She dropped it to the patio pavement. She seized my hand in both of her own. "O master, do you forgive your slave?"

I looked down at her. Suddenly all the love I had ever felt for her surged up in me. I thought of her dances, the joy I had taken in her. "Yes," I said.

"O master, I do not deserve it. I have been thoughtless and wanton. I value your love. I will, I vow, mend my ways and try to be worthy of you."

Gently, I lifted her to her feet.

I heard a car door slam, but at that tender moment I only had attention for the beautiful Utanc.

There was someone at the patio door. A voice, "Who is this?"

I turned.

TEENIE!

Behind her, in the yard, staff was unloading a small truck full of baggage.

In the door she stood holding two grips. Her oversized eyes were round with surprise and her too-big mouth agape.

She dropped a grip.

She pointed at Utanc. "WHO is this?" she repeated.

I stood very tall. "This," Isaid, "is the woman I love. The only true love I have ever had. The only woman I will ever love."

Teenie's eyes got rounder. She looked from Utanc to me. "You mean... you mean you don't love me even a little bit?"

I looked at her, this scrawny traitor with her silly ponytail. With all the contempt I could muster, I spat upon the floor!

Teenie seemed to deflate. She dropped the other grip. She groped forward and clutched the fountain rim for support. She sank down on it. Unaccountably, she began to cry.

I glared at her. Her tears were plashing into the fountain pool. Brokenly, she said, "I guess I made a mistake."

I really snarled at her. "You're (bleeped) right you made a mistake, you little (bleepch)! You sold me out!"

She looked at me bewildered. Then she shook her head. "Oh, you poor, dumb jerk. You're the one that blew it. You skipped out just when I had it all handled."

"You were delivering me into their hands!" I raged. "I heard you with my own ears."

"Oh, you dumb (bleepard)," said Teenie. "The trouble with you is nobody dares tell you anything. If they did you'd find some way to mess it up!

"When Grabbe-Manhattan approached me in Bermuda, they told me they also owned the Squeeza credit card company and even though the Piastre National Bank was paying the bills, Grabbe-Manhattan could end our credit in ports at any time and leave us high and dry unless I brought you home to Turkey.

"So I took all the time we could while I tried to sell the yacht. The Crown Prince of Saudi-Yemen had seen it in Atlantic City and when I found him on the radio, he agreed to buy it. We were delivering it to him in Alexandria. The price was five times what you paid for it. It would have cleared off all your debts with Mudur Zengin.

"Captain Bitts thinks you're insane. He tried to tell you about the deal and he also tried to tell you we were just outside Turkish waters and the storm would take you, not to Greek Chios, but straight in toward Izmir.

And you knocked him out! He's got a terrible cut on his head.

"When he realized he didn't have an owner aboard to sign the papers, he radioed Mudur Zengin. And Zen-gin didn't know about the Grabbe-Manhattan mortgage and he thought we'd be seized as pirates if you were not aboard so he told us to come into Istanbul.

"Grabbe-Manhattan put a lien on the ship, grabbed it, sold it themselves to the Crown Prince and pocketed the profit.

"You dumb jerk! You blew it!"

I knew how she lied. I snarled, "You're the one that blew it! You didn't have to come near Turkey!"

"Oh, Jesus!" she said. "You don't understand anything! The sale of the yacht would only have cleared off your debts to Mudur Zengin. We wouldn't have had a dime to operate. When we landed in Alexandria, we would have to have capital to buy a whorehouse and get a new start in life.

"That dumb fishboat Closure had could only make half the speed of the yacht. As soon as I got back with the dough, we would have told Grabbe-Manhattan to go to hell and split at twenty knots!"

"You expect me to believe that!" I snarled, getting madder by the second.

"You better believe it," she said. "We're two of a kind, you dumb jerk. Both of us are rotten to the core. We're so screwed up with psychology and crime we got no idea which end is up. But at least we can stick together! There ain't any hope otherwise. And you blew!

"I had a hell of a time getting the dough out of them. And I didn't blow. I came back here for you!"

Utanc spoke unexpectedly. "You can't have him! He's mine!"

Teenie suddenly looked at her. Then her lip raised with scorn and she looked at me. "Where the hell did you find that thing, Inky? Some garbage can?"

Utanc drew herself up. She let out a whoof of dis­gust. She went to her room, went in and slammed the door.

I glared at Teenie, my rage mounting. "Now look what you have done, you (bleepch). Why don't you get the Hells out of my life? I would kill you slow, slow, slow if I could. I've hated you from the first moment I ever laid eyes on you! I should have slaughtered you ages ago. And now you've wrecked my life and sold me for a lousy ten thousand bucks. I hate you!"

She went white. She reached into her purse and pulled out a wad of bills. "It was for you! Take it, you (bleep)!" And she threw them at me with all her might.

It was too much. I hauled off and slapped her with all my might.

Her feet went off the floor. She hurtled sideways, slammed against the wall and went down. She lay there for a moment, then she raised her head. Blood was running from the side of her mouth. Pure hatred burned in her eyes.

"You'll be sorry for that, you (bleepard)," she said. "I'm going to leave here and get back to New York and then you'll wish to God you had never been born!"

Fear hit me. She could make that rape of a minor charge stick. Extradition would follow.

I had to get rid of her. I didn't dare kill her. If I failed to produce her in a reasonable time I could also be hit for murder because of that injunction.

Inspiration! There was a way I could put her on ice and yet return her if they tried to say I had killed her. She did not speak the language and could do me no harm.

I WOULD SEND TEENIE TO VOLTAR!

The Blixo was coming in. Madison was going.

I glanced around. There were no witnesses.

"If you want to cry on somebody's shoulder," I said, "Madison is in there." And I pointed to my own bed­room.

She glanced in that direction. Then she got to her feet unsteadily and went through the door.

I was right behind her. With my heel I kicked the door shut. At the same moment, I pulled the gas bomb out of my pocket.

She didn't see Madison. She turned.

I pushed the gas bomb into her face.

She crumpled.

Working rapidly, using heavy cord, I tied her feet and hands together.

I went out into the patio. The truck was gone but they had piled her baggage by the door. Working quickly, I dragged it into my room and out of sight. There was quite a bit of it.

Two big black suitcases looked like the ones that had been in my closet on the ship. I opened them. My clothes and guns and viewers! She had packed up and brought my things. I left them there.

I picked her up and took her through my secret room and down the tunnel. I dropped her and made four more trips to get all of her baggage and so leave no evidence.

I called the security captain.

"Put this girl in a detention cell with her baggage. Hold her with no communication. She is a passenger for the Blixo."

They hauled her away and, down the corridor, the cell door clanged shut.

I went back to the patio.

The money was still lying on the pavement. I gathered it up and put it in my wallet.

Having no crystal ball or ways to read the horrible future to hand, I thought, with satisfaction, that that was the end of Teenie.