Throughout the weekend, Max periodically erupted with fresh rage at the effrontery of Gene Harris' request. More and more, as he thought about it, he wished he'd tried harder to learn who the impudent rascal's employer was. Then, he believed, he could have gone to Dr. Hensley with a clearer conscience, and made a clean breast of the entire sordid affair.
"But wouldn't it be rather embarrassing?" Jackie questioned him when he told her this. "I mean, it would all have to come out, that we'd been at a swapping party and that. Well, the whole bit!"
"Hensley's discreet enough," Max insisted. "I wouldn't mind telling him about it. I'd know it would never get any further than him. No need worrying about that."
By Sunday, the situation had gotten so bad that Max insisted on going over to Hal's apartment and demanding to know what he knew about Gene. Jackie consented to go along, though she feared that the trip would end in a quarrel with the Hudginses. Max denied harboring any such intent; he swore that he merely wanted to know if they knew anything about Harris. Even so, Jackie felt strong misgivings as she settled herself in the car and sat back for the short drive.
They had just pulled into a parking space when Max's sharp eyes caught a glimpse of a familiar figure emerging from the Hudgins' apartment. Their parking spot gave them a clear view of the entrance, and though the door to their friends' apartment was a good forty yards away, there could be no mistaking the figure coming out.
"That's him!" Max grunted out. "What's he doing there?"
Jackie too saw that it was the investigator. Hal had followed him out onto the balcony, and they stood there talking for a moment. Then Harris patted Hal's shoulder and walked away.
Max sat stiffly in the car, plainly puzzled by what he had seen. It seemed perfectly clear that Harris and Hal were boon companions; that was evident from the friendly way they'd parted.
"Maybe it's a continuation of the party," Jackie suggested, thinking that she might still dissuade Max from bursting in on their friends. "If they're still going, we shouldn't disturb them. I knew we should have called first!"
Max hesitated for a few moments, wrestling with Jackie's objection, but finally he decided they should go on up to the apartment and get it over with. Jackie shrugged, knowing she couldn't persuade him to change his mind. She went along silently.
"Hey, what a welcome sight!" Hal cried when he opened the door to them. "Come on it! Pris and I were just wondering if maybe we could get together with you for a recap of the party!"
He offered them a beer, dominating the conversation with his breezy manner so that Max couldn't jump immediately to the point, as he would have liked. They accepted the beer and settled down, but Max wouldn't be headed off from the purpose of his visit.
"Hal, I'd like to know what you know about that fellow Gene Harris who was at the party," he began.
Before he could go on to add the fact that he'd just seen Harris leaving the Hudgins' apartment, Hal broke in.
"Gene? Er, I barely know, him," he said, pausing a moment as if he were trying to remember the person. "To be truthful, that was the first time I'd ever seen him, Friday night. Seemed like a nice enough sort, but I didn't get a chance to talk much with him. I was… er, occupied elsewhere, you understand."
Max sat back and looked curiously at Hal, unable to reconcile the statement with the obvious camaraderie he had so recently witnessed on the balcony outside. He looked at Jackie, who returned his blank look, then turned back to Hal.
"The reason I'm asking," he continued, choosing his words carefully, "is because he asked me something about my work, something which was way out of line. In fact, it smacked rather strongly of industrial espionage."
"Harris? I can hardly believe it of him!" Hal said, putting down his beer and assuming a very earnest look. "That doesn't sound like anyone in our group. Sure you have the right fellow?"
Max vowed that there was no mistake. He was on the point of confronting Hal with the fact that he'd seen Harris outside not fifteen minutes ago, when Pris walked into the living room.
She wore one of Hal's old shirts, the cuffs rolled halfway to her elbows, and not much else, to judge from the way her sharp nipples shaped and darkened the thin fabric of the shirt. Jackie was certain that she caught a glimpse of Pris' curly pubic hair when the shirt's tail flipped aside for a moment; though the garment came down to her knees, the opening in front allowed a certain amount of visibility.
Pris' entrance disrupted the chain of conversation for a moment, but Hal brought them back on the track by telling Pris what he had heard from Max. She scoffed at the idea, though she also denied any intention of impugning Max's honesty.
"But what I don't understand," Max said, eyeing them both suspiciously, "is why I saw him coming out of your apartment when I drove up. Hal, it didn't look as though you two were just casual acquaintances!"
"What are you doing? Spying on me?" Hal demanded huffily.
Max would not be put off by such charges. He insisted that seeing Harris had been purely inadvertent, and that they had not intended to spy at all.
Hal persisted in trying to deny the fact, but then switched to claiming that Harris had just dropped by to thank them for a fine time at the party. Max would have none of this, and insisted angrily that the man was an industrial spy, probably working in collusion with Hal.
"All right, if you want to know the truth," Hal began, spreading his hands helplessly and assuming a guileless expression. "I'll tell you just how it is. Harris and his boys have plenty on me. They've had spies at several of the parties we attended, spies with all the fixings, just like in the movies. I mean tape recordings, movies made through one-way glass… the whole, bit. Naturally, they've got film of Pris and me in some pretty compromising situations, and tapes too. They've been pressuring me to hand them stuff from my work. And I'll tell you something: they're going to try the same thing on you; no mistake about it! I'm sure they had movies made of you and some of the girls at that party. Maybe of Jackie too. And they won't bother slandering you all over the state to get what they want!"
"They'll get nothing from me!" Max stormed. "I'm going straight to Homer Hensley about this: I'll show them I'm not going to he blackmailed by some cheap crooks!"
With that, he stormed out of the apartment. Jackie stayed behind for a moment, trying to think of something to say to make amends, but she left when she heard him insistently tooting the horn. "Give me a call when he cools down," she heard Pris call as she ran down the stairs.
"Are you really going to Doctor Hensley with this story?" she demanded as she got into the car.
"Damn right I am!" he snorted. "I'll show them they can't bully me around."
"In that case, you'd better think about what you're going to do for a wife," Jackie blurted, making an instantaneous decision. "Because if you go through with this, I certainly won't stay around to be laughed at and shamed!"
Max, enraged and livid, told her shortly that he was going to do the right thing, and that if she couldn't take it, then she was welcome to leave.
"Stop the car," she demanded.
Max screeched to a halt, and Jackie got out. The last thing she saw of her husband was the back of his head as he sped away, going straight toward the lab, where he expected to find Hensley working on Sunday as usual.
Jackie caught a cab back to their apartment and began packing a few clothes, though she hadn't given a thought to where she would take them. She was just packing her toothbrush and toilet articles when the phone rang.
"Jackie? This is Pris. What's going on over there?"
Jackie brought her friend up to date on what had happened, sparing no detail of the abrupt, angry parting with Max. Pris agreed that she could have done little else, given Max's insistence on making a fool of himself and broadcasting the intimate details of their life.
"Perhaps you're wishing now that you'd never taken the steps that led you to that party," she said to Jackie.
"Never! I enjoyed every bit of it," Jackie insisted. "In fact, I think it was the most wonderful thing that's ever happened to me!"
She herself hadn't realized how strongly she felt about it until that very moment. She was surprised to find herself saying it, but knew it was true.
"I'm glad to hear that," Pris purred softly. "But where are you going? You said you were packing."
Jackie had to admit that she had no idea where she might go. She apologized for seeming silly, but stated that the thought of spending another moment with Max, was simply unthinkable. When Pris suggested that she come and stay with them, at least until she could get herself settled in a new place, Jackie accepted the offer immediately, and Pris told her Hal would he over within half an hour to pick her up.
"That's that," Pris said to her husband when she put down the phone. "Maybe our scheme for getting the information didn't work out so well, but how's this for a consolation prize? We're going to have, a permanent live-in guest for a while! Just think, darling, another pussy for you to fuck! And she as much as said once that she was interested in learning more about my little lezzie games, too!"
"You can't beat that," Hal agreed. "Even if we lost the battle, we won the war. Or maybe the other way around; I don't know. Look, I'll call Gene and tell him the scheme's going to fall through, just to break it easy to him. Who'd have thought that Max would be so damn stubborn?"
Hal made his call, and informed Harris that the plan had failed. They commiserated with each other, but agreed that there was no use crying over battles hopelessly lost. Hal mentioned that he knew of another likely candidate in the Walton labs who might be worth cultivating, but said they could put off the briefing until tomorrow.
"See you at the plant," he said before hanging up.
He then left to go get Jackie. Pris remained behind, and fell to work straightening up the guest room, as well as fluffing out her shining hair. She hummed a gay tune as she visualized Jackie's lush naked body writhing on the silken bedspread, pleading for release; she imagined herself administering the oral stimulation which would propel Jackie's body into a heaving, twisting inferno of orgasmic splendor. Yes, the future looked promising indeed!
Max found Dr. Hensley hard at work, just as he'd expected. His fury hadn't abated one bit, and the entire grubby story came tumbling out in a gush. Hensley listened patiently and compassionately to the entire tale, and when he'd convinced himself that Max hadn't compromised their work, he congratulated him for his loyalty and commiserated with him on the loss of his wife.
"Do you think she's gone for good?" he asked.
"Yes. She's the sort who'll stick to a stand once she's taken it," Max answered. "And if she's that interested in preserving her precious reputation, than I guess it wouldn't have worked out in the long run anyway."
"Very well," Hensley told him, "I'll see to it that you don't regret having used good judgment in this matter. It happens that there'll be a research coordinator's post coming open shortly; it would be a nice promotion for you, and I can't think of a better man for the job. And by the way, you'll be needing some lab assistants and a deputy for that job, so you might be thinking about who you'd like for your team."
Max's head was reeling as he left Hensley's laboratory-office. He hadn't expected that his faithful adherence to the company's interest would be rewarded at all, much less so handsomely, and especially since it had been his own stupidity that had created the problem to start with!
As he walked back to his portion of the laboratory, his eye fell on a generous length of very shapely nylon-clad calf; he traced the gentle curve up to where it ended at a white lab coat, and then looked up.
"Myra!" he blurted. "You're not usually here on Sundays, are you?"
The girl turned to look it him, and Max realized that she was exceedingly attractive. The cunning knit minidress she wore under the lab coat was a far cry from the serviceable tweed outfits she usually wore during the week. She had also done her hair differently; long auburn bangs now framed her face handsomely, and gave her a quite dashing look. Myra Long, whom he had always considered a mere drudge, though a capable engineer, took on a new aura of beauty for him.
"I was getting ready to go out for dinner," she explained, "and I got this idea I wanted to try out. But it didn't work, I guess. I'm about ready to pack it all in."
"Good idea," he agreed. "Suppose we have dinner together. We've got a lot to talk about, I suspect."
Myra walked out of the I lab with him, and as he accompanied her to the parking lot, Max told himself he just might have found that assistant that Hensley had mentioned, as well as a replacement for Jackie. There was no denying Myra's capabilities in the lab, and now that he'd seen her in a different light, there was a promising lilt to her impudently rising breasts, a devilish glint in her dark eyes.
"Yes," he told himself, everything might just be coming up roses after all.