I'm sitting in my office on 48th Street laying on some heat with my contact at City Hall, owing to the fact that the previous night a bunch of G-men bust up Last Chance Callender's joint and confiscate his entire stock of liquor. Since Last Chance is by way of being a business protege of mine this event has me peeved more than a little. The guy at City Hall who's supposed to square away these matters is squealing that this squad of Federal agents comes down from Washington in such a hurry nobody has time to give them a list of the joints they are not supposed to bust up.

This statement does not unrile me whatsover and I tell the fixer that I spread around plenty of scratch to keep these unfortunate events from occurring. I also tell him that if one more G-man steps over the wrong threshold in this town there's going to be some righteous indignation from many upright citizens. Furthermore, there's going to be a vacancy at city hall because one guy there will be getting the sack.

This statement makes the line go quiet and I figure that maybe my contact is about to spread his lunch over his desk -- the lunch he's already eaten. See, giving the guy the sack is a speciality amongst certain sub-contractors I know of. It's something of a skill because first of all you have to put the sackee to sleep in some way. Either you put something in his drink or you save the price of a drink by slugging him over the head with a blackjack.

Then, when the guy wakes up he's inside a gunny sack, doubled up, with a wire around his neck and also wrapped around his knees. Sooner or later he has to try to get out of the sack but all he succeeds in doing is tightening the noose until he's getting slightly less air than he needs to keep on living. So if the cops ever get around to opening that particular sack they can mark it down in their files as suicide and not a murder case, which makes a lot less work for them. This is good because many businessmen in my line of work think the cops should get as much rest as they can stand, and maybe some more as well.

I am not so fond of G-men though, and it is a great consolation to me that Last Chance Callender is called Last Chance because the type of merchandise I sell to him and he passes onto his customers is such merchandise that a party would drink only before going down to the hardware store and buying a bottle of mentholated spirits for a chaser. I'm hoping that the G-men will sample some of Last Chance's bottles and get such a crack across their stomachs as to make them think they've stopped a burst from a Thompson gun.

So, taking it all round, you can see why I'm as sore as a rumpot's head on a Sunday morning, and when somebody knocks on the door I growl like an hibernating grizzly getting kicked on the ass in the small months of a dark year. But the door opens anyway and in edges a broad that is by way of being a real doll. Not too tall, maybe, but with more curves than a Jewish lawyer, lots of dark hair down to her shoulders and a look in her eyes like the hum coming off a high voltage cable. She also has a face that guarantees a second look from any guy and a third look and a contract offer from Mr Ziegfeld.

"Excuse me, but are you Mr Timpson?"

"Yeah, I'm Tall Timber Timpson. What can I do for you, lady?"

"Well, Miss Mavis D'Ambra said that perhaps you could help me with a problem. My name is Mrs Broughton-Swanson."

I figured this was a visiting socialite by the sound of the silk getting rustled around as Mrs Broughton-Swanson parks her fancily dressed fanny on the office chair. The last time I hear a noise as expensive as that is when Dwarf Duranger gets drunk and falls into the East River with plenty of pretzels in his pockets that belong to me and we have to hang out a whole wad of C notes afterwards to dry in the breeze. The Dwarf too.

Anyway, everybody along Broadway knows that Mavis D'Ambra is a rich doll with short hair and snakey evening clothes who is always around the speakeasies, usually the tougher night traps more than somewhat, and she has a habit of conversing freely with such guys as have just returned from a spell in the stone college at Dannemora. Guys you wouldn't meet with in your right mind without toting a spare clip of ammo along for the appointment, just in case.

In fact there are more than a few fancy dames taking their chances in various rough dives around this town. I hear it's because they like to tell their well to do friends that they dance with hoods and torpedoes and safe blowers and wet merchandise importers and such like. I ask Lionel Haverhand once about this, him being a newspaper man and almost educated, and he says all these broads have an underworld complex.

Maybe this is true, and maybe Miss D'Ambra still has her own underworld complex, but I would have figured she'd forgotten about it since inviting a bunch of disreputable characters to one of her apartment parties during which Silly Philly Willy hauls away and plugs her pet parrot with his rod for calling him stupid.

Miss D'Ambra has herself a fainting fit and Willy realizes he's committed a social faux pas, so he tries to put things right by waving a burning feather underneath her nose, of which there are plenty floating around as he was standing right next to the bird cage when he blasted away. Only when Mavis D'Ambra opens her eyes and sees the long green feather smoldering away in Philly Willy's hand she squawks louder than her parrot ever does, and then tells him off all over again in language no lady should know.

Anyway, this is neither here nor there because I'm sure that Mrs Broughton-Swanson has plenty of potatoes and is therefore well qualified to become a customer of mine. I'm much more than a raw hand at doing business with the swells in the top end of town and I'm always happy to rub up against anybody with spare sacks of shekels.

"What can I do for you, Mrs Broughton-Swanson?"

She smiles and it's the first good experience I'd had all day.

"It's a terrible mouthful, isn't it? Just call me Gloria, please."

"I'd be happy to, Gloria. How can I help?"

"My husband is a merchant banker. We have a very special house guest getting off a steamer from Europe the week after next. A financier from Europe with whom my husband is hoping to make an extremely lucrative business deal. But the gentleman is very much a bon viveur. So only the finest of wines and the best of champagnes will be acceptable to a man of his tastes."

"Yeah? Your house guest is aware of the prohibition laws presently applying in these United States, I guess?"

Gloria Broughton-Swanson dismissed the prohibition laws with a wave of her hand: "Nobody really worries about that nonsense, do they? I mean, what would our eminent guest think if we told him we were so stupid or so poor that we couldn't find our way around a little problem like prohibition. Can you imagine? A merchant banker living in New York with nothing in his wine cellar but cobwebs? Nobody would dream of investing a plugged penny with such a chump."

I see her point. This broad had picked up her ration of smarts along with all the goodies already on display.

"So you need the real McCoy. Real French wines, real French champagne? And only the best of vintages?"

"That's correct, Mr . . . or do you mind if I call you Tall Tree? I hope you don't, although I'd be interested to learn how you acquired such an appellation."

I grin at her. If I was a gentleman I wouldn't tell her, but I'm not.

"Why, I was in the Sixteen Hundred Club one night, entertaining a big blonde doll called Olga in one of the private dining rooms. And then, just as the band is warming up, Olga's voice is heard coming from our room, and she yells out one word like her lungs are on fire, and everybody in the joint hears her, and the word she screeches out is 'timber!', just like a lumberjack when a tree's falling over. Since then, people always call me 'Tall Timber'."

Gloria is laughing well ahead of the end of the story. "So what did they call the girl afterwards?", she asks. "Not 'over the table' Olga, I hope."

I grin right back. I am not a man for guzzling on the job, unless a case of guzzling comes up, and maybe it has. Maybe Mrs Broughton-Swanson has a touch of the underworld complex herself. So I get to my feet to make my play.

"Why don't you step over here, Gloria?"

She looks at me for a few seconds, then hoists herself out of the chair and comes over.

I grab her hand and get her in close, I'm looking down the front of her dress and suddenly I realize that this dame is swinging totally free and easy underneath all that silk. I feel like I've swallowed a shot of Last Chance's cut price booze without any warning.

"Hey, Gloria, I think your maid forgot to put something out for you this morning," I say.

"Well," She looked down at her dress herself, kind of shy like. "I thought it might be a good thing if I made sure I had your full attention."

"You've sure got that, kid," I tell her. "But it's a good thing you came to me instead of one of the other bums in this line of work, otherwise you'd get palmed off with a load of rotgut liquor. But I've got a contact who just might get you the quality of merchandise you need. He's called Marcel Grandvoyent, and he lives in St. Pierre, which is a tiny burgh on a little island huddled up against some big rocks near Newfoundland. The island belongs to France, and all the citizens there speak French, and they have a line of the best French supplies of wet goods available anywhere on this side of the pond."

"And you think this man Grandvoyent can get what I need?"

I snag her in a little closer. "If Marcel hasn't got what you want in St, Pierre, you won't get it anywhere. Which is why I think we'd both better go to him so you can pick out what you want from his stocks yourself. That way you know you're getting what you pay for."

Gloria blinked in surprise: "How would we get to a place like that?"

"A train to Halifax and then a trip over to the island in the schooner I own up there."

"A schooner?"

"A schooner," I tell her again. "A schooner that ferries in a lot of my operating stock on dark nights at places along the US coastline you don't hear about from me. But to get to the boat we have to travel through Canada first. And you know what people do a lot of in Canada?"

She leaned back against my arm, and her mouth is open and a cloud of Park Avenue perfume is in my nose like I'm walking through a rose garden and she says: "I suppose they shout 'timber!' a lot."

Naturally, I am not going to pass up on a smart comeback like that, so I give Gloria one on the lips and she tastes as sweet as a slab of Izzy Bernstein's home made cheesecake. Also, she moves herself closer against me and this is not the worse experience in the world.

But I wonder how far this broad is willing to go so I put down my hand over the front of that silk dress and get a feel on the situation. And having a handful of prime tit wrapped in nothing but silk in your paw is very far indeed from being the worst experience in the world.

"You don't waste any time, do you?" she whispers.

"There's a lot of ground here that needs covering," I tell her, and then I give her another squeeze which makes Gloria shiver.

I know for sure she shivers because I'm holding the only part of her that isn't allowed to do shivering and shaking, but I may have a change of heart in that regard very soon.

The way I figure it, the dame is either a cock teaser like her buddy Mavis D'Ambra or she's ready to deliver the goods. Maybe she just needed an excuse to come and meet a guy with some notches on his betsy, or maybe she really needs some top quality merchandise for a business deal like she says, or maybe she's plain bored with her ever loving husband.

Which is as likely as not, as guys who run jugs are usually lousy with scratch but generally as exciting as a night out on the town in Salt Lake City.

I figure the quickest way to find out if this doll is dealing from the bottom of the pack is to grab hold of her own bottom and let my tongue do some walking instead of talking. That usually sorts out the women from the girls in short order.

Anyway, customer or not, this fancy pants judy has about ten seconds left to break the clinch and head for the exit before all her options get totally closed off.

But what I get back is just as hot as I'm giving out, and also, the way my braille lesson over Gloria's backside is going, I do not think she is wearing much more underneath her dress down there than she is topside. So I give her a bronx salute with a stiff finger right up her pucker, and the shove just about lifts her out of her high heeled shoes.

She yelps and then tongues me again, only even more like a rattlesnake on heat this time around. Which makes it certain that Mrs Broughton-Swanson is going straight to the pay-out window at the end of this race, whether she finally tries to pull up or not. But she in no way objects at this stage of the proceedings. Or at least not in the way I expect.

What she says is: "Please don't crumple up the back of this dress, Tall Timber. It's very difficult to get the creases out afterwards without an iron and I have to go home presently."

"Do not worry about it, honey," I tell her. "I will personally take your dress to the Chinese laundry one block west from here and bring it back as good as new. In fact you had better take it off now and I will phone them to send a mama-san over to collect it."

Gloria giggled: "And what would I do in your office while my dress is away, considering that I would be almost naked without it?"

I reached down and began undoing her buttons.

"Why, if any of the boys come around for their daily orders I'll have you sit on my lap in your underwear while I'm doing the talking. But I guess that might be kind of distracting for them."

"Oh, my God!"

Gloria looked kind of shocked, but not shocked enough to try to stop me from keeping on stripping her.

I can also see that this broad is getting more of a charge from what I've just said that from anything she's likely to buy from Marcel. She's as hot as a hundred to one winner at Belmont and the way I figure it, Mr Broughton-Swanson would be better off walking around with his pockets full of nitro than being married to this doll. But she can explode for me like a pineapple with a pulled pin for all I care.

In any case I am in no way able to criticize anybody for blowing steam out of their ears on this occasion for what comes out from underneath that dress is good enough to eat raw with a side order of snatch. Also, what Gloria says about being nearly naked without it is a statement I would not care to argue with in any way.

I have been around this man's town to many disreputable places where there is often much emphasis on gals not wearing much of anything, but I wish to say that the sight of Mrs Broughton-Swanson clad only a pair of white stockings and her step ins is as good as sight as I remember seeing anywhere, give or take Gipsy Rose Lee.

So I head for the hills like any self respecting bandit would. And Gloria keeps saying: "Oh God, oh God," every time I change sides but I do not think that she thinks she is in church.

Then she says she has never done anything like this before and I laugh into a finely shaped bazoom like I'm hearing Bob Hope on the radio, because I do not think any broad who comes visiting with nothing on underneath except a pair of Hindenburgs and her stockings is likely to be a raw hand at canoodling outside her nuptial constraints.

'Hindenburgs' is what I call a mademoiselles's knickers when I am with the Rainbow Division in France in '18. That is because a gal's briefs are like the Hindenberg Line; they're her last line of resistance. Of course I like those kind of Junior High jokes back then because I am still very young and have killed almost nobody worth mentioning, apart from Germans.

Anyway I do not have to go over the top to achieve a break through with Gloria: starting lower and getting lower seems like it's the winning tactic. And while I'm nibbling at those nipples with the appetite of an hungry rat the lady is using her butt to give the top of my desk the best polish it's ever had, and also telling me all the time what a good living lady she is, which is something only a only a totally daffy dame would dare to claim under such circumstances.

So I tell her to shut up, or maybe I break some of her toes for her, which means she will have to come to Canada with me on crutches, which is no problem for me because I have never before fucked a girl in plaster casts, and I would not want to die having it on my conscience that I never had such an interesting experience.

THE END

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