Part 2

"She began to hum a few bars of the song she used in her--um--routine, despite my pleas.

"'Miss LaTour, please don't begin that again!'

"'What're ya kickin' about, professor? You're gettin' a free show, ain'tcha? At least up to a point y'are--'

"'Please, Miss LaTour, put on that blouse. I must warn you--'

"Her lovely bare arms stopped their gyrations. 'Huh? Warn me? About what?'

"'That time and space are really fluid, as that ancient philosopher, Einstein, suspected back in the Twentieth Century. You may not reach the same time-space continuum again. Why, you may even--um--wiggle yourself into the middle of a Pharaoh's tomb--or perhaps the bottom of the ocean which now covers what used to be ancient Russia!'

"'I'll take my chances, Doc. Hmmm.... Hmmm.... Pretty good, huh?'

"'I implore you, Miss LaTour!'

"Despite my desperate efforts, she began to remove another of her--um--garments.

"'Da de da, my bra. Da de daa doo, my shoe. And now, Launcelot, honey, here I--'

"She had come to the hip-wiggle that curiously projected her through some warp in space. There was a sound as though a rubber tube were being sucked inside out--and she vanished."

* * * * *

The little fella emptied his glass and filled it again.

"I waited for what seemed an eternity. But she never reappeared, to this very day."

I takes another slug of that Martian wiggle-water myself, then I squints at the professor over my glass.

"I guess maybe you been hittin' the bottle yourself lately, huh Doc?"

"What? Oh, you don't believe me, do you, Benny?"

"Well, it ain't that exactly, but ya gotta admit--"

He gets excited again. "Here, I'll show you." He goes to a drawer, takes somethin' soft and shiny out, and comes back, wavin' them under my nose. My nose doesn't object.

"I have proof. Take a look at these."

They was Helen LaTour's size, all right. I gotta admit that, okay. And they _was_ pretty. Especially when I starts thinkin' of what filled 'em.

"She left them behind when she went through that space warp. It's all there is left of her."

"Hmmm. Say, doc, y'sure these ain't some other dame's? Maybe yer wife's--?"

"I assure you, I have never been married." He looks wistful-like. "Since meeting Miss LaTour, I grant you I have toyed with the speculation of what marital bliss might have been like with someone of the caliber of--"

Just then, the window behind me pops open with a crash that breaks it into a zillion pieces, and into the room steps Luigi.

I couldn't of been more scared if I'd started seeing snakes, which I had, since Luigi looks like the meanest kind of viper in the zoo.

"Okay, pop," he snarls, deadly-like. "Where ya keepin' her?"

The little guy doesn't even turn a hair, whiles I'm startin' to get rid of all the stuff I been drinkin', reflex-like, so's I'll be lighter fer the takeoff when I kin get my feet unfroze.

"How did you get here?" the prof inquires, cool like a cucumber.

"I climbed in through that there space warp you been warblin' about," Luigi sneers, and I can see he is in a definitely unsociable mood.

"You!" he hollers, looking at where I was before he hollered, and when I come down off the top of the bookcase he says, "What do you know about it?"

"Luigi," I peeps, "I ain't never seen this guy until tonight."

"He's telling the truth, Luigi," the little guy says, and I coulda kissed him fer it.

"Okay, pop. So now that you're talkin', start singin'. And it better be on the level, too. What did you do with my gal? C'mon, spill it, or you'll be spillin' more than words."

"I told you the truth the first time," the little guy says, with terrific dignity fer a future corpse.

I thought Luigi would bust a jet-gasket, but all of a sudden he calms down, and gets an expression on his puss like a tiger tryin' to smile.

"Look pop," he says, "I know how it is." And he's almost beggin' now. "I know LaTour. She's gotta have a change once't in a while. But I love that dame, see? And I gotta have her back. So if you'll just tell me where she is, I'm willin' to forget all about everythin' else--"

The little guy just looks at him sort of pitying-like. "I assure you I'd like to help you, Luigi, but--"

He stops, with his mouth open, his eyes poppin' out of his head. He's starin' at somethin' behind me and Luigi's.

* * * * *

I hears a low, silvery laugh, kinda like little bells tinklin', and the kinda voice you figure that there pie-eyed piper musta had on his flute, is sayin':

"Well! Hello, suckers!"

When Luigi hears that laugh, he whirls around like a weathercock on top of a landship station, his face all red and puffed up.

"Baby!" He gets that far, then _his_ eyes start to pop out. Mine are already rollin' on the rug.

Standin' there, laughin' like she is havin' the time of her luscious life, is the Queen of Burly-que, Helen LaTour herself, in, what I mean, the flesh.

She is holdin' some white sort of a robe or somethin' over her head, and aside from that, she ain't got a stitch on that knockout of a body of hers.

Luigi gets his wind back, and starts gettin' tough again. "So you been two-timin' me fer this old goat here, huh?"

"I assure you, this is as much of a shock to me--"

But the LaTour ain't payin' them no attention. She pulls the robe half over her, and gives with that tinklin' laugh again.

"I didn't expect to come back here," she chuckles. "I made a mistake."

"Where you been?" Luigi moves towards her, like he was gonna hit her.

"Don't you take another step, you lug!"

She sure knew how to handle men. Luigi stops like he's been slugged by a Uranian, and his face gets all purple and pleading.

"Aw come on, babe, gimme a break. Ain't you been hangin' out with this little jerk long enough?"

"Th-that garment--" The little guy is starin' at the robe LaTour is holdin' over the better parts of her. "That white robe--where did you get it?" he sorta wheezed.

"This? Oh, this old thing. It's just part of my old wardrobe. The guy I married gave it to me."

"You--_what_?" Luigi's puss turns from purple to pale white. "You ain't married?"

"Oh, no?" LaTour looks at him like he's a Venusian rainworm, and the lug goes inta another Technicolor trance.

"But I'm gettin' fed up already," she yawns. "I met a fella's got a lot more S.A. than the guy I'm hitched to now. Yeah," she giggles, "My new fella knows how to appreciate a gal. Why, he even judged a beauty contest once."

"You take that jet line to Atlantic City, baby?" Luigi says.

The LaTour laughs, and catches the little guy's eye. "Professor, tell this jerk here what I'm talkin' about."

The little guy nods. "So that's why you didn't come back," he says.

"Yeah. I been promised to my new fella, and I ain't one to break a promise."

"The apple of discord," the little guy is mutterin'. "'Twas ever thus, my dear. But why are you here now?"

"I been tellin' my new boy friend about show business. He kept beggin' me to do my stuff, and I finally gave in. Right after we eloped--maybe it's the ham in me or somethin', but I did my routine fer him, and I guess I musta forgot and added that extra wiggle.

"I figured he had it comin'," she says. "Anyhow, here I am."

"And you'll stay here now, baby, wherever you been?" For a tough guy, Luigi sure looked soft-boiled, now.

The LaTour gave him a look that ain't had the benefit of Ivory Soap. "I'm goin' back."

"Aw, baby...."

"I can speak their language fine now. Besides, there's gonna be hell to pay because we eloped. And I gotta stick by Paris."

"You goin' to France, Miss LaTour?" I blurts out.

* * * * *

She laughs. Luigi is scowlin', but the little professor is just noddin' like he understands everything.

"I been there, fella," she says to me. "I been everywhere." She starts to hum a song I ain't never heard before.

"This here's LaTour's farewell tour, men," she says, startin' to do some fancy movin' around that makes my skin crawl, watchin' her.

"Baby, you ain't gonna start your routine here, are ya?" Luigi says.

"Shut up, creep, I gotta concentrate," she squelches him.

The professor pipes up like he's half asleep. "You know, Miss LaTour, there must be a destiny about all this...."

"La de day--yeah, that's what that there Aphrodite told my new boy friend," she throws a dazzlin' smile at him over her shoulder, wavin' that white robe around her flawless body.

"It won't seem the same on Venus without you," the professor sort of moans.

"Shut up, professor," Luigi hollers, then that tough voice of his breaks, like he was almost cryin'. "Baby, stop dancin' around."

"Outa my way, ya lug. I'm workin' up to the finale."

"Please, baby. I'll--I'll give ya a million asteroids, honey. I won't smoke no more of them there Saturn Stogies--"

The LaTour's movin' around gets more fancy all the time. She is all the moonbeams and flowers I ever seen, rolled into one. It was easy to unnerstan' how she got to be the big star that she was--even here on rough and ready Venus. She had class, and somethin' else--somethin' that made ya keep watchin' her every movement, like you was hungry for somethin', but ya didn't know what. And you wanted to jump up and down, and holler, but ya just couldn't move because you was watchin' so hard.

She was wigglin' them beautiful, dimpled, rounded hips--

And then she wasn't there anymore.

* * * * *

"Hey!" Luigi runs around the room like he is goin' space-daffy.

"It's no use, Luigi," the little guy says, lookin' sadder than ever. "She's gone back. And this time I suspect it's forever," the prof says.

Luigi comes over to the little guy and grabs him by the throat.

"She can't do that to me. Gone back where? Y'gotta tell me."

"She's gone back to Paris," the prof says.

Luigi snarls like he is gettin' a Martian sand-fever fit. "What? Leavin' me fer some Frenchman? I'll--"

"No." The professor pulls away from Luigi. "This Paris is a part of ancient Greece--a young shepherd prince whose theft of the wife of Menelaos started the Trojan War."

"Huh?" Luigi is as up in the air as I am.

"Helen...." The little, fella looks sort of thoughtful. "Of course. That was her name. Helen of Troy--LaTour. The queen of space. 'The face that launched a thousand ships.'"

The professor nods at us. "Who would have ever believed--"

"Okay, pop," Luigi looks tough again, and I am plenty scared.

"Hey Luigi," I hollers, "You kin see the little guy is tellin' the truth. He didn't do nothin'--"

Luigi turns around, and I kin see the little red specks at the corners of his eyes. "Who says he did?" he snarls. He heads fer the open window, reachin' in his vest fer his blood-freezer, and I kin hear him mutterin'.

"I'm goin' after that guy Paris, and when I find him, I'm gonna turn the blaster on and smash him right through that there space warp!

"Yeah," he hollers, standin' there framed by that window fer a minute before he jets off, with all them millions of stars blazin' like fury in the cleared-up Venusian night sky.

"No lousy Greek is gonna steal my girl and get away with it!"

I dunno. I ain't seen Luigi since, but I'm willin' t'wager a platterful of Plutonian Stingers that he ain't never gonna master that there hip-wiggle.

Not like Helen LaTour, he ain't.