The illuminatus! trilogy (43 page)

“I’m sure,” said Drake. “Well, you shall advise, as you are able. But the Sicilian heritage goes back thousands of years before Rome, as does their knowledge of Atlantis. There were a few things washed up on the shores of North Africa, a few things found by divers. It was enough to establish a tradition. If there were a museum of Atlantean arts, Don Federico is one of the few people in the world qualified to be a curator.”

“In other words,” said Maldonado with a ghastly smile, “those statues better be authentic, kid. Because I will know if they are not.”

“They are,” said George. “I saw them picked up off the ocean bottom myself.”

“That’s impossible,” said Jung.

“Let’s look,” said Drake.

He stood up and placed the palm of his hand fiat against an oak panel which immediately slid to one side, revealing a winding metal staircase. Drake leading the way, the four of them descended what seemed to George five stories to a door with a combination lock. Drake opened the door and they passed through a series of other chambers, ending up in a large underground garage. The Gold & Appel truck was there and beside it the four statues, freed of their crates. There was no one in the room.

“Where did everybody go?” said Jung.

“They’re Sicilians,” said Drake. “They saw these and were afraid. They
did
the job of uncrating them and left.” His face and Maldonado’s wore a look of awe. Jung’s craggy features bore an irritated, puzzled frown.

“I’m beginning to feel that I’ve been left out of a lot,” he said.

“Later,” said Maldonado. He took a small jeweler’s glass out of his pocket and approached the nearest statue. “This is where they got the idea for the great god Pan,” he said. “But you can see the idea was more complicated twenty thousand years ago than two thousand.” Fixing the jeweler’s glass in his eye, he began a careful inspection of a glittering hoof.

At the end of an hour, Maldonado, with the help of a ladder, had gone over each of the four statues from bottom to top with fanatical care and had questioned George about the manner of their seizure as well as what little he knew of their history. He put his jeweler’s glass away, turned to Drake and nodded.

“You got the four most valuable pieces of art in the world.”

Drake nodded. “I surmised as much. Worth more than all the gold in all the Spanish treasure ships there ever were.”

“If I have not been dosed with a hallucinogenic drug,” said Richard Jung, “I gather you are all saying these statues come from Atlantis. I’ll take your word for it that they’re solid gold, and that means there’s a lot of gold there.”

“The value of the matter is not worth one one ten-thousandth the value of the form,” said Drake.

“That I don’t see,” said Jung. “What is the value of Atlantean
art if no reputable authority anywhere in the world believes in Atlantis?”

Maldonado smiled. “There are a few people in the world who know that Atlantis existed, and who know there is such a thing as Atlantean art. And believe me, Richard, those few got enough money to make it worth anyone’s while who has a piece from the bottom of the sea. Any one of these statues could buy a middle-sized country.”

Drake clapped his hands with an air of authority. “I’m satisfied if Don Federico is satisfied. For these and for four more like them—or the equivalent if four such statues simply don’t exist—my hand is joined with the hand of the Discordian movement. Let us go back upstairs and sign the papers—in pen and ink. And then, George, we would like you to be our guest at dinner.”

George didn’t know if he had the authority to promise four more statues, and he was certain that total openness was the only safe approach with these men. As they were climbing the stairs, he said to Drake, who was above him, “I wasn’t authorized by the man who sent me to promise anything more. And I don’t believe he has any more at the moment, unless he has a collection of his own. I know these four statues are the only ones he captured on this trip.”

Drake let out a small fart, an incredible thing, it seemed to George, for the leader of all organized crime in the United States to do. “Excuse me,” he said. “The exertion of these stairs is too much for me. Would love to put in an elevator, but that wouldn’t be as secure. One of these days my heart will give out, going up and down those stairs.” The fart smelled moderately bad, and George was glad when he had climbed out of its neighborhood. He was surprised that a man of Drake’s importance would acknowledge that he farted. Perhaps that kind of straightforwardness was a factor in Drake’s success. George doubted that Maldonado would admit to a fart. The Don was too devious. He was not your earthy sort of Latin—he was paper-thin and paper-pale, like a Tuscan aristocrat of attenuated bloodline.

They reentered Drake’s office, and Drake and Maldonado each signed the parchment scroll. After the phrase, “for valuable considerations received,” Drake inserted the words, “and considerations of equal value yet to come.”
He smiled at George. “Since you can’t guarantee the additional objects, I’ll expect to hear from your boss within twenty-four hours after you leave here. This whole deal is contingent upon the additional payment from you.”

ORGASM. HER BUBBIES FRITCHID BY THE GYNING DEEPSEADOODLER. All in a lewdercrass chaste for a moulteeng fawkin. In fact, hearing Drake say that he was to be leaving the Syndicate fortress made George feel a bit better. He signed in behalf of the Discordians and Jung signed as a witness.

Drake said, “You understand, there is no way the organizations which Don Federico and I represent can be bound by anything we sign. What we agree to here is to use our influence with our many esteemed colleagues and to hope that they will grant us the favor of cooperation in the mutual enterprise.”

Maldonado said, “I couldn’t have said it better myself. We, of course, personally pledge our lives and our honor to further your purposes.”

Robert Putney Drake took a cigar out of a silver humidor. Slapping George on the back, he shoved the cigar into his mouth. “You know, you’re the first hippie I’ve ever done business with. I suppose you’d like to have some marijuana. I don’t keep any around the house, and as you probably know we don’t deal much in the stuff. Too bulky to transport, considering the amount you can make on it. Aside from that, I think you’ll like the food and drink here. We’ll have a big dinner and some entertainment.”

The dinner was steak Diane, and it was served to the four men at a long table in a dining room hung with large, old paintings. They were waited on by a series of beautiful young women, and George wondered where the gang leaders kept their wives and mistresses. In some sort of
purdah
, perhaps. There was something Arabic about this whole setup.

During the main course a blonde in a long white gown which left one breast bare played the harp in a corner of the room and sang. There was conversation with the coffee; four young women sat down briefly with the men and regaled them with witticisms and funny stories.

With the brandy came Tarantella Serpentine. She was an amazingly tall woman, at least six feet two, with long blond hair that was piled high on her head and fell below her shoulders. She was wearing tinkling gold bracelets
around her wrists and ankles, and there were diaphonous veils wrapped around her slender body, and nothing else. George could see pink nipples and dark crotch hair. When she strode through the door Banana-Nose Maldonado wiped his mouth with his napkin and began applauding gleefully. Robert Putney Drake smiled proudly and Richard Jung swallowed hard.

George just stared. “The star of our little rural retreat,” said Drake by way of introduction. “Mav T present—Miss Tarantella Serpentine.” Maldonado’s applause continued, and George wondered if he should join in. Music, Oriental but with a touch of rock, flooded the room. The sound reproduction equipment was excellent, nigh perfect. Tarantella Serpentine began to dance. It was a strange, hybrid sort of dance, a synthesis of belly-dancing, go-go, and modern ballet. George licked his lips and he felt his face get warm and his penis begin to throb and swell as he watched. Tarantella Serpentine’s dance was even more sensuous than the dance Stella Maris had done when he was being initiated into the Discordian movement.

After she had done three dances, Tarantella bowed and left. “You must be tired, George,” said Drake, resting his hand on George’s shoulder.

Suddenly, George realized he had been going on almost no sleep except for the times he’d dozed off in the car on the way from Mad Dog to the Gulf. He had been under incredible physical, and even more important, emotional pressure.

He agreed that he was tired, and, praying that he would not be murdered in his sleep, he let Drake lead him to a bedroom.

The bed was an enormous fourposter with a cloth-of-gold canopy. Naked, George slid between cool, crisp sheets, and clutching the top sheet around his neck, lay flat on his back, shut his eyes tight and sighed. That morning he had been on a beach in the Gulf of Mexico watching naked Mavis masturbate. He had fucked an apple. He had been to Atlantis. And now he was lying on a downy-soft mattress in the home of the chief of all organised crime in America. If he closed his eyes he might find himself back in the Mad Dog jail. He shook his head. There was nothing to fear.

He heard the bedroom door open. There was nothing to fear. To prove it, he kept his eyes closed. He heard a
board squeak. Squeaky boards in this place? Sure—to warn the sleeper that there was someone sneaking up on him. He opened his eyes.

Tarantella Serpentine was standing over the bed. “Bobby-baby sent me,” she said.

George closed his eyes again. “Sweetheart,” he said, “you are beautiful. You really are. You’re beautiful. Make yourself comfortable.”

She reached down and turned oft a bedside lamp. She was wearing a gold metallic bikini top with a short matching skirt. Her breasts were delightfully small, George thought. Although, on a five-foot-two girl they’d be ample. But Tarentella was built like a
Vogue
model. George liked her looks. He had always been partial to tall, slender boyish women.

“I’m not intruding on you, am I?” she asked. “You sure you wouldn’t rather sleep?”

“Well it’s not so much what I’d
rather
do,” said George. “I doubt that I can do anything other than sleep. I have had a very trying day.” Masturbated once, he thought, had one blow job, and fucked one apple. Forgive us our debts as we forgive our debtors. Plus been scared out of my wits 90 percent of the time.

Tarantella said, “My name is known in rarified circles for what I can achieve with men whose days are
all
trying. Presidents, kings, Syndicate heads—naturally—rock stars, oil biilionnaires, people like that. My thing is, I can make men come. Over and over and over and
over
again. Ten times, sometimes even twenty times, no matter how old or how tired. I get paid a lot. Tonight, Bobby-baby is paying for my services, and I’m to service you. Which I like very much, because most of my clientele is on the middle-aged side, and you’re nice and young and have a firm body.” She gently pulled the sheet loose from George’s grip—-he had forgotten he was still holding it up around his neck—and caressed his bare shoulder.

“How old are you, George—twenty-two?”

“Twenty-three,” said George. “But I don’t want to disappoint you. I’m willing and I’m interested. In fact, I’m curious about what you do. But I’m pretty tired.”

“Honey, you
can’t
disappoint me. The more limp you are, the more I like it. The more of a challenge you are to me. Let me show you my specialty.”

Tarantella doffed her bra, skirt, and panties quickly but
deliberately enough to let George enjoy watching her. Smiling at him, she stood before him, her legs spread wide apart. Her fingernails tickled her nipples, and George watched them swell up. Then, her left hand playing with her left breast, her right hand snaked down to her groin and began massaging the golden-brown hairs of her mons, Her middle finger disappeared between her legs. After a few moments a scarlet flush spread over her face, neck, and chest, her body arched backward, and she gave a single, agonized cry. Her skin, from head to toe, was glowing with a fine coating of sweat.

After a momentary pause she smiled and looked at him. Her right hand caressed his cheek and he felt the wetness on his face and smelled the Lobster Newburg aroma of a young cunt. Her fingers drifted to the sheets, and with a sudden movement she stripped them away from George’s body. She grinned down at his stiff cock and in a moment was on top of him, holding his prick, inserting it into herself. Two minutes of smooth pistonlike movements on her part brought him to an unexpectedly pleasant orgasm.

“Baby,” he said. “You could wake the dead.”

He enjoyed his second orgasm about a half hour later, and his third a half hour after that. The second time Tarantella lay on her back and George lay on top of her, and the third time she was on her stomach and he was straddling her from the rear. There was something about the mood Tarantella created that was crucial to what she called her “specialty.” Though she had boasted about her ability to make a man come repeatedly, when it came right down to doing things she made him feel that it didn’t really matter what happened with him. She was fun-loving, playful, carefree. He did not feel obligated in any sense to stiffen, to come. Tarantella might view men as a challenge, but she made it clear that George was not to see her as a challenge.

After a short nap, he woke to find her sucking his rapidly hardening penis. It took much longer this time for him to come, but he enjoyed every second of mounting pleasure. After that they lay side by side and talked for a while. Then Tarantella went to the bedside table and took a tube of petroleum jelly out of a drawer. She began applying it to his penis, which grew erect during the process. Then she rolled over and presented him with her rosy asshole. It was the first time George had had a woman that
way, and he came rather quickly after insertion from the novelty and excitement of it all.

They slept for a while and he awoke to find her masturbating him. Her fingers were very clever and seemed quickly to find their way to all the most sensitive parts of his penis—with special attention to that area just behind the crown of the head. He opened his eyes wide when he came and saw, after a few seconds, a small, pale, pearl-like drop of semen appear on the end of his dick. A wonder there was any at all.