agnelli. The neighborhood was middle class, I saw as the taxi braked at the curb. A couple of nattily dressed men preened themselves when they got a load of my American mini-skirt and the Drum legs. 

The men pinch girls' behinds in Rome. It is something that goes with the atmosphere, like the smell of tomato sauce. I am sure these modern-day Casanovas were all for testing out their thumbs and forefingers on the Drum butt, but I had work to do. 

The building where Giuseppe Vico lived was a modest apartment house. The smells that hit my nostrils were the smells of all apartment houses I have ever been in, except that these seemed a bit spicier. I trotted up the staircase and knocked where it said 2A. 

A woman in a bathrobe threw open the door, fire in her eyes. Her hair was long, a very glossy black. Under the bathrobe I caught a glimpse of black stain and bare skin before she drew its flap closed. 

"Cose voi? What do you want?"

"To speak with Giuseppe Vico, if I may." 

She sniffed, running her eyes up and down my figure. "He won't do you any good. He's had it. But if you still desire to ... Giuseppe! Giuseppe! A fancy girl to see you." 

"What's she want?" a male voice bellowed. "Come and find out, porcello!” 

"Donna sucidia! I marvel I ever took up with you.” A man appeared in the doorway, toweling his hands. He must have been all of seventy, with white hair neatly cut, a face like parchment but with an inner nobility. His fine eyes rested on me, and his eyebrows arched. 

He made me a little bow. "You must pardon the appearance of my rooms, signorina. I have been too busy to clean them, and the landlady has other things on her mind." 

The woman swung her hips, fists planted on their meatiness, as she sneered at the old man. He was naked to his belt, which held up a pair of rumpled pants. Rope sandals encased his sockless feet. I got the feeling I'd interrupted something. 

"Other things, hah?” the woman snapped. "Who was it bought the vino, hey? Who put his hand under my skirt, hey?” She jerked a thumb at the old man, and her full mouth twisted. "He thinks he is forty again, the old fool, I let him play around-pah, why not? He hasn't many days left to him; his heart is bad. But then he got me wanting a little action, and he couldn't produce, so..." 

The old man laughed. "Pay her chatter no mind, signorina. She is gifted with a great imagination. She will calm down in a day or two, and then she will be back." 

"Never!" the woman said, slapping her palms together angrily. "You have seen the last of me!" 

She swept past me toward the door. Before leaving the room, she turned and dramatically threw open her bath robe. I got a good look at her rather heavy breasts under a sheer black brassiere; a stretch of naked midriff and snug black satin panties bulged outward by her hips. She wore black stockings fastened to a black and red garter belt. 

"Take a good look, signor Vico! It is for the last time. Remember it, because the memory will have to last." 

Then she was gone, slamming the door. Giuseppe Vico sighed and tossed the towel over a chair. "She will return. She storms out of here every once in a while, but she always comes back." 

"Why not teach her a lesson?” I asked. 

His alert eyes touched my face. "A lesson?”

"When she comes back—you are gone."

"But where is there to go?” 

"Baiae, to my villa. I want to hire you as my chef, signor. All the world knows Giuseppe Vico. Your soufflé au fromage and your boeuf a la mode en gelée are famous, even in America." 

"Nah, nah. I have given up working. But thank you anyhow. It is a great compliment." 

Now I knew why L.U.S.T. had given me a million dollars. Giuseppe Vico was going to be a tough nut to crack. 

"How about a salary of sixty thousand lire the week?" 

The old man paused, frowning. "It is a temptation to try the virtue of a saint, signorina. Still, I have enough money laid aside to satisfy me.” He chuckled. "With my savings and with signora Biga, my landlady, to satisfy such desires as an old man still enjoys, I am quite con tent." 

“I think signora Biga might appreciate you more if you did a bunk on her for a few weeks." 

He looked puzzled. "Did a 'bunk'? An Americanism. Yes. I recall it now. When the Americans were in Rome, I heard one soldier use such a term. I did not forget it. I never forget anything." 

"Actually, it's that memory of yours I want to hire even more than your prowess as a cook." 

I had caught him by the handle of his curiosity. "My memory? Now tell old Giuseppe why a pretty young girl wants to hire the memory of an old man! Ah, of course! You are a writer. You want to do a novel about me. The fair fares of Joey Joy." 

"Is that what they call you? Joey Joy?" His smile was impish. "Only the women, signorina. I brought joy to both their mouths, so to speak, in my heyday." 

I giggled, "I'll just bet you did. I almost wish I were a writer, to do a story about you. It might be a best seller back in the states. But I want your memory in another way. "You remember the signora Madden?” 

"The one who was shot? Si, signorina, I remember her well. Sometimes she would send a car for me when she wanted to have an especially fine dinner. I wept when I heard about her. It is too bad, too bad." 

"I am here to find her killer. I don't know whether I'll be able to or not. My hunch is that the killer was hired by an ex-Nazi or perhaps even a number of former Hitler henchmen." 

There was a silence. The old man sat on the arm of a sagging easy chair. His room was a replica of himself in a way. Each piece a Piranesi here, an Albertolli there was old, but so magnificently constructed that you forgot the age and the worn look; you saw through these to the masterpieces they had been in their youth. 

"Nazis?” he asked querulously, as if I had annoyed him. “What has a pretty young girl to do with dead and forgotten Nazis?" 

"I think they hired Penny Madden's killer." 

"But—Nazis! I served culinary concoctions to all the important ones, years ago.” 

“Yes, I know. This is primarily the reason why I want to hire you. These ex-Nazis attended Miss Madden's parties. I am hoping—if you come to work for me—that you will be able to identify them." 

His big, gnarled hands spread wide. "Others can do this, even better than I." 

"They will have changed. I believe their faces have been altered by plastic surgeons, so that to the ordinary man they will be entirely different individuals. 

"But to you, signor Vico, they will not be different. You will remember the way in which one man eats his food, the manner in which another walks. You have what is known as a photographic memory. What you have ever seen, you can remember. It is called total recall." 

The old man inclined his head. "It is true. It is one of the things that make me the world's greatest cook. I have a million recipes in this head of mine." His forefinger tapped his white-haired temple. "I do not need to consult a cookbook to prepare osso buco or even molecche, which is soft shell crabs with fig fritters." 

I sat on the edge of an Empire chair and crossed my legs. Like all men, Giuseppe Vico ran his eyes up and down my calves, knees and thighs. His tongue slid around his lips and his black eyes grew warm. To a man who had lived his youth when hobble skirts had been popular, these mini-skirts must be a great revelation. 

"Your work would not be difficult," I wheedled. "I would hire young men to do the heavy work in the kitchen. All I would ask of you would be to lend your touch in the making of the sauces, the special concoctions you alone know—and, naturally, to study my guests and try to identify any former Nazis you might see. 

"There is a criminal technique of body identification advanced by certain criminologists as a means of identification of fugitives from justice. Hair may be dyed, faces may be altered by plastic surgery, but no man can change the way he walks, the little mannerisms like shrugging or gesturing that are purely automatic." 

As an afterthought, I added, “I would be willing to offer you as much as seventy thousand lire the week. That's a hundred and twelve dollars, American money. Plus a bonus of another half million lire for every former Nazi you can identify." 

The old man goggled. "So much?” he asked, drawing a deep breath. 

An inspiration hit me. "Suppose, instead of young men to help you in your kitchen, I hire pretty girls?” 

His black eyes met mine. There was a devilry in them that reached out to touch me. I wished suddenly I had known Joey Joy when he was younger. He was still a handsome man, his body looked strong and healthy. He might not be able to cut the mustard as he had done in those earlier years, but I'd have bet my million he had a way or two or three to please a female, even now. 

"Pretty girl assistants, you say?" he muttered thought fully. 

"Pussycat pastry makers.” He grinned, recognizing a kindred spirit in me. 

I added, "Like to select them yourself? Give them er—tests? The way a movie director hires starlets?" 

The Joey Joy part of him was hooked. He fought against the temptation, but he was no Saint Anthony. Maybe the thought of his landlady in her satin panties had something to do with his decision. 

"Diavolo! I'll do it!” he cried, getting to his feet. His big leathery hands rubbed together. "I shall be your chef and your eyes, signorina. If I see an ex-Nazi, I'll inform you directly. Pah! I am getting tired of these rooms anyhow." 

"I'm driving down to Baiae tomorrow. If you care to come along with your luggage, I'll be glad to have you as company." 

He made me a little bow. "You offer a foretaste of heaven to an old man, signorina. I shall be grateful." 

His hand caught mine. His lips kissed its back as if I were an Orsini or a Miani, great names in Roman nobility, making me feel like a countess. 

Giuseppe Vico opened his door for me, his extended arm inviting me to precede him down the hall. I went down the sitars first with my new chef at my heels. 

He paused to knock on a door. 

The landlady opened it. She had changed into a skin tight sweater and skirt. 

"Pah!" snarled Joey Joy, snapping his fingers. 

The landlady sputtered her inability to find the right words to answer him. Then she slammed the door. 

The old man looked at me. We laughed for close to a minute, leaning against the wall, helpless. 

It was dark on the streets by this time. Signor Vico walked with me, until we found an empty taxi. 

“Until tomorrow," he said, looking at my stockinged legs, as I climbed into the back seat. He was a leg man, this old boy. There are worse things to be, at that. 

I dined alone that night in the Cavalieri, indulging my palate with veal cutlet a la Bolognese, baked green lasagna, and wild raspberries and cream puff for dessert. I keep too busy for L.U.S.T. to worry about a diet. 

Next morning, at a few minutes past nine, I was standing in an auto salesroom, buying myself a Maserati Ghibli. It cost almost seventeen thousand American iron men, but what the hell! I had a million bucks to spend. 

I handed the salesman a tip of thirty thousand lire. "I must have the car this morning. This afternoon will not do. Tomorrow will not do." I doubled the thirty thousand lire, as his eyes grew big. He bowed to his waist, flushing with pleasure. 

“The Ghibli will be ready within the hour," he assured me. I think he went himself to get all the necessary papers signed and stamped, because he was as good as his word. 

In exactly an hour, the maroon Maserati was standing in the salesroom lot, ready to go, gas tank full. The salesman all but kissed me when I handed him another huge tip. It wasn't my money, and besides, my orders were to spend it. 

Guiseppe Vico was waiting at the curb, his tearful landlady wiping her eyes with an apron beside him. I think she believed I was going to steal her man away from her, because she began to berate me in fluid Italian which was almost beyond my understanding. 

I picked out a few words and answered them. "He shall come back to you, signora, a wealthy man. I only want his services as a chef.” 

She beamed instantly, shutting off the waterworks. She even waved her apron at me, as we wheeled away from the curb and toward the Via Appia Nuova, which is the highway to Naples. Money will accomplish miracles, I have discovered. The idea of her star boarder returning with a few million lire in his pockets appealed to her. I hit the road to Naples at a smart sixty miles an hour. You have to drive this fast in Rome to stay up with the traffic. 

The Italians play a game of dodge-'em in cars every day. Not for them the ordered, prosaic traffic of an American city. Missing fenders and scraping bumpers is the order of the day in Rome. 

We headed south along the coast, moving through the Campagna and the plain bordering Monte Calvello. We passed the old town of Cora, said to have been founded by Trojans, Sermonetta Castle and the Pontine Marshes. Beyond Terracina, the highway flanks the old Roman tombs and Lake Fondi. We whirled past the old stone walls of Fondi, the main street of which was part of the ancient Appian Way. 

We continued on across the plain and up into the mountains. Giuseppe Vico informed me that the town of Itro, which we were approaching, was renowned for the roadside bandits that used to live there. One of the most famous was Fra Diavolo. Then were were gliding through magnificent vineyards and the remains of what once had been great forests. 

We caught glimpses of the bay of Gaeta and slowed to a crawl going through Formi, which is a seacoast village where the Italians go to swim in the summertime. 

I paid no attention to my mini-skirt as I drove, but Joey Joy did. His eyes practically ate my stockinged thighs, my calves and knees. When the wind blew the mini-skirts up to my crotch, he got a good look at where the pantyhose gripped my privacy as well. I think he memorized the Drum contours from my navel downward. 

We dined at Gaeta, a town named after the nurse of Aeneas the Trojan, in a small restaurant that overlooked the sun-sparkled waters of the bay. I was enjoying my Italian holiday. The hard work was ahead; right now, I basked in the sights and sounds of southern Italy, the smells of salami and freshly baked bread, the thunder of the Cathedral bells bonging out the hour. 

The run from Rome to Naples covers roughly a hundred and forty miles. I made it in a little more than four hours. We pulled into Baiae at a quarter to three in the afternoon. 

From the very earliest times, Baiae has been a fashionable swimming resort for the Italians. The ancient city, which flourished in the time of the Caesars, was uncovered more than fifteen years ago by Professor Amadeo Maiuri, an archaeologist at the Naples National Museum. He brought to life one of the wickedest cities of the old Roman Empire. 

Baiae was the summer sin capital of the Caesars. Emperors such as Saligula and Nero always brought their courts here for the summer months and, in the Neapoli tan sunlight, gave themselves over to orgies and carousels that sometimes rocked the empire. 

Magnificent villas, all bordered by lush gardens, flanked one another, making it easy for a husband to carry on with his neighbor's wife, if he and she were so inclined. The baths were public only to the three hundred Roman nobles who could afford the luxury of a summer villa, preferably one which gave an exquisite view of the blue Mediterranean. 

Today, Baiae is more discreet about its conduct. There are orgies, but they take place behind towering poplars which hide the view from the Neapolitans. The Madden villa was one such vice villa. 

The public road curved beside a great iron fence half hidden behind a row of yew hedges. Massive stone pillars held the iron gates. When I honked my horn, a man in overalls and a torn shirt came running. 

"I'm Miss Madden's cousin,” I told him. Open up, please." 

The gatekeeper knew Giuseppe Vico. He swung wide the gates and watched the Maserati Ghibli barrel along the graveled drive toward the sprawling, red-brick mansion. I studied the huge structure. 

I was looking at the mousetrap. 

In it, I was going to try and catch three vicious ex Nazis, disguised in appearance but filled with the same old hates and lusts for power. They were trying to start it up all over again with their Neo-Nazi party politics. My job was to stop them in their tracks. 

As I braked, I told myself I would build the Madden villa into something bigger and better than ever. From that I would need the help of L.U.S.T. itself. Not to furnish my servants. Joey Joe and I could do that. My need was more specialized. 

But first, other things occupied my time. 

As the front door opened, a woman I took to be the housekeeper stepped into view, staring at the Maserati with wondering eyes. She came out onto the red-brick and marble-railed patio, looking very sad. She guessed that I was the new owner, but I was no new broom to sweep clean. 

I waved to her, called, "Buon giorno, signora. We are going to take up where the signora Madden left off, you and I." 

Her name was Caterina. She was all smiles and bobbing curtsys when I told her the staff would stay on as before, that I just wanted to get to know everybody. She was the housekeeper, all right. It was her job to make sure the villa ran smoothly and without any trouble. 

The maids had been let go; she herself had stayed on with the handyman, whom we had met at the drive gate, to keep vandals away. I told her to call all the maids and such back to work. I added that I was going to give everybody a small increase in salary. 

The handyman carried in my luggage. I went upstairs to shower with Giuseppe Vico's promise to whip up some liver alla Veneziana for my dinner. 

I had never been the mistress of a villa such as this; as the water cascaded down over the Drum bod, as I rubbed soap into a froth over my belly, I told myself I would be the lady of the manor to the best of my ability. To make a start, I would eat dinner alone, resplendent in a red velvet evening gown, with pearls at my throat and on my wrist. 

I must have carried it off. There was a noticeable respect in the housekeeper's eyes as I sat in solitary grandeur, feasting on my Venetian style liver by the light of a dozen candles. 

I made my call to L.U.S.T. before I fell asleep at night. I told them I wanted a television installation crew on the premises, first thing in the morning. 

"I want a hidden television camera installed in every room," I explained to the technicians, when they hit the villa a few minutes before nine next morning. “Nobody's going to catch me napping the way they did Penny Mad den." 

They put in cameras disguised as ceiling lights. The lights really worked. So did the cameras. 

In my room a master control panel was located, hidden behind a metal frieze carved after the manner of a Roman temple. There was a lock to the frieze-work which would slide back out of the way, disclosing half a dozen picture tubes which gave me the ability to stare into each guest room. In that way I could keep track of my visitors. The flick of a switch threw in another bank of cameras so I could see into other room. In all, four banks would keep me damn well informed about every place in the villa, even poolside if the night lights were on. 

The job took a week and a half. I felt a little safer when it was done. And while I was doing that, Joey Joe was selecting three cute Neapolitan cookie-cuties for his kitchen crew. 

I met all three, Cara Trapani, a curvy redhead, There sa Ponza, slim blonde, and Nerina Posilippo, a brunette with a body that should have belonged to a movie star, one morning after a breakfast of curried eggs, pastry and coffee. They were all damned pretty. 

Giuseppe was well satisfied with his crew. Hell! Why shouldn't he be? Also, I noticed they all cast sheep's eyes at him, as he waved his big hands at them, calling out their names. I wandered what sort of tests he had given them, because the fact that they were as well satisfied with him as he was with them was quite apparent. 

In the week and a half the tee vee boys had been on the job, I had begun my search for the documents Penny Madden was supposed to have left behind her. They were damn well hidden; I ransacked the villa from top to cellar without turning up so much as an ink mark. 

I would keep on looking, of course. 

But in the meantime, my better mousetrap was about to go to work. I sent out a batch of invitations to my housewarming party. I found lists of Penny Madden's guests easily enough. Hidden somewhere in those lists, I was sure, were the three Neo-Nazis I was out to bag. 

And the name of her killer as well. 

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