Pleasure Thieves

In a minute he was packed and ready to go. He went for his coat in the study. Carol was in the doorway as he exited. "See you in the Anonymous The Pleasure Thieves Page 60

papers," she called after him bitterly. The door made a loud bang as he left.

CHAPTER VIII

Boston was clear, dry, and a bit windy. It was midday and the airport was filled with people. Phillip was waiting behind the railing as Harry's plane made the landing. Harry was the fifth person off, and Phillip probably spotted him before he came to the door of the plane.

Phillip walked eagerly toward Harry and began speaking to him before they were face to face.

"Good to see you. Everything is all set."

They got into a taxi quickly and rode to Phillip's hotel suite.

Immediately, Phillip pulled out a few diagrams. "Your entry is here.

I'll take care of the dog. We have to follow the plan exactly, there's no other way. If one thing fails, we split up as planned and leave it."

Suddenly Harry felt back in the business again. It was like being reborn and nothing counted, nothing else could give him the feeling.

Phillip reached into his pocket. "Here's a list of what we need. Pick them up and go back to your hotel for a short rest. Leave a call for seven o'clock. I'll be by half an hour later."

Phillip waited in a large foyer of Harry's hotel at the appointed time.

There was no sign of Harry. One of the elevators opened and a fat lady walked out; Harry was concealed behind her. Phillip felt annoyed at his partner's slight lateness when he saw him walking closely behind the fat dowager, luminent in paste, phony diamonds. Harry had a slight devil's smile. Then they caught each other's eye. There was a moment when Phillip smiled too. He thought Harry looked good, freshly awakened, dressed in the usual Burberry and crepe-sole shoes. They joined and went out the revolving door and into a black Dodge sedan.

Harry shifted into first, took a package from his coat and handed it to Phillip.

Phillip opened a bottle containing large, clear capsules, raised it to his nose and smelled. Then he took a butcher-like package and unwrapped it, exposing a chunk of raw meat, a little larger than a man's fist. Opening a small knife, Phillip repeatedly plunged the blade into the meat. Then he inserted six or seven of the capsules deep into the cuts. Pinching the openings closed, he rewrapped the meat.

Harry watched him out of the side of his eye. "It looks like that gives you a pleasure of its own."

Phillip said nothing. He put the package back into one of his coat pockets.

"I thought you despised violence?"

"I never said I was against violence," Phillip continued with his penetrating half-artificial smile. "Only unnecessary violence."

Their car moved slowly along the road toward Beacon Hill. Harry slowed to a stop opposite a twelve-foot stone wall. The wall was thinly vined, making strange shadows, giving it a foreboding aspect.

They left the car and walked across the street to the wall. Phillip took a small gadget from his pocket, and squeezed it erratically. It was a child's toy cricket. With the other hand he held the steel tube in his mouth and blew, silently, alternating with the cricket. There was a distant ominous growl, then barking. At a quick nod from Phillip, Harry sped away.

Phillip continued blowing the dog whistle and working the toy cricket. The barking became louder. He unwrapped the package and threw it to the howling animal.

Harry arrived at the outside corner of the medieval style wall. Then deftly, like a seasoned artist, he fitted a small grapple-like hook on the end of a tight coil of thin rope. He heard the furious barking of the dog.

What if it was a wolf and not a dog? In his imagination he saw Phillip torn to pieces by a slobbering wolf.

The barking stopped, utter silence again. Harry came out of his fantasy reflecting, "How the fuck did Phillip get naked anyhow?"

He tossed the hook over the far top of the wall to test the ropes tautness. He was unnerved by his lapse into the unconscious, something he hadn't allowed himself to do since he was a kid. "I hope it isn't an omen, Harry old boy," he said to himself more out of superstition than intuition. "But you never know. You never know."

He grabbed the rope tenaciously and pulled himself up and over.

Freeing the hook as he dropped to the ground, Harry faced a huge sweep of moonlit lawn. He had a sudden desire to masturbate under the huge yellow moon. To make another circle of luminosity on the smooth, close-cropped greenness of the lawn. In his mind's eye he saw himself a lone slender figure, his shadow behind him as he pulled on his penis, rubbing it not frantically, but assuredly. He would turn his head slightly and watch his shadow, like watching someone else jerk off. He would get hotter and hotter that way.

What a macabre idea! Here we are in the midst of the biggest hit yet, and I'm having wet dreams again. It must be the full moon, or my past is catching up with me.