He realized suddenly that Carol McCloud was sitting very still-looking at him, unblinking.

She said, “You went away for a minute there.”

“Trying to figure you out.”

It brought her smile again-slightly crooked, slightly turned against herself in some sort of distant irony. She said, “That would be a useless pursuit.”

He got to his feet. “You don’t want to talk about those shares of stock, I gather.”

“It’s such a dull, dry subject, isn’t it?”

“Unless money turns you on.”

She had a nice laugh, low in her throat; her eyelids drooped just a bit, and she said, “Oh, don’t make that mistake-I think a lot about money, Mr. Hastings.”

“Russ,” he said suddenly.

“Russ.”

He went halfway to the door, and turned to look at her. She hadn’t moved in her seat. She was watching him with that same directness. He said abruptly, “Have dinner with me?”

He had no way of anticipating what she might answer. Her smile changed; she tipped her head toward him, the fall of her hair swaying. She was one of the most exquisite creatures he had ever seen.

After a while she said, “It might not be a good idea.”

“I didn’t mean to step on anybody’s toes.”

“Not that. But I don’t think I want to-” Whatever she had meant to say, she didn’t finish it; instead, she tossed her head quickly, her eyes flashed at him with some kind of sudden resolution, and she said in a different voice, “It might be fun.”

“Tonight?”

“Why not?”

He found himself grinning; he said, “I’ll pick you up at seven-thirty.”

“It will be better if I meet you at the restaurant,” she said.

“Fine. The Bourgogne suit you? Eight o’clock?”

She nodded; the smile was quizzical now, speculative. Still grinning, Hastings went out. Halfway to the elevator he realized he was almost loping. He hadn’t felt this good in months.

5. Mason Villiers

Villiers stepped out of the rickety old elevator and walked the length of a narrow hallway. He knocked at a door and looked at his watch-just short of two-thirty. He stood without patience waiting for the door to open. Sometimes it was an irritant to him, his sexual imprisonment: he needed women frequently-sometimes two or three times in a day, when he was tense with the pressures of corporate juggling.

He knocked again and put his ear close to the door. He could hear the rapid clicking of a typewriter. Finally it stopped, and after a moment he heard Naomi’s voice, close to the door, husky and cross: “Who is it?”

“Mace.”

“Who?”

“Mace Villiers.”

She opened up, and hands impudently on hips, cocked her head to glare. “I’m in the middle of a chapter. Why didn’t you telephone?”

“Ran out of small change. Anyhow, a telephone’s always long distance.”

“You Goddamned sex maniac.” She looked him up and down with slow insinuation and stepped back to let him in.

She was a small, tight-packed, spider-waisted girl, fluffy and blond. She had huge china-blue eyes and a soft, heavy mouth. She wore a yellow dress, not quite chic because it had strong-seamed darts around the bustline to clothe her unfashionably big, plump young breasts, which bobbed and jiggled when she moved ahead of him into the large studio apartment.

Villiers pushed the door shut, indifferent to the surroundings, looking at the girl with desire.

The typewriter was on a small desk by the window. On the sill were dozens of teen-age girls’ novels, pointedly displayed, all by the same author: Naomi Kemp.

Villiers said, trying to put some show of interest in his voice, “What are you working on?”

“A simpering book about a prissy nurse. As if you gave a shit. Really, Mace, you could have picked a better time of day to come charging in.”

“I’m on my way downtown.”

“And that explains the whole thing? You just dropped in on your way to Wall Street for a quick bang?”

“That’s right,” he said, without humor.

“You’re a one-of-a-kind original, Mace. Don’t you know there’s a speed limit in this town?”

“If the idea doesn’t appeal to you,” he said, and turned to the door.

“You’re pitching low and inside,” she complained, and then blurted, “Come back here. You know you turn me into cream pudding. Can’t I be sore for a minute first? I haven’t seen you in months. Not even a postcard.”

“I’ve never sent a postcard in my life.” But then he smiled at her. “What would you want with a postcard from a man who was too far away to stick it in you?”

“You’ve got a foul mouth,” she said. “No shit.”

He peeled back his cuff to look at his wrist. “I haven’t got a lot of time.”

“You motherfucking bastard,” Naomi said, and stripped off her dress. He could see dark fluff in the translucent crotch of her nylon panties. She wore no stockings. She unfastened her brassiere, leering at him, doing a stripper’s bumps and grinds; she rubbed her back where the bra straps had welted her. He watched unblinking, savoring the milky full richness of her breasts. They were warm, red-brown-tipped; her body was the kind boys conjured up in adolescent masturbatory fantasies. Her breasts were so engorged, so thrustingly assertive, that it was never possible to look at her or think of her without focusing on them. Naked, she kept her arms wide of those proud organs, as if they were swollen to the point of tender soreness.

The bed, made up for the day with divan throw pillows, waited against the wall. He came to her beside it. She surged her warm breast up full into his palm, meeting his eyes with a sensual smile and quickened breath; she unzipped his fly and put her hand in. He clutched her breast and slid his left hand up her naked back to her neck, and pulled her forward for a kiss. Her lips were moist and parted; she sucked his tongue in her mouth. Her hand caressed his huge muscle-rippled shaft, thick and hard with pumping blood.

She drew back from his kiss and whispered, “You bastard, haven’t you even got time to take your clothes off? Never mind the window-let the voyeurs watch if that’s how they get their jollies. At least take your Goddamn pants off.”

She undid his belt buckle and the fly fastener of his trousers, and laughed at him when they fell down around his ankles. He kicked them away, shrugged out of his suit jacket, and pushed her down on the bed. He came down upon her, his fierce mouth on hers. Her arms came around him; her tongue probed him, her hands glided over his buttocks. He bent his head to suckle her soft white breasts. His rigid hot phallus brushed her thighs and found her ready moistness and thrust into her, lunging. She clung to him furiously, sweat-slick and arching herself ecstatically. He plunged and twisted, a hungry strong animal, mauling her around the narrow bed. As her flesh beneath him began its anguished tumultuous throes of completion, he was thinking of tomorrow night, his dinner date with Diane Hastings. Then his own excitement quickened, and he spurted himself into her. A shuddering sigh, and she clutched him tight, her eyes closed, her fingernails sharp against his back, scratching through the silk of his shirt.

Tension went out of his fibers. He lay across her, limp, feeling the rise and fall of her breathing under him. After a moment he got up.

She opened her eyes and frowned. He went into the bathroom, spent two minutes, and came out again to put on his pants. Naomi got off the bed, not speaking, not even looking at him; she pulled her panties up and stooped, making herself round-shouldered, to fit her spectacular breasts into the twin hammocks of her bra, hitched it into adjustment, and straightened, elbows spread-eagled, to snap it behind her.

He got into his jacket and straightened his tie, went to the mirror to comb his hair, and heard her say to his back, “Are you still rich?”

“Sure.” He turned around to regard her. “You always go with the winner, don’t you?”