Wild to Possess / A Taste for Sin

Gil Brewer: Twisted Lives

By Gregory Shepard

Gil Brewer wrote in a white heat. Sometimes he could finish a book in three days. You’ve got to imagine those stories scrambling to get out, fighting their way onto the page.

His inspiration was clearly James M. Cain. Brothers under the skin. But he was no mere imitator. He used Cain only as a starting point. He created a moral—or immoral—universe as unique as Cain’s own. He also offered readers a wider view of the society in which his characters exist, something Cain did only in his masterpiece Mildred Pierce and his lesser but still powerful novella, The Embezzler.

By all accounts, Gil was a gentle soul. But his characters were another matter, torn up and twisted by the past, obsessed with the glittering potential of the future—all in the pursuit of sex and money.

Brewer’s heroes are generally men in their mid-to-late 20’s, tormented by unfaithful or nagging wives, and ripe for the taking when they meet a young woman who seems to promise an end to their pain. This siren is usually buxom, black-haired (sometimes blonde, but never anything less than striking) and just barely legal (if that). And the hero is quickly being led by the promise or the preponderance of sex into a scheme that quite often involves a large cash reward, murder, and a happily ever after for the hero.

Of course, in Brewer’s world, it never quite works out that way.

Take Wild to Possess, for example. The hero, Lew Brookbank, is suffering from the dreadful memory of finding his unfaithful wife in bed with another man—both of them shot dead, with Lew the obvious fall guy. He gets rid of the bodies, but he can’t purge his feelings. Fast forward to his new life in a small town in Florida. One night he is putting up signs that he has made for a local business, getting drunk in the process on a bottle of gin, when he sees a car off the road with a man and woman in it, and decides to listen in on their conversation.

This seemingly random act lets him in on an interesting scheme, as the two lovers plot to kidnap the man’s wife, ransom her to her rich family, then kill her. Lew decides to take advantage of his illicit eavesdrop by double-crossing the plotters, and kidnaps the woman himself. But before long he finds himself in a wild balancing act, juggling the woman who loves him (sweet Rita) with the kidnapped woman (black-haired, full-breasted Flo) while trying to stay one step ahead of the original kidnappers (one of whom, naturally, is a conniving sexpot—blonde and devious Isobel) and the brother of the man who dallied with Lew’s wife, who shows up to hold Lew responsible for his brother’s disappearance.

Twisted enough?

Then there’s A Taste for Sin, which is even wilder. Jim Phalen is another poor schmo with a history of infidelity. He too caught his wife with another man. His revenge on them was not pretty. But that’s all behind him. Now Jim works for a liquor store. (Alcohol is practically a main character in Brewer’s books.) One of his delivery customers is Felice, a black-haired beauty of eighteen, married to a local bank manager. Felice first entices Jim to join her in her exhausting rape fantasies, then pops the question: would he help her murder her husband and steal all the money from the bank vault?

Phalen naturally reacts as any sane man would, and rejects the idea completely. But a steady diet of Felice breaks down his resistance, and before long he is actively engaged in the plot, trying to work every detail to the nth degree to figure how to get the money, and Felice too.

But, of course, there are complications: the cop who keeps nosing around, suspicious of a small robbery that Jim pulled at the liquor store to generate some quick cash; the sleazy hustler who worked with Jim to move some of the stolen liquor who now wants in on the action; the suspicious husband. Jim’s absinthe drinking. And all this told from Phalen’s first-person point of view.

The end is positively frantic. A mad scramble.

Which brings me back to my original statement: Brewer wrote in a white heat. He grabs you up and forces you to feel the loin-deep passions of his characters, their soul-destroying agony as they begin to head down the dark road to their destruction, swept up by their desires to the inevitable collision with reality.

This is noir with a vengeance. Characters motivated by their need for money and their desire for sex: it doesn’t get much more basic. And Brewer makes you believe it, makes you care about these poor, twisted characters; even makes you want them to succeed in their desperate plans. Fuses you with their madness.

At first you are appalled. Then you are mesmerized. And finally you are caught up in Gil Brewer’s obsessional world, his sex-drunk men, his scheming women, all in pursuit of the big payoff.

Welcome to Gil Brewer’s world. Nobody else can take you there. And it’s a helluva trip.

Eureka, CA

July 2006

Notes on Gil Brewer

By Verlaine Brewer

Gil Brewer was born November 20, 1922 in Cauandaigua, NY where he grew up. He was drafted into the Army in World War II. He served three years, the last in Marseilles, France. During that time, his family, (mother, father, two sisters and a brother) made a permanent move to St. Petersburg, Florida. In 1947, he joined them there.

Gil and his father were close. Not so, Gil and his mother. Mrs. Brewer had no understanding of writers, even though Gil’s father was also a writer. The home life was not happy—especially since the father, like son, was addicted to alcohol. His father later had a mental breakdown, was committed to a VA hospital, where he finally died. A tragic waste of a wonderful man.

Gil worshipped his father and worried through life that he’d end the same way.

Gil Brewer decided to become a writer at the age of nine, while watching his father type stories for the early pulp magazines. That drive never left him.

I met Gil later in 1947 through a mutual friend. He was intense, sensitive, warm—a very real person. I was married, with two teenage children. Writing drew us together. We met often to discuss it—his place, or mine, since we lived on opposite ends of the same block. He hadn’t sold yet.

At that time he was working on serious books—three under way at once, turning out literature. The ideas and plots were tremendous—unforgettable. I was amazed at his talent, recognizing what he read to me as best seller material.

Money in his family was scarce. There was hardly enough for mailing in a short story. At first, there had been checks from the Army and when they stopped, his mother was at him to get a job. But his writing meant more. It was vital to him. He tried to reassure her. She couldn’t believe that what he was doing was to any purpose. She ordered him to leave.

There was nothing else to do. Gil found a small porch in a boarding house for $5.00 a week. He moved in with his typewriter and a can of sweet potatoes. The tenants were four, kindly, old ladies, each with a room and kitchen privileges. He soon became their pet. They called him the nice young man who drinks, and gave him chicken wings from their dinners. Money being imperative, he decided to give up the fine writing he believed in, which would take far too much time. He turned from the early books with their stunning titles to what he called pot boilers, saying, maybe that’s what they want.

Our affair rapidly grew serious. Gil convinced me we should be together. He was young, handsome, and dynamic. It seemed an impossible step, but I was under his spell. My husband agreed to give me a divorce and take over the children. The divorce was painfully dragged out, but when it became final, we went to South Carolina and got married, telling no one.

Back in St. Petersburg, we took a small apartment. Very soon after, there came a first sale—a short story for $64.00. Gil was elated. He left with the check, almost hating to cash it. He arrived back with several bottles of liquor, assorted wines and beer.

Since the bedroom was small, he worked behind a screen in the kitchen, while I fried eggs on the other side. Peeking through, I could watch his changes of expression as he wrote. He finished Satan is a Woman, with a second, So Rich, So Dead on the way. He wrote easily, 1st draft, with the words flowing out faster than he could get them down.

A week later, he received a telegram from an important NY agent, Joe Shaw. He’d seen Gil’s work and wanted him as a client. Gil mailed in the two finished manuscripts. Joe offered them to Gold Medal, Fawcett Publications, who bought them on the spot and wished to see more.

Joe Shaw, better known as Captain Joe Shaw, considered Gil a genius. He felt that with proper handling and guidance, he could steer him to the top—one of the country’s best. He began to prepare a program of certain publications he wished Gil to slant for. Three months later, Joe dropped dead in an elevator, while reading one of Gil’s scripts. Gil took it hard. Joe was not only an agent, he was a friend. Other agents followed. Gil was most happy when he got with Scott Meredith. He used to say, When you have a good agent, it’s almost like a marriage.

We moved to a larger apartment with a workroom. As the books piled up, the money flowed in. Gil spent, almost recklessly, for everything he’d never had, including cars. If he wasn’t pleased with one, he traded it in for another. Taking a loss was no problem for him.

Gil’s friends were a group of St. Pete authors, with whom we got together. The topic was invariably writing and there was much to be learned just listening, as they helped each other with plot, endings, beginnings—ideas. There was Day Keene, Talmage Powell, Harry Whittington, Jonathan Craig, Robert Turner and others. Gil was always dynamic. Writing lit him up. He became eloquent in discussions, his eyes black with excitement. He loved writing; he lived writing. If he discovered an aptitude in anyone, he encouraged and helped him get started. The result was two people sold; one became full time.

As his reputation grew, Gil shunned publicity, turning down interviews, TV appearances and such. He was a loner, who preferred to live quietly. Between books, he wrote short stories for the mystery magazines, many of which were anthologized. There were other stories of a different type for the better men’s magazines—400 in all.

Gil was a fitful writer. After a sale, he’d sometimes coast, until money was again a necessity. He couldn’t seem to save it. One morning, we discovered a can of beans on the shelf and a handful of change to be our total wealth. Two days later, very unexpectedly, there was a check in the mailbox for $3,000, as an over-printing on a book.

Sometimes, he drove himself mercilessly, once writing a book in three days—later another in five. The books were excellent, but after each, he fell into bed in nervous exhaustion. Only alcohol and pills helped him to sleep. For years he’d had to take medications. It was not new to combine the two.

We traveled a lot, visiting historical places, or a locality where he might place the next book. We drove without plan, staying in towns or villages we liked; often finding it necessary to visit the hospital before moving on. There’d always been drinking. It was a part of Gil’s life. In early years, he could handle it. Now, when it got too much, he had to have help.

Getting back to work was always pleasant for him; yet, he worked hard. Every finished book had sold, when a call came from his agent in NY. He said there were five Brewer books on the stands at once, that editors were clamoring for more and for God’s sake to send in anything laying around, even if it was written on toilet paper. Gil stood troubled. There were some finished manuscripts that he’d thought needed a re-write. I begged him to send them. His face told me the answer—no.

I think now that he couldn’t take the success. His alternative was to turn to the bottle and let the whole thing die down.

Gil had many talents and hobbies. He collected rare books. He played a cornet, listened to old jazz records, liking nothing better than to play along with them. He painted with ability; made beautiful music on the organ; read omnivorously—filling up the tank, as he called it; studied people. He could’ve been an actor. He had the voice. He could’ve been a comedian. He had the wit.

In the 1960s, he suffered a mental breakdown. There was no writing for almost four years; hardly any drinking, but other frightening developments. He seemed unaware of his condition, or actions. As time piled up, things worsened. It was finally imperative for my son, Ted, and I to drive him to Arcadia, Florida and have him committed to a branch of the State Hospital. The diagnosis was extremely bad.

Once there, he realized that something was very wrong. He, like his father, had the ability to immediately appear sober after weeks of drinking; or normal after weeks of insanity. With the help of wonder drugs, good doctors and a fine psychiatrist—plus that power of his—he pulled out of it and was released after a minimum stay, appearing to be in a much improved state. Ted and I picked him up and brought him back to St. Petersburg. The recuperation at home took very much longer. He gradually returned to normalcy; picking up his life where he’d left off; and very thankful to be back at home. We made a few periodic visits to the hospital after that. He was to continue with the medications.

A few months later, he was writing well again, but sliding into his old ways. As assignments from Scott, Gil ghosted several books for known authors who were unable to meet their deadlines. The most backbreaking assignment concerned five enormous manuscripts of an Israeli soldier, with no talent for writing. They’d been bought for their timely and vital material. Gil’s job was to make them readable. A secretary was needed. With two stenorette machines, he dictated the books while she transcribed and typed them. They were snowed under for weeks with the enormity of the work. No matter how irksome a job, Gil was always dependable.

Later, he bought something he’d always wanted—a Porsche automobile. It was a gunmetal beauty and rode like a baby buggy. After carefully breaking it in, he loved driving his Porsche down country roads with lots of turns, seeing how fast he could take them. In 1970, he cracked it up. His injuries were severe. The car was totaled. Because of the high content of alcohol in his system, the doctors could not give him the usual medication to prevent the DTs; nor could they medicate him against pain, since it might cause the punctured lung to collapse. He was left in a closed room to yell and curse in his agony—his powerful voice heard throughout the hospital. The yelling, they said, was good for the lung. At home, it was a long, slow recovery. Alcohol and pills killed the pain, if he took enough of them.

The last seven years of his life were miserable. He’d been warned many times of the effect of alcohol on the brain cells. He’d invariably shrugged it off, thinking himself invulnerable. Despite his strong constitution, his body was changing in various ways, showing the results of drinking. He’d tried AA several times; and though he tried hard, was unable to really get with the program. One hospital, entirely devoted to alcoholism, termed him as their worst case in twenty years.

Most of his time was spent, painfully, in bed. Sometimes he sat at the typewriter, waiting for the words to come, but they didn’t make sense. Nothing he wrote was saleable. The bottle was his only solace.

In a sober period, Gil became elated with the idea of writing his life story.

The agency, equally enthusiastic, okayed it. Knowing something of his life, they realized what a book it would be. Gil worked hard, got 50 pages in the mail, then waited. He felt he’d done well. The pages were rejected. Anxiety and depression set in. He was a broken man, calling himself a failure.

There were binges, falls, broken bones and hospitals. They told him he couldn’t keep it up. The complications from his drinking were difficult to deal with—periodic nightmares.

Gil had always been kind and affectionate. When mean words were flung at him, he held no resentment, but even comforted in return, having a great awareness of the other person’s unhappiness. Everyone loved him.

After his death on January 9, 1983, Wyoming University wanted all his books, manuscripts, stories—everything to do with his career. The Gil Brewer Collection is on file at the American Heritage Center at Laramie. Their program is a study of the Arts of the Nineteenth Century. A great honor.

Additional note: Scott [Meredith, Gil’s agent], having seen 50 pages of one of Gil’s early books, pronounced it the finest writing he’d seen of Gil’s. Another of these books rewritten by Gil and sold in a shortened version as a potboiler was 13 French Street, reprinted 15 times. I mention these to show the worth of his early writing.

Verlaine Brewer

Wild to Possess

By Gil Brewer

CHAPTER ONE

It was an August night. It had just stopped raining. Lew Brookbank turned off the ignition of his six-year-old Ford sedan and climbed out. He stood for a moment on the soggy shoulder of the road, sighed bitterly, reached in across the seat and drew out a wooden road-sign with a four foot stake, and tossed it into the grass. This was the last of them.

He had foolishly promised Jay Redmen he would have all the signs placed for his barbecue drive-in here on the Oolachi River road, so Jay could see how they looked when he came to work at seven a.m. It was one o’clock now, and a very lousy, wet morning, if anyone asked.

It was dark. There was very little traffic. Even the crickets, katydids and bull frogs seemed to have died.

Lew stood there a moment, musing—a tall, rangy, heavy-shouldered man, with a grimly cynical strong-featured face like a large carved block of gray stone on which the sculptor’s chisel had slipped to gouge extra deeply here and there. There was an impression of tremendous, careless strength about him and his bigness suggested noise and tumult. Yet, he always spoke softly and he walked as lightly as a cat. His hands were enormous; the antithesis of what anyone might imagine a sign-painter’s hands should be. Lew was a sign-painter, of sorts, with his own small business. Right now, he wore sagging dark trousers, and a light baggy red woolen sweater with no shirt.

Well, he thought, standing there, a drink is probably in order. A drink is always in order.

The bottle was on the floor of the car. He reached in, brought it out, uncapped it, and read the label. Gordon’s Gin. He took a short quick one, snapping it off the neck, and turned to stare at the wall of Florida jungle growth beyond the road shoulder.

Florida, he thought. Why can’t I get away from it? Shove it—every last flat wet stinking acre.

He knew why he couldn’t leave the state. It was a little matter of curiosity—with some guilt thrown in.

He took another longer drink, capped the bottle and placed it back on the floor of the car, then lit a cigarette. This Florida he knew now was one hell of a lot different from the Florida he’d known down around Miami with Janice, when Janice had been alive... but—the hell with that.

A sudden wave of nausea assailed him and his features altered, taking on strain. He snapped the half-smoked cigarette into a ditch, picked up the sign, and jammed it savagely into the soft ground. Then he yanked it out and walked over closer to the wall of undergrowth, kicking the ground with his foot. He located a good spot and thrust the stake into the ground again. He leaned on it and the stake slid into the earth. He stepped back, looked at it, nodded, then walked back to the car, got in and started the motor.

He drove sullenly now, feeling the rotten core of what was always with him, down inside his vitals, squeezing and tugging at his heart. Sometimes he would lie there on the army cot in the back room off the paint shop, and want to cry. But the tears never came. Not anymore. The grief was with him all the time but it was gone, too. Kind of complex. A psychiatrist would claim he was trying to punish himself for what he’d done; that he would likely go on punishing himself for the rest of his life, looking for ways to be hurt. Well, eff those head-shrinkers, he thought. Slap them down here in Florida and shove the whole caboodle.

He reached for the fifth of gin, got it uncapped, and took three long swallows, as if it were water. He put the bottle back, and gunned the Ford along the hump-backed asphalt river road.

Resolutely he shoved thoughts of the past out of his mind. Memories could wait for the near-dawn hours; lying there on the cot, drinking until he passed out, filled with hate and remorse—remembering the mistake of blind panic which had led to the inevitable, slow creation of fear.

He traveled a mile down the road, then made a vicious U-turn, and started back, driving at a normal speed in the right hand lane, trying to keep his mind off the one thing he sought above everything else—a way to escape outrageous memory... the material means to help him flee crazily into a blind fog of oblivion.

You poor self-pitying bastard, he thought. You can afford cheap gin, and that’s what it’s going to be. Why don’t you go cut your throat? Because you haven’t got the guts to cut your throat, that’s why.

Time erases all things, soothes the worried brow. Now, what stupe said that?

He began checking the placement of the signs. They were merely jammed by hand into the ground. He still had to set them with a sledge.

One Mile To Redmen’s Bar-B-Q. That one was okay, luminous paint he’d used on the lettering showing up nicely for hungry night drivers, so they wouldn’t miss The Best Bar-B-Q In The Southland, any more than daytime drivers. Bar-B-Q! Watch Out! 5,000 Ft. Ahead!

Lew stopped the car, got out and turned the last sign a bit, because the light hadn’t reflected the way he wanted. Redmen was getting a lot for his money. But Jay was a good joker, as good as they came in Gulfville.

The gin was taking hold fine now. For a minute Lew felt like singing. The feeling passed as quickly as it came and he drove on.

4,500 Ft. Redmen’s Bar-B-Q. ALL FINE EATS!

He continued along the quiet night road, checking the signs, sometimes turning one slightly, sometimes resetting one in a new spot. Five cars passed him coming from the other direction—probably late drunks heading home from Tampa, he figured. He crossed the low bridge over the Oolachi, thought he saw a car parked back there, hidden among the pines, then kept driving and checking until he reached the dark unlighted shadows of Redmen’s restaurant and the last sign: YOU’RE HERE! REJOICE! TURN IN NOW AND EAT!

The poor bastard, Lew thought. Those signs would scare half the customers away. But that’s what Jay wanted.

He made another U-turn, drove the entire mile back, stopped the car and got out with the bottle of gin and a small five-pound sledge hammer.

He set the first sign firmly, ramming the stake about two-and-a-half feet into the ground. It wouldn’t entirely discourage kids from yanking them out, but it might help.

In the car once more, he drove to the next sign and used the sledge on that. Mosquitoes were out in force now, and the night was slowly beginning to heat up after the rain. Trees still dripped. The ceiling was low and the air was close and humid. There might be more rain before morning.

By the time he reached the third sign, the gin bottle was three-quarters empty. He missed hitting the stake, and began to use special care with the sledge. No use spending the whole night out here, he told himself, repairing signs and smashing them all at the same time.

He had five signs to go when he decided to walk the rest of the way. He argued with himself that it was a waste of time, starting the car, driving it, stopping it, getting out. Actually he knew he was pretty well tanked up and figured the walk would clear his head.

It was very quiet now. Only an occasional, distant cricket’s chirp disturbed the heavy stillness. Everybody was asleep except old Brookbank, out setting signs in the middle of the night. Drunk as a coot, too. There was no noise at all. Walking on the asphalt in his old tennis shoes, he made no sound. He had been more or less drunk for more than four months now— ever since the trouble in Miami. He felt ill tonight. Maybe he was hitting the bottle a bit too hard in an effort to keep himself going long enough to finish the Redmen job. He felt as if he were floating through space.

If Sheriff Clanty spots you now, he warned himself, he’ll toss you in clink, man. Watch it! Sheriff Clanty and Lew didn’t get along well. Lew didn’t take to the law with any degree of love, and the law knew this. If they didn’t, Lew told them.

Close to the bridge over the Oolachi River. Lew paused, uncapped the bottle and started to take another drink. He had walked two hundred yards from the last sign.

Suddenly a woman’s voice reached him from down to the left someplace, not far away. It was an exclamation. Then a man said something, and the woman spoke again, her words hurried and unintelligible.

Lew stood there with the bottle poised to his lips. For a moment the humid night was entirely still. No hint of breeze stirred the trees.

Then the voices came again. Lew strained, listening intently.

It sounded as if they were arguing, but he still couldn’t make out the words.

Then it was quiet again, with only subdued insect noises quivering in the air.

Lew laid the sledge down, set the bottle on the ground at the shoulder of the road, and moved unsteadily, but very silently, down toward the pines along the riverbank.

Suddenly he ducked low. A car was parked not more than a dozen feet away. Somebody was sitting in the front seat.

CHAPTER TWO

For a long moment Lew crouched, trying not to breathe. The world teetered and reeled in front of his blood-shot eyes, and his head began to ache with an abruptness that was more than painful. He held his mouth open, breathing that way.

The woman said, It frightens me. Suppose when you tell the old lady what’s happened, she won’t pay?

The man replied, "I know that old witch. She’ll pay."

The woman: Why didn’t you get any of it, then?

Lew did not catch the man’s reply. He had thought, at first, that the woman was in trouble. She wasn’t, apparently. But there had been a slight undertone of fretfulness in their voices. Now, abruptly, their talk reached him again.

The woman: Will there be any chance of the old lady ever suspecting you—when they find her body?

The man: How many times do I have to tell you? I’ve got that worked out. I won’t do it till we have the money. It’s going to look right.

Lew knew he might be able to identify them, if he heard them again. He wanted to know who the two people were. Curiosity nagged at him—he had to know.

He let himself slowly down into the knee-high, damp grass, kneeling on the soggy ground, feeling the wetness penetrate the cloth of his trousers. He cursed himself for getting so drunk as he sprawled out on the ground, eavesdropping. So far he had no real idea what they were talking about. They had spoken of killing someone—and of getting money from some woman.

Lew waited, drenched with sweat now, his head aching furiously, trying to make no sound with his breathing, conscious of the slam-bang of his heart. He tried to make out what kind of car it was, but could not tell. He couldn’t see the license plate. Whoever it was had searched pretty hard for a lonely place to park, where nobody would be likely to pop up. There was a cow-path of sorts leading out to the highway, but that was all. The path hadn’t been used by any cows for some time.

Because of the amount of gin he’d drunk, and the way his heart was ramming around, he wanted to breathe in large gulps of air. He didn’t dare. They would hear him. And so he lay there, suffering, feeling sicker by the minute, sipping at the air as if it were some precious liquid being sucked up through a fine straw.

The man: I keep going over and over the plan—

The woman: Don’t talk so loud.

They spoke softly, then gradually louder again.

The man: Holding her—I wish we could just—

The woman: Weakening?

The man: You know better.

The woman: We’ve got to be strong. We can’t weaken.

The man: It’s a lot of money. We won’t have a chance to touch it for a long while. We’ll have to work up to it. After a while it won’t matter. It’ll seem perfectly regular. I’ll start dropping around at the store, maybe buy a cuckoo clock, or an old bed-warmer, or something. Take you out in broad daylight. It’ll look perfectly regular.

The woman: A bed-warmer?

The man: Here.

The woman: No, now—please, we’d better—

The man: Here.

The woman: No, ah. No—please, oh, Jesus. Wait—

Lew lay there, sweating, sensing the rising frenzy in the woman’s voice, then hearing a gasp and sighing moan issue from her throat. There was a thrashing movement inside the car, the squeak of a spring. Lew ached to work himself closer to the car, but in his drunken condition he couldn’t risk shifting his position. If he were going to move, now was the time. Yet he couldn’t force himself to do it. Each time he so much as tensed a muscle, grass shimmied, and the earth beneath him crackled wetly.

Somehow he had to find out who these people were. He thought of returning to his car, and waiting for them to leave, then following them. But he was so close to their car now that he was certain they would hear him if he tried to get back to the highway.

He felt completely frustrated. Maybe they had been discussing a movie, or something. Maybe he’d heard them all wrong. After all, he was plastered. For a moment he felt a little like laughing. He restrained the impulse with an effort. Damn that gin!

The woman: Oh, yes…. A faint, ecstatic cry died in her throat.

Lew got to wondering what she looked like. It was hard to tell with only a whisper to go by. She sounded good, though, and he began to feel a faint quivering in his loins, the way things were.

What could they have meant? If he had heard right, what was it they were planning? Regular ghouls, they were, plotting murder and mayhem.

The woman: Oh, Jesus—give it to me—!

Lew lay there, his senses reeling, his inflamed imagination conjuring up wild, erotic images of what they were doing. The thoughts nearly drove him crazy. In desperation he tried to concentrate on the report of the evil plan they had been discussing.

Suddenly the noises from the car