Killer Elite (previously published as the Feather Men) Read Online Free PDF Page B

Davies noticed, was with the girls and the voyeurs, never with the clients, many of whom slunk away when sated, their eyes averted from the light—a fact that pleased Davies. The
travelos
mostly displayed their breasts, and those with more feminine thighs wore miniskirts or just a G-string. In winter, Davies mused, this sort of business conducted al fresco must leave a lot to be desired. What clothes the girls did wear were gaudy in the extreme: leopardskin leotards, polka-dot T-shirts,plumes reminiscent of Rio samba queens, and glittering sequins tacked on everything from high-heeled shoes to hair bands. Davies cruised the roads of the Bois for an hour or more until he was satisfied he knew its layout and the location of all the girls.
    Pia was indeed a good looker. Davies warmed to the idea of his job. Initially he had felt disgusted. As he watched the voyeurs he realized many were affluent. They had only to visit riverbanks or sandy beaches anywhere in summertime France to enjoy the sight of countless real breasts and bare bodies. Davies shrugged. It takes all types, he thought, unaware of any irony, since he saw himself and his work as perfectly mundane.
    Studies of the
travelos’
clients say that over half go only once in their lives to “see what it is like” and are put off for good. The majority of the rest are “normal” citizens—plumbers, professors and office workers—happily married with happy children. They appear merely to be pursuing their hidden fantasies despite the knowledge that they are entering the body of a man who, high on drugs and unwashed, has just received many other clients among the discarded condoms and beer cans of the same copse. Why they thrill to the false, pumped-up breasts, the body odor and the baritone voice with its heavily accented Portuguese, remains a mystery to the milieu. How to explain the nonstop supply of clients and the ever-increasing attractions of this outside theater of sodomy is not the job of the local police, the Brigade Mondaine.
    Davies parked at the curb behind two other cars and right beside the waste bin that marked Pia’s habitual site. He had not long to wait. A small man—a town clerk, Davies decided—in a rumpled brown suit and thick spectacles, emerged from the bushes and made for his car, fumbling with the key. Pia followed, wearing a black mini-petticoat that concealed little. Her blond hair wascropped urchin-style, and Davies felt himself roused despite the dictates of common sense.
    Pia leaned against the waste bin. Davies’s window was down. He could clearly see Pia’s maleness and smell the mix of sweat, cheap aftershave and the afterodor of previous clients. She had a pretty smile.
    “How much?” Davies asked.
    “It’s one hundred francs.”
    “But if I—”
    She cut him off. “Anything extra is fifty more francs.” Davies nodded. He locked the car and followed her into the bushes.
    Afterward he told her, truthfully, it was the first time for him. Her French was only a little better than his, so he kept his sentences short and spoke slowly.
    “You are very beautiful,” he said.
    She seemed to like his flattery, but already she was showing signs of impatience. Perhaps she was losing a customer. He took the plunge. “Here is an extra two thousand francs, Pia. You’re unlikely to have another twenty clients tonight, so let’s go to a nightclub of your choice for an hour or two. I have a special proposition to make you. Good money is possible.”
    Pia was of course interested. She fetched a chic mackintosh and calf boots from a carry-all in the shrubbery.
    “Where are you living?” she asked.
    “In a motel in town,” Davies told her.
    “We go there. I do not like nightclubs.”
    This suited Davies. He stopped off at a bar to buy whiskey and cheese biscuits.
    In the car Pia unwound a bit. She was, Davies soon realized, a desperately unhappy person. Every Sunday she prayed at the church in Pigalle dedicated to Saint Rita, who, in