The Ecstasy Connection Read online

  Monica's expression was clear and shining. She smiled lazily. "You're nice," she said. "What's your name?"

  "Happy," he said.

  She had a fit of the giggles. "That's funny. You're 'Happy, and I'm happy."

  He said nothing. He continued to stare into her smiling face. A tear trickled down his rough cheek.

  He waited.

  Monica's expression progressed to pure bliss. A little shiver of pleasure ran down her spine. A deep "Ah…" came from her throat.

  Happy's face screwed up. He looked as if he were going to cry.

  Monica was making vague swimming motions now. Little incoherent cries of joy escaped her lips.

  "How're ya feelin'?" he asked.

  She focused her eyes with an effort. "Like… like… pink clouds… warm all over… it's so nice…" She trailed off, unable to form words anymore.

  He nodded. The envy in his eyes turned to hate.

  Changes were occurring in Monica's body. The skin tone improved, giving her a rosy healthy look. Little glints of moisture began to appear in the dark triangle between her legs. She moaned.

  "G'wan," Happy said. "Die. You'll like it."

  Her back arched convulsively. She screamed. She fell back, her energy spent in a giant orgasm.

  Happy's hand strayed involuntarily to his lap. The other hand went to his big misshapen head and cradled his scalp. He continued to maintain this odd position while he watched the writhing girl on the bed.

  Her body leaped up in another spasm of sexual pleasure. She fell back exhausted. The insides of her thighs were sopping wet.

  The tears streamed down Happy's face. "G'wan, g'wan…" he murmured.

  The orgasms wracked her body continuously now, coming one after another. Her face had a swollen, puffy look. She moaned with unbearable joy. Her hands and feet fluttered uncontrollably, like those of a person with the palsy.

  Her body was covered with sweat, soaking her bra and dripping into the sheets. There seemed no way her body could squeeze another ounce of rapture out of itself.

  And still the excruciating spasms of pleasure went on. The entire surface of her body was twitching.

  And then there was a gigantic convulsion that would have snapped her bones if Happy hadn't shot out an enormous hand and held her down. She fell back to the mattress, her head lolling at a crazy angle.

  Her eyes were wide open, staring at a transcendent vision.

  She was dead.

  Happy got up. His big hands were trembling. He tried to get Monica's other leg into the pantyhose, but he was shaking too badly to manage it. The hair dryer was still slung over the body's shoulder. He looked at it vaguely, then put the plastic cap back on her head. He managed to plug the wire into the socket after two or three tries. The dryer went on with a hum.

  He hovered over the body uncertainly. Beads of perspiration were standing out on his dented brow. He started for the door, then stopped. A great choking sob came from him. His face was working as though he were trying to resist something.

  Then he gave up and turned back into the bedroom. He picked up the bedside phone and dialed for the overseas operator. "Hong Kong," he told her.

  The call came through in five minutes. "This is Happy, Mr. Sim," he said. He listened briefly, then said, "Honest, no, I left… Yessir, Mr. Sim, I done it like you said." His big feet, the size of toolboxes, fidgeted like those of a small boy. "Please, could I have the numbers now?"

  There was a pad and pencil by the telephone. He listened to the voice in Hong Kong and wrote down a series of digits. "Thank you, Mr. Sim… Yessir, I'll get on the next one right away."

  He hung up. His hands trembling like a junkie in need of a fix, he took something that looked like a transistor radio out of his pocket. There was a dial with numbers on it, and a thin platinum wire terminating in a jack.

  He combed his scalp with his thick fingers, searching for the spot. When he found it, he pushed the hair aside. There was a small metal plate in his skull. In its center was a socket.

  His hands twitching, he plugged the jack into the tiny socket in his head. He read the series of numbers off the pad, one by one, his lips moving, while he thumbed the dial of the thing that looked like a radio. There was a little click, like the tumblers of a safe, at each digit.

  Instantly, the tension went out of his face. A look of sudden delight transfixed the tumbled features. The stony eyes went soft.

  He sat almost motionless, cooing to himself. He seemed to be in a trance. Rapture showed on his face. The little device in his hand ticked away like a kitchen timer.

  Precisely five minutes later it was over. There was a click from the transistor radio. The bliss disappeared from his face as if it had been wiped away by a wet sponge.

  Looking disappointed, he unplugged the jack from his skull and put the unit back in his pocket. He walked out of the apartment without a backward glance.

  * * *

  A radio was playing too loudly as they approached the door.

  The Baroness said, "Stand over there, Fi."

  Fiona slipped to the side of the door without saying a word. She was vain, difficult, and lazy, but she was a good agent.

  The Baroness listened intently. There had been no answer to the downstairs buzzer. Some instinct had set up a warning signal in her brain.

  She hitched up her skirt and slid the little Bernadelli VB out of its chamois holster on the inside of her thigh. Her other hand grasped the doorknob and turned carefully. It felt too loose.

  Swift as a striking cobra, she flung the door wide and hurtled through, twisting to one side. There was no one in the foyer or living room beyond.

  She motioned Fiona inside. The red-haired girl had a gun in her own hand now, the tiny Hi-Standard Derringer she favored.

  Her eyes widened when Penelope pointed out the smashed lock and broken chain. Penelope motioned toward the bedroom.

  The first thing they saw was the dress Monica Firth had been planning to wear to lunch. It was hung carefully over the back of a boudoir chair.

  Then they saw Monica's body sprawled on the bed. A pair of pantyhose was tangled around one ankle. Her crotch was a foamy mess. She was wearing only a lace-paneled bra. Her head was encased in the flowered plastic bonnet of a hair dryer. It was still on, cooking the corpse's head.

  The Baroness moved swiftly to check the closets and bathroom. When she returned, Fiona had switched off the hair dryer. The room smelled of scorched hair.

  "What do you think killed her?" Fiona whispered.

  Penelope waved her gun at Monica's foamy pubes. "Whatever it was, she got a bang out of it."

  5

  "How come you're asking all these questions?" the girl asked.

  "Questions?" Skytop stared at her innocently. "What questions?"

  She looked very fetching, standing there behind the counter with her untidy corn-colored hair and the waitress's uniform that was too tight around the bust and hips. Her name was Angie Platt.

  "You know," she said uncertainly. "You keep talking about Billy Perkins, and you wait to hear what I say, and they're not really questions, but they're questions all the same." She mopped furiously at the counter with a dirty rag.

  "Billy Perkins was a friend of mine," Skytop said. "Naturally I'm curious."

  "Billy never mentioned being friends with no injun."

  "It was a long time ago, before he went in the army."

  "I've been answering a lot of questions about Billy since he died. First it was those army investigators. Then it was a lot of beady-eyed men in gray suits — some kind of government fuzz."

  "Do I look like fuzz?" Skytop said indignantly. He gestured at his greasy jeans and sweatshirt, and the leather brass-studded jacket, then hooked a thumb at the big motorcycle he'd parked outside.

  "I don't know," Angie said. "I've seen narcos who dress like hippies. There was one swisher with long hair and beads and sandals who busted a dozen kids over to Bear Falls."

  Skytop suppressed the su
dden triumph he felt then. Angie knew the language of the drug culture. And she'd been the girlfriend of the missile officer, Perkins.

  "Billy pop much?" he said casually.

  She giggled. "Did he ever!" She looked around the flyblown cafe to make sure there were no other customers, then leaned across the counter. "Bams, leapers, phenies, blue cheer — you name it. He'd take just about anything anybody gave him. Said his work made him nervous."

  Skytop decided to gamble. "Look, Angie, I'm new in town. I'm strung out, you know what I mean. Where am I gonna find the candy man around here?"

  She thought it over. "I don't know…" she began.

  A customer came in, a leathery rancher with dusty boots and a frayed straw hat. Angie went over to serve him. When she came back, Skytop tried again.

  "Billy must have had a connection around here. I really need a make."

  He took out the wad the Baroness had given him. There was over a thousand left, after renting the motorbike and sniffing around this godforsaken corner of Nebraska for four days.

  Angie's eyes widened. "Man, you're heeled!"

  "I can pay my way."

  She glanced at the customer across the room. She leaned forward and lowered her voice. "Look, I'm not promising anything, but I get off work here at five. You wanna buy me a few beers?"

  Skytop stood up. He peeled a bill off the wad to pay for the coffee and pie. "See you at five, doll."

  Wharton's head itched. He decided it was the long blond wig he was wearing. It just didn't feel comfortable, pasted to his close-cropped scalp. The clothes made him uncomfortable too — sweat-stiff jeans with daisies embroidered on them and a beaded vest out of some Joan Crawford movie.

  He reached up cautiously and scratched.

  "Hey, man, you don't have no cooties or anything, do you?" said the man in top hat and jockey shorts sitting cross-legged next to him on the mattress.

  "No, man," Wharton said.

  The man in the top hat took another deep drag of the roach he was holding in the split end of a wooden match. His name was Hal. "That's good," he said: "We run a clean pad here. You won't pick up a dose in this pad."

  He gestured around the crash pad. It was a cold-water flat on Avenue C. The peeling plaster walls had been decorated with enormous stars and red and white stripes — an American flag motif. The floor was strewn with old mattresses. A dozen young people sat around indolently, smoking pot or helping themselves to the pot of beans that bubbled on a hot plate in the center of the floor. A young girl, barely fifteen or sixteen, nursed a baby in the corner.

  "Thanks, man. I'm not in the mood for leg right now."

  "How about a head job? Mindy, over there, is real good at it." He pointed at a sullen-eyed girl wearing a man's undershirt and an embroidered headband.

  "Uh, maybe later."

  "Well, try some of this marjorie, anyway. I think there's another puff left." He handed over the jefferson airplane. Wharton took a drag, then gave it back. Hal carefully shredded the few remaining crumbs and emptied them into the beaded bag slung from his waist.

  "Uh, listen, man. like this cat Peter I'm looking for. Guy said you could tell me where he is."

  Hal looked at Wharton shrewdly. "You look a little old to be skippering it, buddy," he said.

  Wharton tried not to show his dismay. He was over thirty, fit and clear-eyed, and it showed despite his flower-child disguise. But the trail that led to Peter Rawlings had taken him among the street people and dropouts. There was no way he could have gotten them to talk to a man with short hair and a business suit.

  "I've been on the road ever since I got home from Nam," he said. "I just can't make it with the squares."

  "Nam," Hal said. "They got some good skag there."

  "The best."

  Hal stood up, hitching up his jockey shorts. "Okay, man, I thought maybe you were some kind of plastic hippie. Come on over here. Nancy can tell you about Peter."

  He took Wharton over to a girl with shiny blonde hair, lying flat on a mattress with her hands folded across her chest. She was wearing army fatigues. She had a smudge on one cheek.

  "Nance, baby," Hal said. "There's a cat here who wants to ask you something."

  Her eyes flew open. She sat straight up, like a marionette.

  Wharton said, "I'm looking for a fellow named Peter Rawlings. His sister's a big time actress."

  "Peter? That freak? What do you want with him?"

  "I have an on to him. Fifty dollars worth."

  "Man, it's going to cost you more than fifty dollars to get to where he is."

  "Where's that?"

  She hesitated. Hal said, "It's okay, he's no weekender. I offered Mindy to him and he didn't jump at the chance."

  "Okay," the girl said. "Peter's living on a commune in Vermont. His sister gave him ten thousand dollars for his share."

  Hal said, "Hey, wasn't she the one who took off her threads during a play?"

  "I heard," Wharton said. He turned to the girl. "Can you tell me how to get there?"

  She was vague about directions, but eventually he got enough of a description to be able to find the place.

  "Hey, take me with you?" she asked.

  "Why do you want to go?"

  "I heard Peter was into something real gassy. Better than acid."

  Wharton said carefully, "Any chance he was giving some of it to his sister?"

  She shrugged. "Could be."

  "Who was his connection?"

  "I don't know. Some Chinese guy. I think Peter called him King Kong."

  "King Kong? You mean like the gorilla?"

  She furrowed her brow. "Something like that."

  Wharton thought it over. The Baroness, in her briefing, had said something about a trip Cynthia Rawlings had taken. Had Peter gone with her? He decided to take a chance. "Could it be Hong Kong?"

  She brightened. "Yeah, that was it. You know him?"

  "No," Wharton said truthfully, "but I'd like to."

  "Well, take me with you, man. Peter'll never let you into that commune unless you show up with me."

  Wharton sighed. "Okay, Nancy. We'll take a trip to Vermont."

  She pulled him down beside her on the mattress. "But first," she whispered, "let's take a little trip right here."

  * * *

  Sumo sat hunched over the computer console. The big CRT display in front of him lit up and started to flicker like a TV test pattern.

  He looked up at the Baroness. "It's starting to come in now," he said.

  "Can the FBI tell that we're emptying their memory banks?"

  "No way. There's nothing physical planted inside the FBI building. That…"he pointed at a bouncing dot of light, "…means Eric got the trained pigeon to stick the miniaturized magnetometer on the window of the FBI computer room. He flashed a laser beam on the glass for a half second to show the bird the spot. He's changing a tire on his van right now. We'll be through in three minutes. The pigeon will pick up the magnetometer on the adhesive pad on its chest right after that."

  Penelope chuckled with delight. "Those poor, dear, FBI men. Too bad we can't trust them. Some day I'm going to tell them about the agents the CIA planted on their payroll."

  Sumo's slender fingers were flying over the console, punching out instructions. "Here we go. We're flooding the FBI computer room with low-level microwaves now. The magnetometer will pick up every magnetic impulse in the computer's memory banks. Eric has our own PDP-12 computer in the van. It'll counterfeit an order for a readout on a tight beam… ah, there it is! We've got it!"

  A man's head appeared on the twenty-four-inch screen. It was large, blocky, and misshapen, with a huge dent in the skull. A set of fingerprints showed next to the head, with the FBI's code number underneath.

  Sumo pressed buttons. Indicator lights flashed.

  "That's him, Baroness. The prints match the ones you found on Monica Firth's telephone."

  "Happy Malloy," she read off the screen. "Quite an arrest record. Ex-boxer and enforcer f
or the mob. Dropped out of sight ten years ago."

  Sumo pressed the button that would permanently store Happy Malloy's record in the computer's memory unit. The screen went blank.

  On a road near FBI headquarters a tall slim blond man let a pigeon out of a cage. He finished changing a tire on his delivery van and tossed the jack in the rear. The pigeon fluttered back to the van a few minutes later, something shiny stuck to its chest.

  Two hundred and fifty miles away in New York Sumo swung his chair around and faced the Baroness. "What do you want me to do next?" he said.

  "Tap the NSA computer. Fort Meade records every overseas telephone call made from this country. I want a tape of the call that was made from Monica Firth's phone the day she died. Our friend, the happy hooligan, may have placed it."

  "You've checked with the phone company then?"

  She nodded.

  "Where was the call made to?"

  Her green eyes flashed like emeralds. To Hong Kong."

  * * *

  The fat man said, "I am displeased, K'uang Hsi."

  Hsi found himself sweating in spite of himself. He forced himself to smile. "You are too conservative, Mr. Sim. I acted because you would not. I am merely building what you capitalists call a market. You will profit by it."

  "I will profit by it when I am ready to profit by it," Mr. Sim said. "The drug is not perfected yet. There is no way of predicting the strength of an individual dose. It can kill."

  Hsi looked at the fat man with distaste. Mr. Sim was enormously fat — fatter than a human being had a right to be. He must, Hsi thought, weigh four hundred pounds. He resembled some gigantic whale, sitting there in the specially constructed chair, the white silk suit billowing like a circus tent.

  "What does it matter if a few American drug addicts die of an overdose? The ones who live will spread the infection. Your chemical ecstasy is irresistible. Nothing can compare with it — heroin, amphetamines, LSD. It will sweep the United States, corrupt the youth, spread through American society."