Free EBook Samples: Free ebook sample of "Ears" by Marvin Rose

"Oh, do you really think so, Leo?  I'm so excited.  This is the happiest day of my life," she said, flushed with pleasure, tugging the silver slippers from her feet.

"It is only the first step, my darling.  I've seen for many years how they come and go.  But you, you will be a star."

Penny kissed him warmly on the cheek and sighed with deep delight.  She peeled the sequined pasties from her nipples, dropped them into a glassine bag.  "You'll have to excuse me for rushing, darling, but I'm late for a very important date."

Leo Meyerson straightened to his lanky heron's height, "ButC but the cast party, my sweetheart.  You'll be at the cast party, yes?"

"Oh, I'd love to, really," Penny scowled at two girls who bumped her as they ran naked to the showers, "but this date is the date of a lifetime.  It's the heavyweight champion of dates.  An academy award date.  I don't even have time to shower here or call my sisterCI'll have to do it when I get back to my apartment to change."  She fussed with a clasp at her waist, then stepped out of the glittering G string.

On the average of twenty a day, Leo figured he looked at seven thousand naked bodies each year, but none as perfect as Penny Cason's.  He had to swallow down a dry lump.  "That's not so good an idea.  Everybody will be there.  I mean the whole production staff.  They will expect to see you.  I mean, even Mr. Skillman might show up."

Penny lowered her eyes and grinned, hurriedly snatched a skirt and blouse from her wardrobe closet.  "Really?  The big man himself?"  She turned to face Leo directly, her grin now bright and wide, breaking into a gleeful chuckle.  "If I were you, I wouldn't hold my breath.  Mr. Skillman may be otherwise occupied."  She buttoned her blouse, zippered the skirt, levered her feet into patent leather pumps.  "Look at me," she whispered, "I don't even have time to put on my pantyhose."  And kissing the entertainment director on the cheek again, she ran nimbly out of the dressing room, her heels clattering on the tiled floor.

Penny Cason hopped off the bus in Ventnor and ran the two blocks to her apartment building on the bay.  Flushed and happy with her performance in the show, and daydreaming a triumphant future, she let herself into the lobby, deserted at dinnertime, and impatiently tapped her front teeth with a key as the elevator droned its descent.  She hummed a tune from the revue.  In a few minutes she rushed from the elevator at the eighth floor in a surge of happy anticipation so infused with promise that, surprised, she had to blink tears out of her eyes.  She pawed her keys clumsily, filled with tumbling words to call and tell her sister.

With these dizzying expectations surging through her, Penny Cason didn't notice that the lights were on in her apart­ment, hardly felt the blow to her head, the rough hands on her shoulders forcing her to the thickly piled carpet.  In a convulsion of fright, she flexed her hips at the rock hard invasion of her vagina, gagged as a fat strawberry tongue filled her mouth.  The last thing she felt was a shocking agony in her right ear, then another in her left.  She didn't hear the mocking voice whisper Was it good for you?

I stole Penny Candys key an had a dupe made and stuck the key back in her bag when she was rehersing her numbers I crep into her apt and waited for her when she came in I hit her with a lamp an fucked her socks off   She dint have pantys on

I cut her ears off and starngelt her with the lamp cord

I stuck the cutter up her ass an fucked her in the ass with the cutter I have a plan

2

Keeping his left hand deep inside his topcoat pocket, Packard slid into the waiting limousine.  Leo Meyerson shifted over to one of the folding jump seats.  Packard nodded in answer to Leo's greeting and listened as the entertainment director picked up his interrupted thought.  He was speaking to an owl eyed little man who sat, lost in the cushions, next to Packard.  Up front, a liveried chauffeur pulled aggressively into traffic.  His eyes held Packard's momentarily in the rearview mirror, then looked away.

"Some kids, they shouldn't have parents," Leo was saying.  "They named her Penelope Candace.  Cute, eh?  Imagine going through life with a name like that.  Penny CandyC@

Packard jerked with surprise when Leo suddenly sobbed. He turned, frowning, to the little man who raised his eyebrows and shrugged inside a gold flecked jacket.  Body language for Beats me.  Then the little man smiled weakly at Packard as if ashamed to cheat Leo Meyerson's bitter mood, and offered a handshake.

"I'm Norton Rosengarten.  Call me Wats," he said softly.

Taking his small hand, Packard noted the pink fingers netted with blue veins, the large knobby joints.  A knuckle cracker, he thought.  "Pleased to meet you.  Call me Packard."  The voice was dark, smooth as running sand.

"I was on a first name basis with the unknown soldier," said Wats Rosengarten, squinting behind his thick glasses to test Packard's reaction.

"She has a sisterChad a sister," Leo said wetly.  "They named her Meredith Noel.  Merry Noel, for God's sakeC" He sobbed again, "The son of a bitch cut her ears off.  Oh, God!  Poor Penny." 

"I read about it," Packard said.  "A couple weeks ago, wasn't it?  I heard the county prosecutor's staff is in charge.  Anything turn up yet?"

"No.  They're running around in circles stepping on each other's toes. Oh, God."  Leo Meyerson covered his face with both huge hands, and they rode in silence as the limousine boiled south on the Garden State Parkway toward Atlantic City.

"I'm not sure what Skillman wants me to do," Wats said after awhile.  "Could be health clubs, dressing for success or what to do when your main squeeze says she's moving out.  They picked me up this morning in Secaucus.  I'm on leave from WWORCthat's channel nine, New York.  D'you know New York?  Superstation.  I'm into self absorptionCyou know, why BMW's are out and Jaguar's in, Michael Jackson and Prince are dead meat and Madonna's on her way back to waiting tables.  Shit, look at this tie," he wagged the tail of a flashy cravat, "that's a brie stain.  Put it on there myself.  Shallots and rosemary are in, basil's out.  I'm a trend specialist.  PR's my game.  Channel nine, WWOR.  You've seen it?  Superstation."

On the edge of a doze, Packard opened his eyes.  "Superhustle," he said pleasantly.

Leo Meyerson said, "I'm a Polish jew.  You wonder there's so little accent?  I've been here fifty years, that's why.  Lodz, I came from Lodz."  He pronounced it Ludj, "A city of three and a half million, in 1939 yet!  I was five years old. You know what I remember most from all that horror?  The Nazis had taken over a monastary, and each day they brought people from the ghetto and lined them up for shipment to Auschwitz.  Many brought their dogs with themCwhat else could they do, a beloved pet?  A German officer would take the dogs one by one, and with a needle, a long needle, he would place it here behind the dog's ear and push it into the dog's brain.  It must have been painlessCthe dogs didn't resist or cry out.  They just went limp, dead.

"Yes, Auschwitz.  I was lucky.  You wouldn't think I was lucky if I showed you my scars.  Our whole family wentCnine children, parents, my grandmother.  Two sets of twinsCmy father was a twin, did you know that?  How could you know that?  But it saved my life and that is why I say I was lucky.

"At the camp they had a medical staff that was doing research, genetic research.  Very crude.  Today we would say they were trying to change genetic codesCeye color, complexionCbut science was still twenty years away from DNA.  So they took twins, my father and his brother, an advanced idea for the time. What better controls could there be, each twin undergoing a different treatment, a different experiment?  And they took us too, the children of twins, to find out what was passed on by Nature and what was not.

"You want to know the job they gave me and the other children?  They had drays they would use to stack the bodies on. you've seen them on TV?  They were very large, with wheels six feet in diameter.  I was a wheel blocker, with another boy. We blocked the wheels while men who were still strong enough would swing the corpses between them like a sack of flour up on the wagon.  Then one day the CommandantCHorst was his name, the golem should chew his balls offChe ordered that the men would each day tie four bodies to the wheels.  He did this to make fear and destroy the spiritCas if in all that death, somebody could still have spirit.  One body on each wheel, tied by the wrists and ankles with the arms and legs spread out.  And when the horses pulled the dray, the corpses turned like they were doing cartwheels.

"When the Americans came in 1945, I discovered that my whole family, everyone, was dead.  Only me, I lived.  And Mr. Skillman, the first Mr. SkillmanCJoshua Skillman who has been dead many years nowCnot Arthur, his son who you are going to meet today. He was a captain that led the first company into Auschwitz that wonderful day.  He was the one who found me and took pity on me, a little child then, and put me under his wing.  I stayed with him in Germany for a year, and when he went home he promised to send for me and bring me to America.

"And he did.  He sent for me, and I lived in his home with him and his wonderful wife.  As a child of the family, not as a servant boy, although I would have given my life for them.  Then as a friend, for several years.  On my own I moved out, not by any sign or wish of theirs, but because it was the right thing to do.  They had their own lives to live, didn't they?  They had their own lives to get on with.

"But I never really left, did I?  I've been working for them ever since.  When he found me, I was a naked wild animal starving in Hell, and here I sit today wearing Gucci shoes.  Three hundred fifty dollars, they cost." 

They reached Exit 40, and the limousine curled down a Parkway off ramp onto the main highway into town.  "You will be meeting with Mr. Skillman in person.  Mr. Arthur SkillmanC " Leo Meyerson began.

"Dynamic Arthur Skillman," Wats Rosengarten interrupted.

" Cand there are some things you should know first.  This Arthur Skillman, he didn't get where he is by looking at instruc­tions and going by the book.  True, he inherited a fortune in real estate that his grandfather began to buy up after the first World War, but today in Manhattan, Dallas, Chicago, Atlantic City, Philadelphia, he took the midtown property and put towers on every one of them.  Skyscrapers.  The newest, richest build­ings in your wonderful cities.  People are ready to shoot each other to get office space in any one of them.  Skillman Towers, USA, any city.  It is the American address, and it is Arthur Skillman who built them."

"Dynamic Arthur Skillman," said Wats.

"That's what they call him, all right, the papers and the TV," Leo Meyerson nodded toward the little man, swallowed and loosened his white satin tie.  "Whenever you see his name in print, it's like his first nameCDynamic Arthur Skillman.  Thirty eight years old and six billion in his own pocket that he admits to, probably a lot more in shelters and ancillaries.  He hates wisecrackers and comebackers, and if he hates you, he eats you for lunch and spits out the buttons.  He is the only casino hotel owner who knows how to use entertainment as a marketing tool, and he hasn't made a mistake there yet.  That is my department, and Mr. Packard, you'll report to me.  Remember, when you go in for your interviewC "

"No," Packard said.

Meyerson blinked, his long frame stiffened slightly.  "Excuse me, what do you mean, no?"

"I don't do interviews, and I don't report to anyone but the top man," Packard said evenly.

"ButCbutC "

"I was called for this job because Skillman wants a security specialist on board.  You need a detail man in entertainment because entertainment has a problem outside the house security department.  I'm a detail man.  You contract me, but you don't interview me."

"Excuse my careless remark, Mr. Packard," Meyerson said, sitting up and staring at his expensive shoes.  "A communication lapse, you call it?  What I mean is, the job is yoursCthe interview is not for that.  A get acquainted interview is what it is that Mr. Skillman has in mind.  To get acquainted.  For you and Mr. Rosengarten both."

"And I don't report to you.  No offense," Packard said.

In a few minutes, as the limousine bumped over potholes, passed boarded buildings and empty lots on the North side, Wats Rosengarten said, "Welcome to Gritty City."

Packard nodded, saw it all through narrowed eyes.  Then Wats did a Jimmy Durante.  Ha cha cha.  Maestro, take me home.

The white vinyl and stainless steel facade of Skillman Towers flashed with lights, streamers and banners.  The boardwalk entrance was blocked by union pickets.  Their signs declared that Arthur Skillman was unfair to the local that represented hotel employees in several departmentsCFood & Beverage, Maintenance, Transportation, Security, Sound and Lighting.  As Leo Meyerson tried to lead the others past the line of marchers, a slight man wearing a black trench­coat stepped in front of him.  A large lapel button identified him as a union official.

"Where d'you think you're goin', Mac?"

"ICI work here," the entertainment director stammered.

"You work here, huh?  You work here an' you want to cross a picket line?  What's your local?"

"My local?  WhatCwhat isCwhat local?  What is that, my local?  I am the entertainment director."

"Bobby Shy," Packard said, stepping forward.  "Little Shy, whose shoe did they scrape you off of?"

The pint sized man was shaken.  He stepped back but did not move aside.  "Packard? Packard?  What the hell are you doin' here?"

"I work here, nitwit.  Now get out of the way before I pull your nose off and sell it for dog food."

A pained expression twisted Bobby Shy's face, but he stood his ground.  "Why's it I'm the one to always get the shit dump?"

"Save the routine, I've seen it before," Packard told him.  He searched quickly among nearby faces, "Where's Buehler?  I'm surprised he let you off your leash."

"He's around," the little man squeaked.  "He's in a bad mood, you don't want to see him."

"Are you two doing goon work for this local?"

"We're consultants.  We got a business," said Bobby Shy in an offended tone.

"Uh huh, I know all about your business.  You sell broken arms and legs.  I did business with you onceCyou remember that?"

"Yeah, yeah," the little man said nervously, "but I wasn't a partner then, Packard." He moved aside.

"Tell Buehler I owe him changeCand I've got a little something for you too," Packard said.  "Now you just stay where you are and let us through, Little Shy.  I'm in a bad mood too."

Inside, a guard at the elevator nodded with deference as Leo Meyerson explained the presence of his two guests.  The guard, trained to observe, made mental notes:  Taller one about six feet, late thirties, maybe forty.  Gray slacks, blue blazer under black cashmere topcoat.  Left hand in pocket.  Self contained, controlled movements, flexible and smooth.  Seems capable of sudden, balanced action.  Black hair graying at temples.  Eyes in motion, very dark brown.  Smaller man maybe five eight, five nine, age forty give or take a year.  Gold thread jacket, blue gab slacks, no topcoat.  Herky jerky, talky.  Horn rims, heavy refraction.  Skinny wiry body type.

The penthouse outer office had a twenty foot beamed ceiling. Full length windows overlooked the boardwalk and ocean, and Packard saw that the beach far below was crowded with pre season strollers.  Meyerson had spoken to a secretary whose desk was nearest the gilt scrolled double doors that carried Arthur Skill 

man's name in raised script.  A uniformed Federal Express courier came out jotting on his clipboard and made his way through the busy office to the elevators.  Meyerson told Packard and Wats Rosengarten to make themselves comfortable, Mr. Skillman would see them in a few minutes.  Then Meyerson pieced himself into the crowd and was gone.

The office was filled with desks and girls.  Computer screens winked, fax machines hummed and phones rang.  People bustled in, left papers, picked up folders, talked confidentially with one girl or another.  All seemed to want an audience with Arthur Skillman.

"Some layout," Wats Rosengarten whispered to Packard.  "A God damn United Nations.  Look, there's a sari, and there's a burnoose.  And these girlsCthese secretaries, there're as many Asians and latinos as there are your standard suburban types.  And all centerfolds," he cackled.  "I think maybe I'm coming on as assistant to Meyerson.  I hope so.  Yeah, Skillman's been planning a blockbuster revue.  That Penny Candy girl was supposed to go supernova in it.  A Skillman discoveryCall the way to Hollywood Heaven.  So she's raped and murdered, does that stop him?  No.  Bring on Wats for PR.  Jump right into the entertainment department and find a new girl.  I heard he's got one out in Tahoe already, a sixteen year old who'll blow your shoelaces off for you.  What's with you, Packard?  You haven't taken your hand out of your pocket since you got in the limo.  You holding?  You got a piece in there?  God, did you get a look at that one by the doorsCSkillman's doorsCover there, Packard, damn it!  Loaded and ready to pop.  Watch this."  And Wats Rosengarten was out of his seat, hopping to the desk behind which sat the executive secretary that Leo Meyerson had spoken to.  Packard saw her look up in surprise, eye of amethyst, hair of honey, skin of apricot.  "How's a girl like you get a job like this?  Zugga zugga?"  Wats pumped his fist in the lecher's signal. 

"Brains," said the girl coldly.

"Brains?" Wats echoed doubtfully.  "You got room for brains in that pretty head?"

"How can I help you?" the secretary said.@

Wats clapped his hands, "I'm in love.  I'm giving up all my other women."

"How nice for them."  The secretary clicked a buzzing intercom and turned her back on Wats Rosengarten.  Packard liked her style, noted her name on a desk wedge: N. Verneau.

Unrattled, Wats whispered at the girl's shoulder, "How about you and I party later?  There's plenty wind left in this town, they tell me."

N. Verneau reset her intercom and swiveled to face him, eye to eye.  "There's plenty wind right here."  Then rising, she addressed Packard over the little man's head.  "Mr. Packard, you and Mr. Rosengarten may go in to see Mr. Skillman now," and as he passed her desk, as if speaking offhandedly to herself, "Do it right.  He uses video."

A rhythmic chanting could be heard from far away.  It was the pickets, Packard knew, gathering strength from their anger.  Union troubleClike cancer to the mighty entrepreneur.

3

Inside the office, glass panels lined every inch of wall space, floor to ceiling.  Behind them, glinting in the sunlight that streamed through undraped windows, rose a full, museum quality display of swords and blades.

"Take a few minutes to look them over, gentlemen," said an abused voice that sounded like pebbles in a soup can.  "It's the most comprehensive private collection in the world.  All Revolutionary WarCDutch, German, French, British and American."

Each panel was type grouped.  Packard saw sabers, spadroons, bayonets, hanging swords, broadswords, cuttoes, rapiers, polearms divided by label into halberds, spontoons and pikes.  There were cutlasses, linstocks and partizans, and crossed handknives grouped into dirks, sgian dubhs, daggers, fascine knives and pocket knives.  Spike axes, tomahawks and poll axes stepped up the wall behind a massive desk that dominated the office.

"All dated, as nearly as the historians and librarians can guess, and all noted for nation of origin.  Many of them are hallmarked, and we can trace whole sections to the very forge and artisan who made them.  Bladed armsCmy passion, gentlemen," said the rattling voice.  "You're looking at 1600 edges.  Sliced bacon and chopped heads to make this country free.  I know all about edges, gentlemen, I want to see the edge and be the edge.  My name is Skillman, boys, I own this place."

Packard shook a bony, damp hand, surprised by the strength of the grip, for Skillman seemed slender and slightly built.  He wore a tailored business suit of dark worsted, faintly striped.  The lavender cravat was clearly silk, pulled down now, its knot sitting below an unbuttoned shirt collar.  There was a quality of comfort and ease about him, Packard judged, of a life curried in swan's down.  A rash mottled his face.  He scratched it absently, flashing an oversised signet ring.

"Take those two chairs there," Skillman directed, pointing to chrome and leather seats on the customer's side of his desk.  "And once you're seated, please don't move the chairs."  He sat down himself and picked up an unopened FedEx package small enough to fit in the palm of his hand.  He toyed with it as he waited. 

Packard quickly located three television cameras at ceiling level, fixed inside the blade display panels.  All three were aimed at the chairs.  A red eye winked on the full face shot high above Arthur Skillman's desk.

"Don't let that camera distract you, Mr. Packard," said the young executive.  "I videotape all my business transactions, and all my business transactions are done right here.  It's an idiosyncracy that serves all parties equally well, as you will see."

Packard shrugged.  "No problem.  I don't distract."

"Good, then let's get on with it," Skillman smiled, putting the little package aside.  His eyes, small and close set, swiftly reviewed papers in a manila folder that lay on his desk.  "Norton Rosengarten.  It says here you're called Wats.  College.  Accounting.  RCA in Camden, switched to PR.  Explain, please."

"ICuh, weC, the accounting department was always called in to conference the new product review with R&D, Mr. Ski­llman, sir.  I found it was natural and easy for me to generate original ideas to get the new stuff out in front of the public.  After awhile, the company moved me over full time to advertising and PR."  Wats stopped and fidgeted with his hands.

"From there to agency work, layouts and copyCI saw the portfolio you submitted.  You're good.  From there to newspapers and TV.  Then WWOR.  Bachelor, never married.  Likes the girls, it says here."  Skillman leaned back in his chair, made a steeple of his fingers and examined Wats Rosengarten as if waiting for an explanation.  But before Wats could fish out a neutral comment, Arthur Skillman stood up and offered a handshake.  "I like it, Rosengarten.  An obsessive mind always lets me know where to look for it.  I hate surprises.  This job needs a man who likes girls.  Glad to have you on board."

Now Packard saw Skillman's brain double clutch into another gear.

"And you Mr. PackardCanthropology, sociology, criminology, US Marines.  Your given name is Noah.  You listen to music every chance you get.  You are licensed by the state to do armed security work, although you don't carry a gun.  You carry a bladeCI like that," he smiled.  "You were a campus radical.  You served time on active duty in combat.  Married and divorced.  You've had trouble finding a path for yourself."

"I was moved by irresistable forces," Packard said.

"Then you must be a movable object," Skillman sat down again, canted his head.

"I do what nature demands."

"Then you are not in control, Mr. Packard.  Now, me, you'll find that I am the immovable object and the irresistable force."

"Sounds like bowel trouble to me."

Skillman's eyes widened a little and Wats Rosengarten increased the tempo of his fidgeting.  The executive picked up a pencil, and the spring in his chair creaked as he let his weight all the way back.  He lobbed the pencil from hand to hand.  "I don't like smart asses, Mr. Packard.  I should've thought Leo Meyerson would mention that to you."

"He did."  Packard leaned forward and spoke with a sound of sincerity, "Did you ever hear of a wimrat, Mr. Skillman?"

"A what?"  Arthur Skillman, who did not like surprises, found his suddenly defensive position unpleasant.

"A wimrat.  He's a muckslime little animal who eats shit and shits perfumeCsort of a living double negative, if you get my drift.  And it takes a trained eye and a lot of experience to recognize him for what he is, because at first he seems helpful and inoffensive.  But he's there to fool you, Mr. Skillman.  It's the perfume that does itCmakes you think he's all perfume.  It clouds your mind.  I believe he must be hiding under your fancy Oriental rug here, because he's in this room with us right now."

Skillman narrowed his eyes.  "Speak plainer, Mr. Packard," he said, his gravelly voice cracking into unintentional sylla­bles.

"All right.  I don't work for you and I don't know if I want to work for you, so you might as well leave off talking to me as if I do.  Until I'm on your payroll, it doesn't matter to me whether you like smart asses or not.  I figure you must be in a lot of trouble if you thought to call me in.  Either that, or you need credibil­ity.  There are plenty of security specialists you could have called, but you called me because you checked me out.  You know what I do, and that's what you need.  I'm assuming you have my rundown in that folder on your desk, so you know I'm fast and usually right the first time.  I don't make costly mistakes.  I don't drink, smoke or fool with women.  I speak the truth as soon as I know what it is.  I make all my own decisions because my reputation is my only ticket to the next assignment."  Packard settled back into his chair again.  "So don't feed the wimrat.  Keep in mind what he eats."

Arthur Skillman was silent for a long time.  He pulled the small FedEx package toward him that lay on his desk and fingered it around the blotter.  The only sound they heard was the raucous bray of gulls as they dropped clams to the street far below.  Then quietly, without looking at his notes, he said, "You nearly lost a hand in Desert StormCthe one you keep in your pocket."   

Wats Rosengarten froze as he watched Packard withdraw his hand and hold it up.  His eyes fixed on the glove.  "Jesus Christ," he muttered with relief, "I thought you were gonna pull out a hook or something."

"It's never been right since then," Packard said, "and it keeps getting reinjured.  There's a union goon out front on the boardwalk right now who did it this last time.  Couple months ago.  Another case.  While we're on that subject, you ought to know it looks like the union brought in some bad guys to raise the heat on you.  They like to hurt people.  Your negotiators should start paying some attention."

Arthur Skillman said, "I don't respond to intimidation, Packard."

"But you have to be aware of the effort.@    

The executive waved him off, "My labor problems don't concern you. What I want from you is simple.  There's already three million invested in my new revue.  I'm sure you heard that my star was murdered last weekCPenny CasonCthat's sad, I know, and the police are working on it, but I can't afford another delay.  We're scheduled to open in mid June.  That's about six weeks from now, which means maybe four weeks of real rehearsal time left.  Meyerson can do it if he gets the right girl to replace Penny Cason.  I personally picked up a line on a girl out in Tahoe, and my people out there tell me she's right for the spot.  She's a sixteen year old prodigy who dances like Reinking and sings like Celine Dion.  She calls herself Mardy Arabica.  I want you to go out there with Rosengarten and bring her back here. Meyerson is taking care of the contract business.  You'll be in charge of her personal security until the show opens because I don't intend to risk any more money on the whim of a rape murderer.  Rosengarten, you'll use the time with her to get background.  This is your baby, and I want you to develop a campaign we'll use to blitz the media.  We've lost more than Penny Cason, we've lost the momen­tum, the buildup.  Consider this a job offerCyou'll be on payroll.  Packard, you won't.  This will be a one shot deal, I'm hiring a service.  You're Mardy Arabica's bodyguard.  Figure up your price, plus expenses and whatever perks you want, as long as they're reasonable, and give it to my secretary.  She already knows the range I'm willing to work in.  Both of you, are you clear on this?"  Satisfied that his business was concluded, Arthur Skillman picked up the small package from his desk as if really seeing it for the first time.  He tore at the wrapping impatiently.

Packard nodded agreement.  He liked bodyguard assignments. They were his specialty.  Clean, straightforward, single objective.  He had never lost a client yet, though there had been some near misses and close scrapes.  This oneCnursing a sixteen year old promised to be easy.

Wats started to chatter his appreciation for the confidence shown in him and the opportunity to join so solid an organiza­tion, when they were both startled by a gasp from Skillman.

"OhCgood God!  Sweet JesusC " He leaped from his chair and backed away from the desk.

Packard reached over and shook the contents out of the little box.  A clear plastic sandwich bag fell onto the plate glass.  He opened the bag and turned it over.  Two fleshy knobs plopped to the desk.

"YechCGod, does that stink," Wats said, screwing his face up in disgust.  "What is itCtheyCthem?"

"Ears," Packard said softly.

"Ears?  Ears!" Wats gagged.  He moaned, "Holy shitC "

"Penny Cason's ears," Skillman said, his eyes wide.

"One of them, maybe," Packard told him.

"One of them? WCwaddya mean, one of them?" Wats squeaked, hopping toward the desk, then back again.

Meeting Skillman's dumbstruck stare, Packard said, "They're both right ears."

4

"So this funeral guest is offering condolences to the widow, see?  Woman to woman," said Wats Rosengarten, "and the widow is lamenting, saying how wonderful her husband had been. 'He had only one peculiarity, the sweet man,' says the widow.  'Only one peculiarity?' asks the guest, 'Dear lady, you don't know how fortunate you've been.  And what was that peciliarity, my dear, if you don't mind telling?'  'He'd eat nothing but dog food,' says the widow, 'forty years married, and nothing but dog food.'  'Oh,' says the guest, 'now that is peculiar, all right.  Still, it is the kind of peculiarity that did no harm to anyone else.  Tell me, dear lady, what did the poor man die of?'  'A broken neck,' says the widow.  'A broken neck?' says the guest, very surprised.  'And tell me, if you can bear it, how did the poor man come to break his neck?'  'Why, he fell off the sofa one night while he was licking his balls,' says the widow."  Wats squirmed to face Packard.  "Hah?  Hah?  A good one, hah?"

Packard, laughing loudly, noticed the chauffeur check him out in the rear view mirror.  After encouraging Wats to keep working on his material, he leaned forward and tapped the driver's shoulder, asked his name. 

"Bolivar Acuna, sir.  Slide, they call me.  Mr. Skillman, he calls me Bolivar.  He grinned, showing a pleasant, amiable face.

"Thanks, Slide. I took notice of you this morning when you got us into town through all that Sunday traffic.  We'll be together for the duration, you know. You can call me Packard.@

"I can call you Boss, if you like, or Mr. Packard. Mr. Skillman, he has rules. He says I'm your driver whenever you need one."

"Good.  We'll be moving around some for the next couple days," Packard told him.  "Stay close."  Reminded of something, he fished in a pocket, pulled out a small box, then a card.  He held the box out to Wats Rosengarten.  "Grab this a minute, will you?"

Wats recoiled.  "Jesus Christ, Packard, that's the fuckin' ears, isn't it?  Put it down on the seat."  He wrinkled his lips with revulsion.

The writing on the card was tight and neat.  It read,

Good work.  I was listening in.  There's more

to it than Mr. Skillman let on.  Penny Cason

was a good friend.  Call me tonight, I have

information that may help.

Under the phone number, the note was signed Nile Verneau.

Packard read the message again, slipped into his hand by the secretary as he had left Arthur Skillman's office.  It figures, he thought, the wimrat was in there with us.

Bolivar pulled the limo into a blacktop driveway and parked next to a Mercedes behind some evergreens that shielded a flat brick building from the highway.

"I already picked out my professional name," Wats Rosengart­en was saying.  "I mean for when my act is ready.  When you do a single, you put yourself on the line every time you go out there, know what I mean?  Hardy HarrCthat's the name.  Hardy Harr.  Great, huh?  You know, Hardy Harr, like the way Jackie Gleason used to laugh on the Honeymooners showChar de har?"

But Packard was thinking and didn't answer the little man. He got out of the limousine with the box in his hand.  "We've got two right ears here.  That means for sure there's another body somewhere.  We've got one body with both ears removed.  If the killer took both ears from each victim, where are the left ears?  Why did he choose the right ears to send to Skillman?"  He strode quickly as he mused.  "There were two killings like this one down in Georgia years agoCthe papers called them the Digital Murders.  Rape killings with the ears cut off.  No connection to each other, seemed like.  One each in two towns on opposite sides of the state.  Isle of Hope, just outside Savanna­h.  That's where Hunter Air Force Base is.  And a place called Hatcher, about ten miles from the Alabama state line."

Wats skipped to catch up to Packard who was hurrying toward the brick building.  "So?"

"So, the Skillman headquarters are in Atlanta."

It took a few seconds to sink in, then Wats stopped short.  "For Christ's sake, Packard, you're not saying Arthur Skillman had anything to do with it, are you?"  He galloped forward to Packard's side.  "How do you know all this, anyway?" he whined, a slick of irritation on his voice.

"You have to do your job to do your job," Packard answered.  "Research.  When Meyerson first called me, I called my friends.  And yes, I'm not saying Skillman had anything to do with this.  I'm not saying anything.  Right off, it's not my jobCit's a police job.  My job is bodyguard.  You heard it yourself."

"Then what are we doing here?"  Wats pointed to a small sign at the building's entrance: ATLANTIC COUNTY MORGUE.  In smaller letters below, P. Poole, M.E. was painted.

"Delivering these for Skillman," Packard said, holding up the ear box.  "I suppose the law requires it.  Evidence.  We're just the errand boys."

When they entered the building, a girl in a white smock stopped them.  She had a marzipan complexion, and her heels clacked on the tiled floor.  "It's Sunday, we're closed.  What is it you want?"

"My name's Packard, I called aheadCwas it you I spoke to?  This is official business.  I want to see Dr. Poole."

"He's not here.  It's Sunday."

Packard felt a tug on his sleeve.  Wats Rosengarten said softly, "Look, uh, I don't think I should be here.  Why don't I just have Slide take me back to the casino and I'll get started on the flight arrangements for TahoeC "

"He is here," Packard told the girl firmly.  "That's his Mercedes outside."  He pulled his gloved hand from its pocket and gestured broadly toward the parking lot.  "Shall I call the prosecutor's office?"

The girl coughed, wiped her mouth with a tissue and tossed the crumpled paper into a soapstone urn circled by a pewter ring. Several of these were set about the lobby, perched on parsons tables of walnut veneer.  The girl's gaze followed Packard's injured hand in its dramatic sweep.  "Maybe he came in while I was out to lunch," she said uncertainly.  "Please waitCI'll go see."  She turned and clicked off down a darkened hallway.

"You know anything about the Skillman family?" Packard asked Wats.

"They have a lot of money."

"I don't mean that.  There's a widowed mother who lives in a manor house on an old estate.  Meyerson told us about herCthe Captain's wife.  The place is in the woods, Belleplain Forest, in Cumberland County about an hour from here."

"So?"

"They've got villas and chalets half the world over.  Why the hell would she live in a toxic cesspool like New Jersey?"  Packard asked it like a statement.

Wats made a face to express confusion, "You want to make an issue over where somebody chooses to live?"

"No, but it attracts my attention.  When the water moves, I know there's something swimming underneath."

The girl in the white smock returned and stood before them nervously.  Her smock was damp, dotted with coins of blood that blurred at the edges.  "Dr. Poole just came in a few minutes ago.  He told me to say he'd see you if you want."

Unable to tolerate the smell of formaldehyde, Packard dug a cigar from his breast pocket, and with his teeth and the fingers of his good right hand, skillfully stripped the cellophane.  Following the girl, he fiercely puffed clouds of smoke, snapped the Zippo shut.  "She lies," he whispered to Wats.

"She lies?" squealed the little man.  "You didn't call ahead like you told her, and you said to Mr. Skillman that you didn't smoke. That=s two on you."

Packard shrugged, "Whatever it takes."  He pushed the stainless steel plates that sheathed the double doors of the lab that sat at the end of the girl's pointing finger.

Pete Poole loved his work, though he would admit it to no one.  Senior medical examiner for Atlantic County, he preferred above all else to work alone in the humid autopsy lab surrounded by the silent material of his trade.  An inexhaustible inventory, he would ponder, and never a change in the model.  Dug into the forest floor, his morgue sat but a few feet above the Cohansey aquifer whose trillions of gallons of pure fresh water would one day slake the thirst of North Jersey and lower New York.  Poorly planned, the construction allowed the water to percolate through cement block and brick, till saturating the walls, it gave way to its forces and broke in rills, bleeding down the surface to puddle on the floor below.  Now, leaning over a female cadaver, Poole probed, scuffed at its curly pubic herald.  In a voice surprisingly mellow and deep for his lanky crane's body, he said, "What I've discovered in my life, though it never ceases to amaze me, is that favors are like fruit fliesCthey multiply every seven days."  He straightened and turned, "And pretty soon, you've got nothing left but favors.  Favors eat friendship.  Tell me it ain't soCbut I feel a favor coming on."  Lifting a steaming cup from its seat on the corpse's chest, he sipped gingerly.  "Tea, anyone?"

Packard let the doors hiss shut and stepped out of the darkened perimeter.  Wats Rosengarten hung back.  "You like the seats?" Packard asked.

"They were great," Pete Poole replied.  "Thanks for the tickets.  I wanna tell you, that Hatton, he's a first class fighter.”

"He's hot, all right, maybe a little stiff.  I mean, lacks upper body mobility.  A good left hooker would give him a problem," Packard said.  "Ike would've snuffed him."  Packard referred to Ike Williams, a destructive, infallible champion of days past.

"Ike, Ike, Ike.  All I ever hear from you is Ike.  Haven't you heard, athletes are better these days?  I understand Ike was shining shoes in Trenton," Pete Poole said mockingly, Aand died in a bathtub.@

"He moved like silk and hit like thunder.  Nobody ever saw anything like it," Packard pushed his point.

The medical examiner smiled, put his teacup back on the cadaver's chest.  "We go back a long way," he said to a pale Wats Rosengarten, then promptly ignored him.  "Did I thank you for the tickets, Packard?  I'm surprised to see you here, how's the hand?  You need a favor, maybe?"

Packard said, "We'll see.  Meantime, here's another surprise for you, and I'd like you to receipt it, please."  He handed the box to Pete Poole.  "I see you're still working on Penny Cason," he nodded toward the corpse, which he saw lacked its ears.

Poole made a little shrug, "Is that her name?  Forensics took the clothes for spectrometry readingsC "

"Was she raped?" Packard interrupted.

"I don't know if she was raped, but she sure was fucked," answered Poole.  "Sperm in the vagina, on the thighs.  He had a good time.  Look at this."  He removed his teacup, set in on a chipped porcelain table, then roughly flipped Penny Cason onto her stomach.  With both gloved hands, he spread her plump blue nates.  "Anal sphincter mutilated."

"Jesus Christ," groaned Wats Rosengarten as Packard clamped hard on his cigar.

"Fuck heaven," Poole grunted, turning the body onto its back again.  "A cut freak, a psychopath."

"Look in the box, Pete," Packard said.

Poole did as his friend suggested, shook the ears into a palm.  "What's this, some kind of joke?" he grinned sourly.  "You got two right ears here."

"No, you got two right ears here," Packard said.  "They were delivered to Arthur Skillman this morning. That's Skillman Towers Skillman.  I'm out of it.  So when you report it to the prosecutor=s office, be sure you mention that.  And if they send Haven or DeBenedetto to question him, tell them to dress nice, they'll be on Candid CameraCSkillman videotapes everything that happens in his office.  Haven and DeBenedetto are still with the county?"

Pete Poole continued to frown at the ears, flip fingering them like a skilled card dealer in one palm.  "There's been a reorganization.  I'm surprised you don't know that.  On second thought, why should I be surprisedCyou farting around up there in Essex and Bergen."

"Those counties aren't afraid to acknowledge security problems.  You guys here in Atlantic seem to have eliminated them.  I have to go where the business is," Packard grinned.

"Tell me about the Candid Camera."

"Tell me about the reorganization."

Now Pete Poole grinned, returned the ears to their box and sipped his tea.  In his deep rolling voice, he said, "Narcotics, criminal investigation and arson are now a single unit.  Shapiro is commander and DeBenedetto is his sub.  Haven's been moved to a special prosecution section for investigation and gathering of intelligence on organized crime.  Electronic surveillance, economic crime, fugitive and extraditionCthey're all separate units now, with their own commanders.  We even have a captain of county investigators, and he has a lieutenant."

"New layers. Reorganization always puts in new layers of fat for the little man to swim through," Packard shook his head.

With a glance at Wats Rosengarten as if deciding he was OK, Pete Poole swept a flask from under his lab coat, sloshed his tea against the cementblock wall where it blended palely with the seeping groundwater, poured three gurgles into the cup and held the cup out to Packard.  "Spiced gin.  I peppered it myself."

Packard stepped forward and snatched the flask from the medical examiner's hand.  He slugged one down, then two more, wiped his mouth.  "You use the cup.  It's been sitting on corpses all dayC " He heard a declining whisper, Fuck this, and turned to see Wats Rosengarten leave through the double doors.

"Corpses?" Poole said dreamily.  "Shit, I've got doctors, lawyers, stumblebums and shopkeepers here.  Last week they were all screwing, complaining and making plans, each with a highly individual personality.  Now they're all dogmeat.  Over there, see those three coolers on the end? A housewife, a whore and a hairdresser.  We're saving them, know why?  They were gutted.  I'm not obliged to tell you anything, you know, but they were killed by the same guy.  Not your guy.  The tracheas weren't touchedCthat's unusual in your average informed disembowling.  The iliac arteries were severed in all three.  The ileum, that's the small intestine, in case you forgotCfully or partially removed, and the uterus mutilated.  All three.  Except for some minor irregularities, they're like kitchen table hysterectomies." Poole laughed, swilled his gin.  "We're common denominatoring here, lowest possible reduced fraction.  We got crime here, my man, crime.  We got a meat cutter, a God damn butcher.  And you bring me ears?  Don't make me laugh."

"Right ears," Packard reminded his friend.  "The favor I need, is that after you do your protein analysis or cell section or culture or whatever the hell it is you do with ears, call me first.  First, you hear?  Any time.  The sooner the better.  I'm staying at Skillman Towers.  I've got to fly out to Lake Tahoe in a day or twoC "

The noisy doors interrupted Packard and the pasty skinned lab assistant came in, brushing at her blood flecked smock.  Now, before Packard's stunned eyes, Pete Poole reached for a pair of anvil headed garden pruners and clipped off eight of Penny Cason's fingers at the minor phalanges, dropped them into a plastic bag and handed them to the waiting assistant.  Seeing his friend's ashen face, he said, "Sorry about that.  Forensics needs them for skin and hair samples.  Under the nails. You know what I'm talking about," he raised his shoulders, made a sappy grin.

Before he turned to leave, Packard noticed that the troughs edging Penny Cason's table, usually stained by the runoff, had no blood in them, and the basin held no gleaming pool.

*

Braking gently to merge with Rt. 30 traffic, Bolivar said, "Mr. Meyerson showed up at the morgue while I was waitin'.  He wanted to go in to see Miss Penny, but he couldn't get up the nerve."

Packard grunted, "It's a good thing he didn't.  She was in no shape for visitors."

Crouched under a fine watery haze, Atlantic City was grinding up for nighttime action as the limo pulled into town. Wats Rosengar­ten said, "You gettin' it on with Skillman's secretary?  I saw her pass something to you when we left the office."

"I don't fool with women," Packard told him.

"Sure," Wats said sullenly, "just like you don't smoke or drink."

5

Nile Verno lookin very good to me   Its ashame but I will probly have to do her   But not like the others because, its not part of the plan   I mean not ashame becaus I have to do her but ashame because its not part of the plan   I think shes puttin her nose wher it dont belong   It dont matter but maybe I will have to do her different

Despite her best efforts, Nile Verneau's eyes filled with tears.  She was soggy with wine.  "Love lay in my way and I found it."

Packard didn't want to hear her true confessions.  He was dry, long day weary.  It was his experience that drunks missed the point, could not find the point, or strayed from the point.  He stared out of the windows of the revolving penthouse lounge toward Atlantic City's crumpled skyline, then turned back to the table, carefully cradled the stem of a glass with his good hand and drew the perfumed Tanqueray toward him.  "I appreciate your confidenceCtelling me all this, I mean, but I was saying that murder's a liesure time activity.  It's usually done while the killer is doing something else.  I say usually, because you'll always have your professionals and your revenge killers.  And your psychos.  You have to understand, if Penny Cason's killer is a psycho, he fears capture because it means exposure, not punishment.  If he's a psycho, he'll drop a hint now and then because it heats up his game, but he keeps himself hidden so that only his victims get a look at him.  He could never bring himself to confess.  He's a cracked pot, he's trapped in confu­sion, he's in a world of competing fears and murder is medicine for his suffering."  Packard smiled, "How am I doing so far?"

"You're saying Penny knew who he was?" Nile Verneau asked, her brain roused but two steps out of sync.  "No," she shook her head vigorously and a tear flew splashing into the cup of spiced sauce that sat in front of her surrounded by the bright cellu­loid of shrimp casings.  "That would mean she had an enemy, wouldn't it, someone who knew her?  SheCshe didn't have an enemy in the world!" she sobbed softly.  "It had to be a robber, a stranger."

"Nothing was taken," Packard told her.

"How do you know?" the secretary's eyes flashed.

"The apartment was undisturbedCthat's what the papers said.  You'll see, when the police report comes out, that's what it will say too."

"No, no," Nile Verneau cried and shook her head.

"Don't you think it's time you gave me your information?"

"Call me by my name."

"What?"

The girl straightened in her seat, sighed and resettled on a tilt.  "Call me by my name.  You treat me as if I'm sitting here in the third person."

Packard blinked, tried to remember.  "Have I been doing that?  I'm sorry.  Miss Verneau."

"Miss Verneau, yes.  But call me Nile.  Say it."

"Nile."

"Now that wasn't so hard, was it?" the secretary smiled brightly.  "Penny Cason and I were roommates in collegeC Douglass, in New Brunswick, New Jersey.  That's where Rutgers used to keep its females."  She stopped, glared languidly at Packard, her brows faintly pulled down to suggest a darker mood.

"Don't blame me, I don't have anything to do with Rutgers.  I'm for the ERA," Packard said defensively.

"She has a sister."

"I know.  Merry Noel.  Leo Meyerson mentioned it.  He said, on that last day, when Penny was in such a hurry to get home, he said she spoke of a date and that she had to call her sister.  I'm sure the detectives have talked to her by now.  So?"

"Skillman, Arthur Skillman," said Nile Verneau.

Packard couldn't hold his placid tone.  It slipped from his control and cracked with irritation.  "For God's sake, what about Arthur Skillman?"

"He didn't tell you about Merry."  She began to scratch inside her handbag.

A gear shifted in Packard's head, and he found himself cruising someplace behind his professional self.  It was a nice place to be, affording him a way to observe that other self as it gathered momentum and worked riddles that touched his assignment. He could look to the right or left.  He could determine if the Penny Cason killing presented earnest complications that might relate to Mardy Arabica.  As he watched Nile Verneau through the muffling steam of her chatter, watched her lips move, her brow rise and fall, he wondered if her readiness to bring Arthur Skillman into the picture was red herring or true meat.  Into overdrive now, Packard hardly heard her voice, gave no attention to a snapshot she was holding toward him.  He finished his gin and ordered another, now, ah now, sensing a reason for his shifting gears.  Phoning Nile Verneau and inviting her for a late drink and snackCgrazing, she had called itChad been impru­dent. 

Slide had dropped him at the apartment building, a new beachfront hi rise, also a Skillman project, and waited.  At the door, in a hallway muted with ruby carpeting and cypress paneling, Packard was unprepared to find himself admitted by a stranger.  The girl, slender and as tall as he, led him into a richly furnished living room colored in deep violets and shades of blue.  Porcelain figurines were on every surface and the room was pleasantly crowded with healthy plants.  In a corner sat a thick bodied woman, her back to the door, driving a powerful sewing machine.

The tall girl wore unpinned hair that hung to her waist.  It was, as she herself seemed, dry and brittle, ripe with electrici­ty and strung with enough gray to suggest the final departure of youth.  "Hi, I'm Sal Parasido, Nile's roomie."  She offered her hand, "And you're her date.  She described you perfectly."  Her long, graceful nose, thin lips and small close set eyes all smiled at once. 

Packard had accumulated whatever experience he needed to understand what described you perfectly meant.  Descriptions always began with the broadest discriminations: tall/short, fat/thin, blond/dark, young/old, and moved downscale to the

subtle emanations that were more personal impression than they were graphicC attitude, personality, disposition, character.  These ornamentations didn't concern Packard; he knew what his perfect description usually described: his habit of aloof self containment, perhaps the injured hand kept in a pocket. As he flexed the hand, he noticed that the seamstress, now turned in her chair, watched him with bright darting eyes.

"Oh," chirped Sal Parasido, "so sorry.  This is Mary Romanovich, Mr. Meyerson's wardrobe person.  Mary, this is Nile's friend, Mr. Pickens. "

"Packard."

"Whatever," Sal giggled gaily.

Imprudent, Packard pondered, because inessential details were like chromatic Swiss bells, each catching overtones in sympathy with others till the true pitch was shrouded with false suggestions trapped in the ear.  His rule had always been Keep it simple, but Nile Verneau had screwed that up by flashing her blood magnet.  Now two strangers had seen him off his own turf.  In unfamiliar context that allowed them to think of him as part of their experience.  It was a passive role.  It displeased him because he could not control it.  And because Nile Verneau was at the center of it, she displeased him too.

" Ctaxonomer and librarian.  That's for tapes and also books.  I mean the videotapes from his office, of course I review them myself for content, and the library out at the Belleplain house.  His mother's place.  She's sort of an invalid, poor thing, mostly stays in a wheelchair.  You know about the house, right?"  She still held the snapshot for Packard to take.

"I'm sorry, I was daydreaming," he said, accepting the photo by its edges.  "What's that about taxonomer?"

"What's wrong with you, Packard?" the girl griped.  "Merry.  There, the picture in your handCPenny Cason's sister, she's Arthur Skillman's taxonomer and librarian.  She also does a lot of the validating and classifying of his stupid sword collection. And, I just told you, his videotapes too.  She's put everything in a computer file, including the estate library.  Don't tell me you've never heard of the Skillman library."

Squinting, Packard was able to materialize a face out of the muddy lights and shadows of the print in his fingers.  It took a minute, but then recognition sprang sharply into focus.  "Sure, this is a picture of Penny Cason.  I saw the cuts the papers ran on her story.  And this is you, in the shadow here."

The secretary frowned and shook her head.  "You haven't heard a word I've said.  You shouldn't drink, Packard.  It may raise your mood, but it sure lowers your consciousness.  That's Merry in the snapshot.  Penny took the picture."

Packard angled it for better light, "They certainly look alike."

"I know.  When they were younger, people often got them mixed up."

"Uh huh," Packard said, studying the photograph, "what people?"

Before she could answer, Nile Verneau had to turn to listen to a room captain's quiet inquiry.  He handed her a portable phone, took a step back with a slight bow.  A pianist played a Lionel Ritchie ballad with cascading runs around a sweet melody.  In a minute, after some indistinguishable muttering, the secretary blanched, crushed her napkin in a tense fist.  The phone dropped from her hand, cracking a heavy restaurant plate.