all. Evidently she believed him, for she relaxed in the seat.

After a few hundred yards on the turnoff, he cut the motor and pulled the car over to the shoulder of the road. It was time, now. No one would disturb them.

“Why are we stopping?” There was panic in her voice now, as she sat up rigidly and gripped the black purse tight in both hands.

He didn’t answer. His right hand encircled both her wrists in a tight grip; his left shoved the car door open. Then he forced her out of the car. The purse flew from her hands as he sent her sprawling to the ground and flung himself upon her.

“No!” she pleaded. “Don’t!” His face was so close to hers that he could feel her breath against his cheek, just as he could feel the warmth of her body through the thin shirt.

“You can’t stop me,” he said. “No one’ll hear you if you scream.” He smiled. “You might as well lie back and enjoy it.”

At last it was over. The girl remained motionless.

“There,” he said. “That wasn’t so bad, was it?”

She didn’t answer. He walked slowly back to the car, taking deep breaths of air and savoring the taste of it in his lungs.

He had one hand on the door handle when he heard her say, “Stop!” There was something in her voice that compelled him to release the door handle and turn around.

She was holding the small black purse in one hand and a small black automatic in the other. The gun was trained on him.

“You bastard,” she said. “I was just going to take your car, I would even have left you a little money to get home on, but not now.”

His mouth dropped open in shock. “Wait,” he stammered. “Wait a minute.”

“You can’t stop me,” she said, levelly. “I’m going to kill you. You might as well lie back and enjoy it.”

The bullet made a small, round hole in his stomach. He fell on the ground and lay there moaning while she straightened her clothes and took the wallet and keys from his pockets. He watched her get into the car, blow him a kiss, and drive away down the road.

It took him twenty minutes to die.

LOOK DEATH IN THE EYE

SHE WAS BEAUTIFUL.

She was, and she knew that she was—not only by the image in her mirror, the full and petulant mouth and the high cheekbones, the silkiness of the long blond hair and the deep blue color of her eyes. The image in her mirror at home told her she was beautiful, and so did the image she saw now, the image in the mirror in the tavern.

But she didn’t need the mirrors. She was made aware of her beauty by the eyes, the eyes of the hungry men, the eyes that she felt rather than saw upon her everywhere she went. She could feel those eyes caressing her body, lingering too long upon her firm ripe breasts and sensuous hips, touching her body with a touch firmer than hands and making her grow warm where they rested. Wherever she went men stared at her, and the intensity of their stares undressed their passions and hungers just as thoroughly as the stares attempted to strip her body.

She sipped at her drink, hardly tasting it but knowing that she had to drink it. It was all part of the game. She was in a bar, and the hungry men were also in the bar, and now their eyes were wandering over her. But for the moment there was nothing for her to do. She had to drink her drink and bide her time, waiting for the men—or one of them, at least—to get up the courage to do more than stare.

Idly, she turned a few inches on the barstool and glanced at the other customers. Several men were too busy drinking to pay any attention to her; another was busy in a corner booth running his hand up and down the leg of a slightly plump redhead, and it was easy to see that he wouldn’t be interested in her, not that night.

But the other three customers were fair game.

She regarded them thoughtfully, one at a time. Closest to her was a young one—no more than twenty-one or twenty-two, she guessed, and hungry the way they are when they’re that age. He was short and slim, dressed in a dark suit and wearing a conservative bow tie. She noticed with a little amusement