Secrets & Lies by Raymond Benson

saw a very attractive redhead heading inside for the food. It’d been a couple of days since I nailed that blonde with the little mole on her cheek. I met her at Flickers, of course. She was a lot of fun. It was possible I’d give her another call some day, unless something better came along.
    What could I say? I’ve been called a ladies’ man more than once in my lifetime. It’s something to be proud of. There were plenty of fags in Hollywood, believe me. You’d think the women would run away screaming for a virile man—
any
man—to rescue them. Well, I figured that was my job. Who was it that said, “Too many women, so little time?” It was certainly the goddamned truth.
    Speaking of the opposite sex, I had to go to New York in a couple of weeks. Mookie wanted me to meet with a paper supplier for the counterfeit dough. Believe it or not, dollar bills were made of a special paper that’s manufactured exclusively for the government. It had wood pulp, cotton, silk, linen, and I didn’t know what else in it. Mookie was a genius when it came to stuff like that. Anyway, I had to go and work out an acceptable price for some rolls of the special paper. So while I was there, I thought I’d call that girl I met last month. Judy Cooper. What a dame. She was a lot of fun. Gorgeous, smart, and built like an Olympic track star. I liked ’em tall, too, and she had legs that stretched for miles. I charmed her pretty good. Didn’t get her in the sack, but it was a first date. I got the feeling she could be persuaded to do it, but she was playing nice girl who had to be romanced first. She just might be worth the effort.
    I made my way over to the gazebo, which stood on the far end of the lawn, near the trees. They had a bar set up there, so I grabbed a beer. It was then that I noticed a square hole in the floor of the gazebo. A waiter climbed out of it with a case of wine.
    â€œWhat’s down there?” I asked the bartender.
    â€œOh, that’s an underground passage. It leads to the house, the wine cellar, in fact. Mr. DeAngelo had it built so the staff could easily retrieve food and beverages without having to carry them across the lawn, through the clusters of guests. He built the gazebo on the far side of the lawn to give people an incentive to spread out away from the house. Mr. DeAngelo likes to see every inch of his grounds filled with happy people when he throws a party.”
    â€œThat’s incredible. Can I go down and look?”
    â€œSure.”
    I entered the gazebo and climbed down a ladder ten feet to a paved tunnel. It was twenty degrees cooler down there. I walked a little ways into it. The passage was lit with a ceiling bulb every ten feet or so. I went all the way to the wine cellar and saw the staircase leading up into the house. Impressive.
    When I was back outside, I spotted the redhead I’d seen earlier. She was walking away from the bar with a drink in hand, so I started to follow her. But Maria DeAngelo was also at the bar, and she said, “Leo!” I stopped. She gave me a pretty smile and asked, “Leo, are you an employee now?”
    I laughed. “I was just having a look at that tunnel. I never knew it was there. That’s amazing.”
    â€œThere are all kinds of secret passages and tunnels on the property.”
    Maria was a swell-looking babe. Talk about a
blonde
; whew. We’ve known each other since we were kids, but didn’t see each other very often. You could count the number of times on one hand. She was going to turn twenty-five this year, five years younger than me. Never married. She was still a virgin. No one could get in her pants unless he gave her a ring. And that was a challenge because she was daddy’s little girl, and no one was good enough for her. DeAngelo would have a big say in who she ended up with.
    â€œSay, Leo, didn’t you promise me you’d take me to