April 10, 1960

The door to the lavish suite in Washington’s Ambassador Hotel opened on a vestibule that led into two rooms: one was a bedroom, the other a sitting room with a convertible sofa and stuffed chairs. Loud talking and laughing escaped from the closed door to the suite. As guests arrived, and the door was opened, loudness, laughter, smoke, and the smell of booze flooded into the corridor.

“Who the hell is there now?” called a voice from the crowded sitting room as the door buzzer sounded.

“Hey, it’s Jim Duneden,” called another voice from the same room as J.T. opened the door.

A fully stocked folding bar was set up in the sitting room, with a bartender in a white jacket in attendance. Music drifted from a radio.

“Hello, Jim. I’m glad you could make it.”

“Oh, yeah, J.T. Glad you asked me,” Duneden said, gazing eagerly into the two rooms to see what was happening and who was there.

In the bedroom, a group of six or seven men and three women were drinking, exchanging gossip and dirty jokes. Duneden recognized Bill Crean from the Washington Post, as well as Joe Wasnak, a photographer from the same paper. He recognized some of the other men. He didn’t know the women; he could see they were kind of flashy, overly made up, with tight clothes and good tits. Duneden stared at a young blonde girl who had her back—and a nice ass—to him. He started for the room with the bar.

“Hey, Jim, you son of a bitch, where the hell have you been?” called “Slats” Peabody, a city editor at CBS, from his perch at the bar. With Slats was Mac Baron from AP. A stunning older blonde woman stood with them. She looked like she could sing Wagner.

Duneden waded into the room enthusiastically, aiming right for Brunhilde.

J.T. didn’t mind being left unceremoniously at the door. He wanted all his newly cultivated friends from the press and television world to enjoy the booze and women he provided at his monthly meeting of the Mountaineers’ Club. J.T., in fact, had founded and funded the Mountaineers’ Club singlehandedly, for the very purpose of entertaining members of of the Washington press corps. The first time he had come down on the train to Washington, to be interviewed for the associate counsel position, he had decided that an occasional party to entertain the guys in the press room would go a long way. J.T. even had cards printed up, with the name Mountaineers’ Club imprinted over twin mountain peaks. Except, if one studied the vague mountains in the background of the membership cards, one realized they weren’t mountains at all; they were a woman’s breasts. The overt sexual tone of the Mountaineers wasn’t exactly to J.T.’s taste, but he knew the guys in the press room would go for such things. There were only two requirements for membership in the club: you had to be connected with the news media in some capacity—mostly in reporting or editing—and you had to get a membership card from J.T. Wright.

“Boy, J.T., those three in there are something,” said Joe Wasnak, coming out of the bedroom on his way to the bar for a refill.

“I’m glad you think so,” said J.T., flicking him a smile. He stood in the vestibule, from which he could keep an eye on the activities.

Wasnak got his drink and started back to the bedroom. “Are there going to be more dames?”

“There may be, later,” J.T. lied. “Aren’t five enough for you?”

Wasnak laughed. “I guess you’re right, J.T.”

Of course I am, J.T. thought to himself. Otto Wright is never wrong. What sophomoric shit, J.T. silently reprimanded himself.

The blonde woman joined J.T. in the vestibule.

“I’m going to set up the phonograph in the bedroom,” she said. “Is it okay to start now?”

“Whenever you say, Lana,” J.T. replied. “I’ll leave that stuff up to you.”

“Say, J.T., why are you monopolizing the girls?” said Duneden, coming over to them, drink in hand. He was blatantly eyeing Lana. “That’s not being a good host.”

“Lana, in case you weren’t introduced, this is my friend Jim,” J.T. said, purposely not giving his friend’s last name. “He’s the fellow I told you about.”

“Oh?” said Duneden with surprise.

“Don’t worry, J.T. didn’t say anything bad about you,” Lana said coyly. “He just said I should be extra nice because you were a special friend of his. He didn’t tell me you were good-looking too,” she said with professional aplomb.

“Oh, hey. This Brunhilde’s got a good line of you-know-what,” said Duneden, laughing, putting his arm around Lana’s waist. “Anybody ever tell you you were built like Brunhilde?”

“Is that something like a brick shithouse?” Lana shot back coyly.

Duneden laughed loudly. “I knew you were my kind of woman the moment—if you’ll pardon the expression—I laid eyes on you.”

“He’s cute, J.T. You’ve got a good line yourself,” Lana said to Duneden.

Duneden sipped his drink. “That I do, that I do,” he said.

“Remember what they say about self-praise,” Lana cautioned as she turned out of Duneden’s arm and into the bedroom.

“What’s that?” He followed her.

“Self-praise stinks.”

J.T. winced at the banal repartee. He planned on leaving as soon as the festivities started. After all, he threw these parties for the others; that didn’t mean he had to stay.

Lana set up a small portable phonograph on one of the night tables next to the bed. Duneden hovered around her, plugging the phonograph into the wall socket. She put a record on the turntable and set the needle down gently. Pounding striptease music blasted the room.

“Hey, hey,” said one of the voices from the bar. “Sounds like a little action is starting in the bedroom.”

Others cheered.

Everyone quickly drifted into the bedroom. Two of the girls, nodding to Lana, began to dance in place. The men moved back to give them room. The girls moved provocatively to the music. One began to work at the belt of her dress. The men cheered loudly. She unfastened it and threw it into a corner. She was the center of attention as she teasingly slid off her clothes and played to the leering men, coming close to them as she shook her bare breasts in their drinks. She actually wet one of her doorbell-button nipples in Joe Wasnak’s Scotch.

Howls and cheers.

Another girl stripped down to a G-string, then danced through the room, making her way to the vestibule. J.T. pressed himself back into a corner as the girl passed him. A few men followed her into the sitting room, watching her teasingly sliding the G-string down, then up, then further down. Her companion soon followed.

A second pair of girls began a dance routine in the bedroom. The record ended, but the dancers kept bumping and grinding. Lana quietly turned the record over, then joined J.T. in the vestibule to watch her charges. Duneden followed Lana and stood in the vestibule, watching one room, then the other. Soon there were four nude women gyrating, teasing the cheering voyeurs.

“I’m going to take off,” J.T. said to Duneden. “Lana knows how to take care of things.”

“I bet she does,” leered Duneden.

“Why don’t you stay, J.T.? Have some fun,” Lana suggested.

“I have an appointment with the chairman of the committee,” J.T. lied. “Have to go over some material for the crime hearings.”

“Right, right,” Duneden said, putting his arm around Lana’s waist.

The two girls in the bedroom evoked howls and cheers as they began to perform tricks. One balanced drinks on her breasts as she walked across the room. The other, not to be outdone, showed an amazing ability to pick up dollar bills between her legs. The men set up bills for her to pick up.

J.T. quickly slipped out of the doorway, delighted that this meeting of the Mountaineers’ Club was coming off so successfully.