The luminous hands on his wristwatch still pointed to a few minutes until midnight, but Dan was too restless to lie in his bed any longer. He eased out of the bed and slipped as silently as a shadow back to Pete's bunk. The kid was breathing deeply and steadily. If he was faking sleep, he was a real expert. Well, hell, Dan thought wryly, there was no doubt that he was a real expert.
He pulled on a pair of khaki shorts, but went barefoot through the darkness toward the main office. No light showed anywhere, and no sounds came from within. A ragged silvery edge of the moon gleamed briefly, but a bank of clouds had effectively blocked most of the sky.
The outer office was in total darkness, but Dan made his way across it without wrecking himself against desks or other furniture. He was familiar with the layout. He opened the door into Stein's bedroom. If anything, the inside of that room was even darker than the outer one.
"Who is it?" Stein's voice came softly through the blackness.
"Dan."
"There's a rug in the middle of the floor, Dan. Sit down."
He touched a shoulder as he sat down and realized that at least one other person had already come. He couldn't tell who. Nothing was said, no sound was made. He sat cross-legged in the eerie darkness, listening to his own breathing. In a minute or two the door creaked faintly as someone else entered. Stein repeated his formula, and Andy, the youngest counselor, answered. You too, Dan thought. This was blackmail on a wide scale. But what was that little bastard Pete after?
That was the first question asked when everyone was present and Stein lighted a candle and placed it in the middle of the circle of people seated on the rug.
"What does the little monster want?" Annabelle drawled.
"He wants me for a chauffeur, looks like," Dan said.
"And I row the royal barge about the lake," Buddy growled.
"He'll think up something for the rest of us," Stein said. "We've got to nail him, and fast."
"Let's just kill him and hide his body," Andy suggested with a lopsided grin.
"Don't think I haven't considered that," Stein came back. "But those negatives are hidden somewhere, maybe with a note in somebody's hands telling where to find them, just in case-" He didn't finish. Everybody got the picture.
"Could we buy him off?" Marsha suggested.
Stein laughed shortly. "He's Peter Mordant's son. Peter Mordant is the hottest star in Hollywood right now. The kid's rolling in money. Just look at all that camera equipment he's got, and he's just twelve years old. He doesn't even know how much dough he's got. No, money's not the answer."
"Li'l 0l' Sneaky Pete," Annabelle mused. "There's got to be some way. Look" she said bluntly, "would it do any good to seduce him, the Samson and Delilah bit?"
"I don't think that would interest him a lot just yet, Miz Magnolia," Stein chuckled. "He just has a lot of interest in other people's sex activities."
"Indeed he does," Marsha said softly.
Several other ideas were passed back and forth. Andy suggested torture, but Marsha vetoed that. "It would leave marks," she said. "Even if we didn't scare him, internal injuries could be checked out by a doctor. And the little devil would yell his head off."
It soon became obvious that nobody had any really workable suggestion. After they had sat in glum silence for several minutes, Stein spoke up again. "And another thing. It won't be enough to simply get hold of those negatives. We've got to cook up something, some way to get rid of him. Get him out of this camp. After this caper, we know he's got the brain to pull any kind of a wild deal."
Another long period of silence ensued. The candle had burned halfway down. No more ideas came out of the sober-faced group. Stein stood up.
"Not tomorrow night, but the night after that," he said. "Same time. Here. And goddammit, somebody come up with an idea or all our asses are in a sling." He picked up the candle and blew it out.
Dan bumped against Marsha going out the door. He easily recognized her body even in the darkness, and the heavy melon tit that his elbow brushed against. But tonight it didn't excite him, and he was sure it did nothing to her. They were all in the same boat, of like mind, a group of adults trying to figure out a scheme to outwit a twelve-year-old genius-devil who was creating hell in their midst.
As he stretched out on his bed to try to get some sleep, he thought, at least Buddy and I know what's in store for us. It's happened already. But what about the others? The other shoe was still to drop for them. They were all in terror of what penalty the bug-eyed monster would exact of them.
The next day was tense, and the day after that. They assembled at midnight again, in the darkness of Stein's bedroom.
"Well," Stein said heavily, "it was my day in the barrel. I had to take him down to the kitchen this afternoon and have Mrs. Rogers make him a super-king-size meal, complete with cake, pie, soda pop, and everything else. Frankly, I expected you to have him in the sick ward, Marsha."
"No such luck," she replied somberly. "He must have a digestive system like an ostrich."
"Mrs. Rogers looked at me like I was some kind of nut," Stein said. "I explained that it was his birthday, but I know she didn't believe me."
Again Andy proposed murder. "We could drown him out there in the lake, Buddy or me," he explained, "and there'd be no marks of violence."
"Not a chance," Buddy snapped back irritably. "First place, he doesn't go in for swimming or water sports. And when I'm rowing him around, he's in my charge and I'm a qualified lift-saver and nobody would believe it could be an accident."
Andy shut up.
The conference was sadly like the preceding one. Nobody came up with a good idea. Dan noticed that Marsha sat in deep concentration through it all. As they went out into the night, a bit brighter than before because the moon was now out from behind the scattering clouds, she clutched his arm.
"Dan," she whispered, "I believe I've got an idea. Come by the infirmary in the morning just as soon as you get away from the tennis courts."
"Okay," he promised, and they parted.
His sleep was troubled that night, and his performance on the tennis courts next morning was listless. Carol and Cynthia lingered after the lessons were over.
"What's up, coach?" asked the green-eyed redhead. "You look like warmed-over death."
"Didn't you like our fun and games, coach?" Cynthia asked. By daylight he saw that she was a prematurely developed young girl, with the face and body of a woman years older. And damned pretty.
"I'm in a little trouble right now, girls," he said. "So I'm having to be a good boy. But I'll be with you in a few days. Okay?"
"Okay," they chorused, and went off at a run.
Dan hurried down to the infirmary, first passing by the arts and crafts building to make sure Pete Mordant was in there.
"Come on in the bedroom, Dan," Marsha said, looking around carefully to make sure no one else was in sight.
From her tone he knew this was not for hanky-panky, but for business. She closed the door behind them and locked it. The bedroom was dim, lighted only by what daylight filtered through the heavy drapes drawn over the windows. Marsha sat on the chaise lounge and motioned for Dan to sit beside her.
"I'm beginning to get an idea, Dan, and I want to try it on you. I think we'll be able to work out something between just the two of us much better than batting it around in the whole group."
She leaned even closer to him, and dropped her voice to just above a whisper. "How old is Pete?"
"He's twelve," Dan answered, wondering what she was getting at.
"Right. Now keep in mind, although he's a genius, smarter than all of us put together so far, he's still a twelve-year-old kid."
"Right," Dan repeated, still not getting any light.
"What has he demanded so far?" she went on.
Dan thought. "Well, he's made Buddy take him out in the boat. He made me drive him to town to see a movie. And he made Stein get him a super-size meal."
"Don't you see it, Dan?" She looked at him intently, her blue eyes burning into his own.
He was blank at first, then he saw the pattern. "Of course," he exclaimed. "He's satisfying all a kid's desires. Movies, a boat ride, a big meal." Then he frowned. "But l don't see where that's getting us, Marsha."
Her frown matched his own. "You're going into medicine, Dan. Surely you've had some psychology already. What else about a kid. Think! Think about a bright, unscrupulous kid."
Dan thought. He thought of bright young kids who had-committed murders and things worse. He looked at Marsha, horror in his eyes. "I see. He's got no conscience. When he gets tired of his kid's desires, he'll go to cruelty. Sadism. The way a kid gets his kicks pulling an insect apart, or beating a frog into a pulp."
"That's it," she said wearily.
"Jesus Christ!" he exclaimed softly. "What do you think he'll do first?"
"He's done it already," she said, looking at him with fear and anger mixed in her expression. She got up and went to the chest of drawers against the wall. Opening the top drawer, she felt beneath some clothes and pulled out a large brown envelope. She opened it and pulled out the familiar size photo and handed it to Dan.
He looked at it. Pete's usual skill was revealed in the eight by ten color picture. In the picture Sonya Plummer had her head between the widespread thighs of a slim young camper girl. They were both naked, and the girl's extreme youth was clear from her tiny high-thrusting tits, as small as cupcakes, and the narrow patch of fine hair around her little-cunt. Sonya's sturdy body looked big by comparison as she lay with her dark auburn head pressed against the slender thighs and her tongue, incredibly long, licking at the narrow pussy of the girl.
"Christ!" Dan exclaimed. "I'd never have thought Sonya was a bull-dyke."
Marsha let her stiff lips curve into a smile. "Don't be so quick to judge, Danny boy. She's not a hard-core dyke. She's maybe bisexual, and mainly she wants men. Ask Buddy. It just happens that the little creep got her in this situation."
Dan looked at the picture again, then handed it back to Marsha who tucked it back in the envelope and put it back in its hiding place beneath her clothes. "But you said his sadism has started already."
She sat down by him again, partly facing him. "Maybe sadism is too strong a word for what he's done-so far. But it appears to be shaping up to worse. He has a hyperactive imagination, and he knows a lot."
She hesitated, then said, "He forced Sonya to let him bugger her. He fucked her in her anus."
Dan stared at her incredulously. "Stein said he was too young to be interested in sex."
"Straight sex, yes. But the variations commonly considered perversions, that would excite him. Sonya came in and told me about it right away. She was mad enough to strangle the little monster, but when he showed her the picture, she turned into water and did just what he ordered her to do. Somehow he got the name and address of her fiance in New York. He threatened to send a copy to him, and of course, one to C-C."
She grinned faintly, a glimmer of mischief in her blue eyes as she looked at Dan. "Fortunately, he's built like a twelve-year-old, too, and a rather small twelve-year-old. If he were hung like you, Danny boy, Sonya wouldn't be able to sit down for a week. Even so, she said it hurt her bung-hole pretty badly."
Dan was thinking. "That's right," he recalled. "That afternoon I saw the gang-bang in the storeroom of the arts and crafts building, when I came out, I saw Pete sneaking away. He must've got a picture of that, too. And one of the guys banged the girl in the grommet. That probably gave Pete the idea."
They sat silently for a few minutes longer, deep in thought. "We've got to find where those negatives, and the prints, too, are hidden," Marsha said softly.
"I've got it!" Dan exclaimed. "Hypnosis!"
Marsha's eyes lighted, then dimmed. "Who's a hypnotist?" Then she brightened again. "I believe you hit it, Danny boy! Let me get on that telephone. You go outside and if anybody, Pete or anybody else, comes in sight, you come up on the porch and stand in the doorway. Otherwise, wait till I call you."
She went out into the office first, to make sure no one was around to see Dan leaving the infirmary. He walked down to a maple tree a few yards away and squatted down with his back to it. From there he had a clear view of most of the infirmary and for a hundred yards or more to either side. He kept glancing impatiently at his watch, and the minutes ticked by without Marsha calling him back in. A few more minutes and it would be time to go down to lunch. Nobody came near the building.
Finally Marsha appeared on the porch and waved for him to come in again. She was smiling happily as Dan sat back down beside her desk in the outer office.
"Say nothing to anyone, Dan," she cautioned. "If you and I can bring it off, we can do it better alone. Now, I made a call to my hospital in New York. I work at St. Luke's except in the summer when l come up here. A doctor that I know there promised to get hold of a special drug for me and fly it up in his private plane. So tomorrow afternoon, you drive to the airport just the other side of the village and meet him. He'll give it to you. Hurry back and bring it to me. And don't let anybody see you doing it. I'll fix it with Stein about your absence. Now let's split. You go first, then I'll come on down in a few minutes."
Dan hurried down to the dining hall for lunch. He still wasn't sure what he had suggested to Marsha, but he trusted her sharp intelligence to know what she was doing.
Dan cut his tennis classes short the next afternoon and took off in his car for the village. He burned up the road, but even at that, the plane was already landing when he got to the small municipal airport on the other side of the village. He drove up to the edge of the landing field and waited. A tall, ruggedly handsome man leaped out of the Cessna and strode toward him. Dan climbed out of his car and walked to meet him. The man was as tall as himself, and as he came close, Dan could see that his face looked as if it were usually racked up in a big friendly grin. He grinned at Dan.
"Dan Acres?" he asked.
"Right," said, Dan smiling back and holding out his hand.
"I'm Jim Etheridge." He took Dan's hand in a firm grip, then released it. "Give this to Marsha-with my love." He pulled a cardboard carton from his inside pocket. "Tell her to be careful with it, and I'll get the results from her later. Adios." And he wheeled around and trotted right back to his plane. He was in the air by the time Dan had driven back on the road to the village.
He went through the village as fast as he dared, and once on the other side, he floorboarded the accelerator and the little MG nearly jumped out from under him. He was back in time for dinner with half an hour to spare. Not daring to take the package in to the cabin, he left it hidden under the seat of the car. He could get it later.
At dinner he noticed that Marsha had not come down yet, nor did she show during the entire meal. He wondered if something had gone wrong with the plan, whatever the plan was. Then he saw that Annabelle wasn't present, either.
As they walked out of the dining hall, Dan asked Andy to take over for him at his cabin for an hour or two. Without question the younger counselor agreed. Dan hurried up to the infirmary. Marsha was putting a girl camper into one of the beds. Probably having bad cramps, or something, he guessed. He waited in the office until she had finished in the ward and came in.
"What's up?" he demanded.
She looked worried. "Come on into my place," she said.
They went inside Marsha's bedroom, and she locked the door behind them. Then he saw Annabelle stretched out on the chaise lounge, a silly smile on her face.
"Hi, sugah," she greeted him.
"The other shoe dropped for Annabelle today," Marsha said. "And I had to give her a tranquilizer shot."
"Feelin' no pain atall," Annabelle drawled happily.
"A picture?" Dan asked.
"A picture," she replied. "A very beautiful picture in gorgeous colors of li'l 0l' me performing an act of fellatio on our fellow counselor Andy."
"You mean you giving Andy a blow-job, Miz Magnolia?" Dan grinned.
"That's just what I said," she replied.
"That tranquilizer was a bit too potent, I'm afraid," Marsha said. "Here, Annabelle, take this caffeine tablet."
A few minutes later Annabelle was untranquilized into sobriety again. She sat up straight, her feet on the floor.
"And what are you supposed to do for him?" Dan asked, worried now after what had happened to Sonya.
"That's what drove her practically into hysterics," Marsha said.
"He wants me to-to do things with a stallion in the stables. And he's going to take pictures of it." The slim girl quivered. "I told him I was having my period, that I'd do it for him in another day or two. Oh, Dan, we've got to stop him before that. How in the world does he think I can screw a horse, or vice versa?"
"He'll think of a way," Marsha said grimly. "I'm just curious to know what got him off on that kick."
Dan and Annabelle looked at each other guiltily as the same thought flashed in their minds. Marsha saw the look. "What is it?" she asked suspiciously.
"Well," Dan said, embarrassed, Annabelle and I were kidding the other night about the-ah-size of a stallion's dong, And it's hard to believe, but that little devil must've overheard us,"
"Now what were you two up to, to bring on such a conversation?" Marsha purred, a mischievous smile curling her lips.
Dan looked at her and grinned, Hell, she knew damn well what they were doing,
"Well, let's get on with our plan," Marsha said briskly. "Annabelle, since you're here and since you're marked for the next victim, you might as well join Dan and me. Do you have the drugs, Dan?"
"I'll run get them," he said. "I hid them in my car." He hurried out and up to the parking lot, forcing himself to walk at a normal pace. Someone would think it strange if he went running through camp at a fast gallop. In a few minutes he had the carton shoved in his pocket and was on his way back to the infirmary. Fortunately, no one stopped him to talk or anything. He went back inside the infirmary, into Marsha's room, and gave her the carton.
She opened it quickly and checked the contents. "Good," she smiled. "Now with any luck at all, we'll have the little bastard under control tomorrow. After lunch, you two come here and hide in my room, with the door cracked just enough to hear what goes on. Just in case I might run into trouble. But Dan, don't come out swinging unless I actually call you. Understood?"
"Understood," he said.
"I'll tell Jerry part of what's going on," she continued, "so he can keep the camp operation going smoothly."
Dan stood up. "I'd better be getting along, then. See you here tomorrow," And he left.