Black Market

Billie finally shrugged and entered the paint-peeling hotel lobby. She had been told the client would be paying cash. As she walked down the dimly lit second-floor hallway, she shut off her Vintage beeper. It would be unbelievably tacky to get an electronic message while she was in the middle of a session with a client.

But the Washington-Jefferson? She shivered involuntarily.

Billie tapped on the door, and it swung open almost immediately. She was surprised to see someone so good-looking. His smile was open and pleasant. He was quite tall, slender, and…

Then she saw the flaw. The left sleeve of his mufti was empty-he had only one arm.

Billie couldn't feel too sorry for the man framed in the doorway. There was nothing about him that inspired pity; quite the opposite. He was certainly attractive, and his disability didn't seem to trouble him. He did not appear at all self-conscious as he gazed at her. He had the kind of face she somehow associated with the outdoors. Probably he was one of those self-reliant types who loved camping and knew the right knots to tie and the best place to pitch a tent.

“Hi. I'm Billie. How are you today?” She smiled courteously. “You're David?”

Colonel David Hudson stared at her for a few seconds longer before answering.

She was one of the best-looking prostitutes he'd ever seen. Her hair was an unbelievably rich, ash blond with thick bouncy curls. She was long-legged and thin in the ma

“I'm sorry,” he finally managed with another smile. “I was starting, wasn't I? Come in. You're very pretty. Very beautiful. I didn't expect so beautiful a girl.”

Billie smiled-as if she'd never heard any of this before. The hint of a blush rose along her high, elegant cheekbones. The sudden color sloped down her neck to the deep hollow of her throat.

“I'm sorry. I wasn't paying attention. It was Billie what? Your last name?”

“Just Billie,” she smiled again. All of her gestures were very natural.

For the first time he noticed her accent. She was British. Maybe even upper class from the clipped sound of her phrases.

Hudson gestured around his Spartan hotel room. “I know, it isn't exactly the Plaza. Not just yet… You see, I'm writing a play. I hope this qualifies as an artist's garret?”

For some reason Billie found herself slowly relaxing with this one. He was easy to be with, and he sounded halfway intelligent. The bit about writing a play, whether it was true or not, had come out naturally enough. She sat down tentatively, almost demurely, on the edge of the unmade day bed. As if she were a real date and they hadn't discussed exactly why she'd come up to his room.

Staring at her face, Hudson thought she was twenty-five at the most. She was extremely elegant, even for Vintage.

“I like the theater a great deal. When I first came to New York to live, every single Wednesday I went to a Broadway matinee,” she said. “I'd get these half-price tickets at Times Square. Sometimes at hotel desks. I saw Death of a Salesman with Dustin Hoffman, Torch Song, Cats, Glengarry. Everything I could get into.”

Very nonchalantly, as she talked about the theater, she unfastened the top button of her silk blouse, then the next.

“Sit down by me?” A very i

Hudson did, and she kissed his cheek lightly. Her perfume was hypnotic, an expensive scent that captivated him. It drifted luxuriously up into his face.

“You said I was beautiful. I'd like to repay the compliment-you're very handsome. I hope you write a good play.”

Still i

Her touch was light and warm. Then something extraordinary happened, something unusual. Hudson began to feel.

A severe warning bell went off deep inside.

Yet she was so natural and relaxed. The lightest touch of fingers. She was massaging him tenderly as she undressed. First the silk blouse delicately shushed off. Then the straight black skirt. At last she stood over him-only sheer dark stockings, garters, and high heels. There was a glistening droplet on her golden patch of hair. He felt as if he were sinking right through the mattress.

The i

He watched her breathe-so unexpectedly beautiful-and she smiled when she realized what he was doing.

“You are beautiful.”

“You're beautiful.”

Her breasts were swelling in anticipation. Hudson touched them gently, exploring their perfect roundness, exploring each light pink aureole.

She slid on top of him, and her blond hair glowed in the light from the overhead lamp. She rocked back and forth, a peaceful, swaying motion. Everything seemed so easy. The warning signals quieted, like a siren fading in the distance.

He was breathing faster and faster. Her eyes shut, then opened, seemed to smile, shut again.

Faster and faster, faster and faster. He thought of dance rhythms.

He played with her as she gently rocked on top of him like a cresting sea wave. He manipulated her lightly with his hand as she moved to her own rhythm. Then her whole body stiffened, and she began to fall forward against his chest. She arched dramatically backward and jerked forward again. It was as if currents of electricity were passing through her long, slender body.

He was almost certain…

She was coming, her whole body shuddering.

This expensive escort from Vintage… this beautiful prostitute was having an orgasm.

Billie. Just Billie.

Warning signals were going off like a hundred piercing police sirens in his head. He didn't come. He never did.

7

Arch Carroll was flying on People Express to Miami that morning. It wasn't the most enjoyable experience he'd ever had. People Express happened to be the day's first scheduled Florida flight out of Washington. The light through the jet's tiny windows was dark and ominous for most of the trip, which had begun at the highly uncivilized hour of 4:45 A.M.

The airline service crew was young and inexperienced. They giggled inanely during the seat belt and airbag pep talk. They sold cellophane-wrapped Danish in the aisle for a dollar. Was this the hotshot outfit that had TWA and American shaking in their cockpits?

Carroll shut his eyes. He tried to make everything about the morning, especially about the night before, Black Friday, vanish, vanish far, far away. But nothing went away.

This scenario of terror was more like the state of siege people had learned to live with in the political capitals of Western Europe, all through the teeming urban ghettos of South America-but never inside America, until now.

Until now.

The back of Arch Carroll's eyelids became a crisp white screen for a thousand flashing images: Wall Street ablaze; the frightened faces of ordinary people ru

Like this sudden trip to Miami…

The first possible break in the Green Band mystery had come quickly. Almost too quickly, Carroll thought. He'd spotted the clue himself on the FBI sheets for the nights before and left as soon as he could for Florida to check it out.

He opened his eyes briefly and stared the length of the aisle at two stewardesses talking in conspiratorial whispers. Then, the next thing he knew it was about halfway through the two-hour-and-forty-minute flight, and he got up wearily and trudged to the plane's bathroom.