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СКАЧАТЬ you hear that?” asked Julie Cotton.

      “Mmm, hear what?” asked Jack Kennedy in his Boston Brahmin drawl.

      “That sound.”

      “Just someone slamming a door somewhere.”

      Julie’s ears twitched in silhouette. “No, it was closer than that.” They swiveled toward Nick.

      Nick started to swing the peephole shut but there was a faint creak so he stopped. Julie’s ears stood straight up. Hoping her eyesight was only human, Nick covered the slot of the peephole with the soft gray felt of his hat brim. It muffled sound as well, but when he finally thought it safe to steal a glance, Julie’s silhouette was again facing forward.

      “—only thing creaking here is the bed,” Jack insisted, thrusting up into her, making the springs creak with his exertions.

      “I don’t think so.” Julie’s ears twitched. “These ears are for more than just petting, you know.”

      “Then it’s a rat.” Another thrust. “This place is old.”

      Nick did feel a bit like Judas, but he wasn’t one of Kennedy’s disciples, the man was just a politician, and what’s more, a married man, having an affair when he had not just a wife but kids. If Nick was a rat, he certainly wasn’t the only one.

      “Okay,” Julie said, “but promise me one thing. Don’t ever go to Texas.”

      “Can’t promise you that.” Jack laughed. “You’re a crazy bunny.” A grunt. “I like you, Julie.” Grunt. “But it’s a big state.” Grunt. “Gonna have to stump.”

      “I don’t care if you stump! Just don’t go there after you’re elected.”

      “Might wanna run for a second term …”

      “I want you to too,” Julie cried, beginning to sob, “but you won’t. Trust me, you won’t. Just promise me you won’t go to Dallas.”

      “Dallas is a big city.”

      “Then just promise me you won’t go to Dealey Plaza,” Julie sobbed. “Don’t go anywhere near that damned school book depository …”

      “Okay,” he moaned, “on one condition …”

      “What?”

      “You quit teasing me with the crazy talk and we just have wild bunny sex!”

       “Deal!”

      With that, Julie began bouncing as gaily as the rabbit on the cover of Rabbit Hill, except instead of a hill, she was atop Senator John Fitzgerald Kennedy.

      This was the money shot, but the room was too dark, and it would give away the game to use a flash. But unlike most photographers, Nick had an ace. He bled off electricity into the air like a Tesla coil, the ionic charge making the light bulbs light up on their own.

      Light up they did, enough to get three clear shots until the bulbs in the chandelier went up like flashbulbs, overloading one after another.

      “What the hell!” cried Jack.

      “What on earth!” cried Julie.

      Nick cried nothing, only used the distraction to slam and bolt the peephole.

      The bulb in his flashlight had blown, too, but he had will-o’-wisps to light the way.

      Two days later, Nick deposited a stack of photos on Hef’s desk. A second smaller stack of photos and their negatives were hidden under the lining of the Argus’s case.

      Two other photos and negative frames, one with a blurry photo on the model but a good focus on the background, another just a shot of a bookcase, had been left out. Nick had compared the eyes in the library peephole with the eyes of the Playmates and matched them with Constance and Gwen, as expected.

      Hef picked up the photos, flipping through them without comment, then began to lay them in groups atop the desk. “White Rabbit, March Hare, Peter Rabbit’s hot sisters … What’s this?”

      “The Velveteen Rabbit,” Nick answered.

      Hef nodded and came to the last set of photos, flipping through them. He paused at one. “Great action shot. Got centerfold written all over it.”

      “Centerfold?”

      “Yep,” Hef said, “had a gentleman’s bet with Will. He won. Asked me to make Julie centerfold. Was thinking of doing it anyway, but later. But these photos? I’m moving her up to Miss March. And we’ve got the new theme for the club. That harpy Parsons somehow got word we were doing kittens, so we’re going to switch it up and unveil bunnies instead.” Hef gazed at the centerfold, Nick’s shot of Julie bouncing gaily in the air, then laid it on the desk. He then opened a drawer and pulled out a book, setting it beside the photograph with a grim chuckle. “Knew I’d seen this pose before.”

      A shiny Newbery Medal sticker adorned the cover of Rabbit Hill, a bunny bouncing beside it in the same pose, a hill with a little red house in the background below. “My daughter Christie’s seven,” Hef mentioned. “I asked Julie what sort of book a seven-year-old girl would like. She suggested this.”

      Nick reached out and flipped it open, noting the title page and the words below: The Viking Press—New York 1944. “Two years before Wild Card Day …”

      “Must have made quite an impression.” Hef tapped the nude. “So will this.”

      “Yeah.”

      “We’re going to need a clothed shot for the cover, but that doesn’t have to wait until Valdes swaps the kitten costumes into bunnies. Julie already has her own ears and tail.”

      “Should I be the one to tell her?”

      Hef mused. “Sure. Go ahead. You’ve earned it.”

      Nick knocked on the door of Will and Julie’s suite. Julie opened it.

      “Congratulations, Miss March,” Nick greeted her.

      Her face lit up while her ears stood up straight. “Are you kidding me?”

      “No, it’s almost as much a promotion for me as it is for you. I’ve gone from the pretty boy chosen for his looks to the guy who can actually shoot centerfolds.” Nick grinned. “May I come in?”

      “Of course.”

      Nick stepped inside. The suite was decked out in Oriental splendor, more elegance from Ada’s collection. Will was there, too, on a chinoiserie sofa, getting an early start on the scotch. “Sorry about the other night,” the older man apologized. “I babble when I’m drunk.”

      “No need. I think СКАЧАТЬ