The diamond bikini - By Charles Williams Page 0,57
he says. “I’ll have to save one to show to Sagamore. It’s a downright work of art.” I read it over, and it sure sounded fine, all right.
REWARD!!!
NUDE GIRL LOST IN SWAMP!!
REWARD! $500 REWARD!
MISS CHOO-CHOO CAROLINE,
FAMOUS BUBBLE DANCER, LOST
Five hundred dollars in cash will be paid for the safe return of Miss Choo-Choo Caroline, world-famous striptease dancer, lost in wild river bottom of the Noonan farm five miles south of the town of Jerome, in Blossom County.
Miss Caroline has been missing since 5 p.m. Tuesday evening, when she was surprised, attacked, and shot at by gangsters while swimming clad only in a diamond G-string. She is known to have escaped into the timber at that time, but will shortly be suffering from exposure due to having no clothes on.
Description:
Bust 36
Waist 24
Hips 36
Winner of three beauty contests, water ballet star at 16, former model, Queen of the Water Ski festival in 1955. Lovely, breath-taking brunette with deep blue eyes and jet black hair. Nineteen years old. Smooth golden suntan all over. May be identified by tattoo in the form of a rambler rose entwined around right breast with small pink flower in center.
PLEASE HELP US FIND THIS GIRL!
Thirteen
We started rolling it out. I cranked till my arm was worn out, and then Pop took over. We stacked the sheets in big blocks and then put them in a cardboard box. When the box was full we started another one. Pop got tired and I took over again. Pop got a road map out of the car and sat down at the little desk, marking off the towns all around and the best way to make ‘em all with one sweep. He kept looking at his watch.
We was filling up the second box when we began hearing cars outside.
“All right, I think we got enough,” Pop says.
“Put out the lantern.”
I blew it out, and we went outside. Pop closed the door. There was three cars parked just up the hill from the front yard, and another one was coming. In its headlights I could see one of the others was a sound truck, with a big loudspeaker mounted on top. Men began to get out and light lanterns.
“Which way?” a man yells at Pop.
Pop was standing in a headlight beam. He swung his arm and pointed towards the bottom. “Down there,” he says.
Men started hurrying down the hill, running around the corners of the house and out towards the cornfield with their lanterns. “Hey, you guys, wait for me,” others was calling out from the cars.
Pop lit a cigar. “Sure is a enthusiastic search party,” he says. “But they’re goin’ to need help. I can just feel it.”
The loudspeaker on the truck began to make noise. It let out a big blast and says, Wheeeet! Wheeeet! Testing, one, two, three, four. Testing. Up this way, Miss Caroline. Follow the music”
It started playing a record. It was sure loud. I reckon you could of heard it over a mile.
“Hey, Pop,” I says. “That’ll bring her in in no time, if she can still walk. That’s a good idea.”
“Sure is.” Pop nodded his head. “But it’s a awful big bottom down there. Three or four miles across. Even so, they ort to find her by daylight.”
“Reckon we ought to go ahead and distribute them hand bills?” I asked.
“Oh, sure,” he says. “Got to do everything we can to help out. By the way, though, if I was you I wouldn’t mention nothing about them to the shurf. Them beaurocrats always want to run thing their own way, an’ they get all fussed when somebody like a ordinary citizen tries to help out.”
“Sure,” I says. “I won’t say nothing.”
All the men was gone from the cars now except the one playing the records in the sound truck. Pop reached in the trailer and took out the two boxes of hand bills and carried them up to our car.
Just as we was putting them in the seat Uncle Sagamore rode up on his mule. I could just barely see him in the dark. He had to get down to talk, because the record playing in the sound
truck made so much noise.
“You about ready to go, Sam?” he asked.
“Just startin’ now,” Pop says. “How is the search goin’?”
“I made one sweep down across the bottom an’ back, but didn’t see a sign of her. Didn’t even see any of the searchers. Lots of ground down there.”
Pop got in the car and leaned his head out the window.