Noreen Casey winced as the question fell from the lips of Yvonne Speers whose tall, slim body perfectly suited her dual profession, model and call-girl ... Noreen's answer, "No, not yet," was barely audible ... Yvonne would never have believed the truth, that Noreen was a virgin ... A girl who had escaped from a reformatory was not expected to dream of saving the first blush of passion for a man she really loved ... She brushed away her memories of the institution ... Now she was free-in New York ... Where Yvonne would be her link to a glamorous future as a singer ... Instead the statuesque goddess opened doors to a tawdry world ... Where women dressed as men ... Where Teddy, a female impersonator, was kind ... To please him, Noreen submitted to the strange passion that satisfied his mutilated body ... Her own body cringed with revulsion in the clammy hands of Mauri King, the price of not being turned over to the police ... Other grubby fingers found their way along Noreen's soft young flesh before she met Hank, the real passion of her life.
CHAPTER ONE
Her first night in prison was, in more ways than one, the turning point in Noreen Casey's life.
No use trying to sleep. There was too much panic and fear and hate seething in her for that. She hadn't dreamed anything could be so bad! Not that she had ever thought much about it-about being in prison. It is not one of the things you worry about at twenty-one. When you are beautiful and have the sort of tall, long-legged body that men undress with their eyes on every street corner. When life is full of music and strange sensations and unfulfilled promises. When one small glass of wine sends you to Cloud Nine and the cupping of a boy's hand around your firm breast gives you the shivers.
No, not even if your folks are drunks and you live in a lousy neighborhood and there is never enough money. Even then you don't figure on ending up in a place like this.
Not that Sunny View Institute For Rehabilitation was a prison in the strictest sense. The social workers, juvenile authorities, and even the Judge had explained all that to Noreen. Sunny View was a privately owned and operated institution. The state sent you there and billed your parents. If the parents couldn't pay then the state had to.
Noreen shivered despite the fact that her whole body felt as though it was on fire. She raised herself on one elbow and gazed down the long narrow dormitory. Twenty white steel cots. A delinquent girl in each one.
Some of them, Noreen knew even on her first day, were really tough. Foul mouthed and dirty minded. Cursing wildly one moment and laughing just as wildly the next. Noreen grimaced in the dark. Though she never used foul language herself she came from a rough neighborhood, ahd from a dirt poor shanty-Irish family. She had thought she knew all the words. After tonight she knew differently.
Irene, the girl sleeping in the next cot, had been friendly. Maybe because they were both Irish. Irene had already taught her how to sneak a smoke by the ventilator in the John, and had even given Noreen one of her own small hoard of cigarettes.
Irene was a short dumpy girl with stringy hair and a bad complexion. Almost at the outset of their conversation she had cheerfully confessed that she was in Sunny View because the cops had caught her in the basement of a deserted house with a gang of the neighborhood boys.
"I was taking them all on," she giggled. "A buck a throw. Some fun. Nothing to it after the first two or three. You don't feel a thing. And it sure as hell beats working in a dime store."
Noreen had been careful not to let the' disgust show on her face. Irene, she could sense already, was not very bright. Still she needed a friend, or at least an informant, and Irene was the only one to show her any friendliness so far. So as they smoked the forbidden cigarettes she forced herself to ask many questions and to listen calmly to the answers. For Noreen, even in the immensity of her own turmoil and panic, was already fiercely nurturing the thought of escape. She had been a little fool and made a bad mistake. Now she had to get out of this stinking place just as soon as she could. She had no intention of serving the year the Judge had given her.
Irene, in spite of being a semi-moron, knew her way around the place. There were no walls and no bars. There was an "honor system" and was that a laugh!
The dumpy girl giggled and picked at her acne-pocked face. "A lot try it. They all get caught. Why you suppose they ain't got any walls or bars? Because this joint is a million miles out in the sticks, that's why! The closest town is twenty miles away and it's just a hick village. And you gotta get that far to find a main road. Nothing but back roads around here. So all the cops gotta do is watch the main road out of Crawfordsville and they got you. Of course if you got a boy friend waiting with a car you might have a chance." She laughed. "Only thing is-us girls in here ain't got many friends."
That was all 'too true, Noreen thought bitterly. Take her own case. Out of all the kids caught breaking into MacShane's Tavern that night she had been the only one to be sent away. Studsy Green, her boy friend and the ring leader and instigator of the raid, had gotten off with probation and a warning. Because his father was a well to do contractor and in with City Hall, Studsy had had a fine lawyer. And Lucy Vandiveer, her girl friend, had gotten off too. Her mother worked in the City Clerk's office.
But Noreen? One look at her background, an investigation of her drunken parents, and Noreen had been on her way to Sunny View for a year. For her own good.
Now, in the John listening to poor Irene bragging and babbling, Noreen felt again the scalding resentment and hate that had kept her, thus far, from shedding a single tear. She hated the world and she didn't care who knew it. And yet that was not quite true. Already she had learned that if you wanted anything from the world you had to be smart.
You had to cheat the world, society, everybody. And especially men. The concept had not yet clearly crystallized in Noreen's mind, but the germ was there. She had a lovely body, over-developed for her age. She was lithe and surprisingly strong and had a great deal of will power. So, amazing though it was, at twenty she was still a virgin. Noreen had valuable merchandise to sell and she wanted to keep it unflawed until the price was right.
"You're plenty lucky they didn't send you to the regular Woman's Farm," Irene was saying. Noreen brought her thoughts back to the present. What was done was done. Now she had to get out of here.
She nodded. "I know. But I'm only twenty. And my Dad. has got to pay for my keep here or the Judge said he would put him in jail! I wish they would. I hate him. He's nothing but a bum!"
Irene smiled in sympathy, showing some badly decayed teeth. "I know. I ain't got any folks now, but hey never was any good either. I lived with my aunt nearly all my life. She's paying for me here."
For some reason Irene went off into another cascade of giggles. "Gee, that judge that sent me here would flip if he knew how my aunt gets the dough to keep me here! She's a pro!"
They talked a few minutes longer, then a bell clanged brazenly in the corridor outside the John. Irene began fanning frantically at the smoke, wafting it into the ventilator.
"We got to get out of here," she hissed. "Ten minutes till lights out. Old Waffle Head will be sticking her head in here in a minute. There, I guess most of the smoke is gone. Let me leave first, Noreen, in case Waffle Head is in the hall. She's a suspicious old bat."
The door closed behind the girl. But before Noreen could follow she heard heavy footsteps approaching along the corridor. Waffle Head, she thought, and even on this terrible night she could not resist a giggle. She already knew that Waffle Head was Mrs. Ayers, the matron-at Sunny View they used the euphemism for guard-who was in charge of Section Four. A red-faced cow of a woman whose blue summer uniform was always wrinkled around her enormous fanny like the folds of an accordion.
She heard the door open behind her and turned. It was Waffle Head, all right. She was short and broad, her iron gray hair cut short. She had a moon face with small beady black eyes, a fleshy nose with prominent purple veins, and a pursy, suspicious looking mouth.
Waffle Head moved nearer to Noreen and sniffed at the air. Her beady eyes narrowed. "You been smoking, Casey!" It was a statement, not a question.
"No m'am," she said quietly. "I haven't."
"Don't lie to me," the big woman said. Her voice was strangely mild. Her button eyes roved over the girl's slim body, the beauty of which not even the rumpled seersucker dress could conceal. Noreen, for an instant, felt as though worms had touched her flesh. She stared back at the big woman, more afraid than ever now, but at the same time experiencing a strange fascination. There was a look in those dull eyes that held her-interest, contempt, and something else. Something Noreen could not name.
Waffle Head reached suddenly to take Noreen's chin in her meaty paw. Her arms were as strong and thick as a butcher's. She held the girl that way for a moment, staring into her eyes, and Noreen got the odd sensation of being caressed.
Then the woman let her go. "Never lie to me again, Casey! I know this is your first day. I know how green you are. You've got to learn who your friends are around here. And that Irene won't be one of them, let me tell you that. She's a bad one. Let her alone. Stay away from her. Don't listen to anything she has to say. You got any problems you bring them to me, eh? You know my name?"
Noreen said meekly, "Yes, ma'am. You're Mrs. Ayers. You're in charge of our section." You horrible fat cow, she added silently. Waffle Head!
Suddenly the woman smiled. "That's right. And we'll forget it this time because you're new." She reached out to pat Noreen's shoulder and in passing the chubby hand brushed lightly against the girl's firm breast. Noreen felt a tingle of sensation.
"Run along then," Waffle Head said. She stood aside for the girl to pass. "You only got a few minutes to get to bed. And I see by the chart that you're sleeping next to that Irene. I'll change that tomorrow. Now get."
Noreen, as she left the room, felt the woman's eyes boring into her back.
Now, as she lay sleepless in the narrow bed, she wondered if old Waffle Head was queer? A Lesbian. At twenty Noreen knew a great deal about Lesbians.
She had read the books and heard the talk. There had been an art teacher in her high school who had been kicked out in disgrace. Noreen knew that a lot of young girls kissed and caressed each other. That was nothing. Once, when she and Kathy Merton from next door had both been twelve she had stayed all night at Kathy's house.
Partly to escape the knowledge of where she was she let her thoughts drift back to that night. Kathy and she had been typical girls, giggling and wiggling in bed, eating candy, pouring over movie magazines.
Until suddenly Kathy had been kissing her. Noreen could still remember that candy smeared kiss. And Kathy had been whispering fiercely: "Pretend you're Clark Andrews, Noreen! I'm your wife! Come on, Noreen. Please! You get on top. I'm your wife!"
Both frightened and excited, Noreen had complied. She could still remember how Kathy had moved beneath her, sighing and groaning. Crying out, "I'm your wife! I love you, Clark! Oh, Clark, I love you! I-owwww-" And something had happened to Kathy that had not happened to Noreen. Almost immediately Kathy had dropped off to sleep, still with her arms around Noreen, with a strange smile of contentment and peace on her elfish face.
Later, as Kathy slept, Noreen had crept into the bathroom and stayed a long time. Examining her budding young breasts m the mirror, exploring her long thighs and taut buttocks.
But after that things were never the same between herself and Kathy. They never slept together again. When Kathy moved to a better neighborhood Noreen was not sorry to see her go. Her own experience she had repeated several times until, one day, she found that she had no more desire for it. By that time she had discovered boys and was busy fighting them away after she had teased enough-of them to fulfill her own desires.
Her train of memory was broken by the sound of a door opening softly at the end of the dorm. She turned her head, saw a masked flashlight coming slowly down the aisle, falling on each bed in turn. This, Noreen, knew, was late bedcheck. Irene had warned her of it.
Noreen closed her eyes and simulated slumber. The light brushed lightly over her face then down along her body. It was a hot night and she wore only a light cotton gown and had not pulled the thin blanket around her. Her hands were like damp sponges on over her. Through narrowed eyes she watched as that old cow, Waffle Head, picked up the blanket from the foot of the bed and dropped it over the girl.
But more than that. The big woman, her sour breath close to Noreen's face, tucked the blanket around Noreen's body. She lingered, her fingers brushing Noreen's breasts, sliding lightly as feathers along her nearly naked thighs. Resolutely Noreen did not move and kept her eyes closed.
When the woman had finished her tour of the dormitory and closed the door behind her Noreen heard a muffled giggle from Irene's bed.
"You get the treatment?" Irene whispered.
"What?"
Irene giggled again. "Some do, some don't. I guess she don't like me, 'cause I never had any trouble with her. She likes you though. Easy to see that. Maybe I should have warned you about Waffle Head. She's queer as a quince! You let her cop a few feels now and then and you can get anything you want."
At that moment Noreen made up her mind. Like a brief flash of lightning the idea popped into her mind. Maybe Waffle Head was the answer to her prayers, the key to getting out of this place.
"She didn't touch me," she told the other girl coldly. "She better not. I'd report her to the warden if she did."
"Okay-okay!" Irene sounded hurt. "Only don't go reporting anything to the warden. They won't believe you anyhow. You got a lot to learn. The matrons are always right. Don't nobody want any trouble around here."
"I don't want any trouble either," Noreen said. All I want is to be left alone." Already her quick mind was beginning to grapple with a plan, and one part of that plan was to disassociate herself from Irene as Waffle Head had advised.
Irene sniffed. "They ain't gonna leave you alone, neither. But I gotta admit the warden ain't so bad. If it was only her. But some of the screws are bitches, and that Waffle Head is one of the worst. Unless you let her fool around, like I say. And...."
A girl down the line raised up to hiss at them. "Will you two for Christ sake shut up. I wanna get some sleep!"
After that there was silence. Soon Irene was snoring in the next bed.
Sleep did not come that night to the "new fish." She lay staring at the ceiling, planning, stiffening her determination to get out of this place. Somehow. She would show them all. And when she did escape she would go so far away that they would never find her.
She would go to New York and lose herself in the teeming millions. She could dye her hair, either blonde or black would do, and change the way she dressed and walked and talked.
She could sing with a band, maybe, if only she could get started. Her voice was husky and deep, with a natural Irish sweetness about it. Her teacher in high school had once advised her to take singing lessons. At the thought Noreen smiled bitterly in the darkness. Singing lessons. They cost money. And whatever money the Casey family had had gone for whiskey to quench the insatiable thirst of her father, Big Tom Casey. Because big Tom liked to sing too. Probably, before the booze had ruined it, Big Tom had had a voice. And if he had bequeathed it to Noreen it was the only thing he left her.
CHAPTER TWO
Late the next afternoon as she headed for her final interview of the day, Noreen felt as though she had been living in a goldfish bowl all day. Not a shred of privacy had been left her. She had been pawed, poked, probed. A male doctor had been especially offensive.
As she took a chair at the matron's order a door opened and a tall dark haired girl came in. She was obviously not a prisoner, for she wore a light summer frock of expensive cut and material, as well as beige stockings and high heeled slippers. Pinned to her left breast was a bouquet of June roses.
The girl greeted the matron, then glanced at a notebook in her hand. "Is this Casey?"
Matron Talbot nodded. "It is. We're right on time, ain't we?"
"Oh, yes. But you'll have to wait a few minutes. The warden is still busy with another inmate." For a moment the girl's large brown eyes played over Noreen. There was no mistaking the pity in 'her glance. Noreen stared back defiantly, hating the girl as she had never hated anyone in her life. Not even her father.
Noreen hardly heard the matron talking.
"You remember what I told you," the woman pattered on. "Mind your manners with the warden. She's a nice woman and the best friend you'll find in here. Oh, she can be hard at times. If you break the rules! But she's as fair as they come. So if you mind your P's and Q's and don't talk back smart you'll be all right. I'm telling you all this for your own good, dearie. You got a year to spend here and you can make it easy for yourself or you can make it hard. It's all up to you."
Gabbing old fool, thought Noreen. Doesn't she ever shut her mouth! All her quasi-liking for the matron had vanished.
Nevertheless she was forced to listen to the old woman drool until the door opened again and the tall girl beckoned to her. Matron Talbot gave her shoulder a little pat. "You remember what I told you now. I'll wait for you out here. By the time you're through in there it will be time for supper."
Yes, thought Noreen as she brushed past the secretary and entered the warden's office. Time to go back to listen to the insane monkey chatter of the other delinquent girls. The other criminals!
"Hello, Noreen. I'm not going to say that I'm happy to meet you. That would be rather a transparent lie, wouldn't it? Under these circumstances."
The girl looked at the woman in surprise. This was a tone she had not heard since she had arrived the night before.
Immediately Noreen was conscious of a queer sense of envy. Here, she knew instinctively, was a lady. Here was class. The voice, for one thing. Cool, well modulated, yet firm. The girl had seen enough movies, of the better sort, and read enough good books, to know the real thing when she saw it.
She was seeing it now. Debra Poindexter was a regal sort of woman. Tall, well formed, looking much less than her forty-three years. She wore beautiful clothes beautifully. Her face, smooth skinned and with only a touch of lipstick, was long, her mouth rather wide and mobile. It could be a humorous mouth at times. Her nose patrician, thin, with a high arch to the nostrils. Her long corn-colored hair she wore bound in thick braids and wrapped around her well shaped head like a coronet.
Now she regarded Noreen with eyes that were dark green. "I hope it hasn't been too bad, Noreen. Your first day? I don't expect you to tell me you like it."
"I hate it," Noreen said defiantly. Something about this woman awed her. And Noreen didn't like being awed.
The warden nodded. "I expect you do. But the point is, Noreen, is that you arc here. You must accept that fact and make the best of it. It won't be forever, you know. A year isn't such a long time."
"Look at me," the woman told her gently. "I like people to look at me when I'm talking to them, Noreen."
No mistaking the command in her voice, mild though it was. Noreen slowly raised her eyes. Her glance met that of the warden and held for a moment.
"That's better," said Debra Poindexter after a moment. "Now let's get on." She picked up a sheaf of papers from her desk and glanced down at the top sheet. "You understand, of course, why you are here?"
"I don't," Noreen said quickly. She fought to keep a tremor out of her voice. "I don't! I didn't do anything that the other kids-the others didn't do. We were all in it together. Then why aren't they here with me?"
The warden nodded. "I know the circumstances of your case, Noreen, only through what I have read in these papers." She held up the sheaf of papers. "I can't change the fact that you're here. I very much doubt that there has been a miscarriage of justice. These things are very thoroughly investigated both by social workers and the juvenile authorities. But if you would like to tell me your side of it I would be glad to listen."
"Then you would be the first," Noreen flashed. She felt her courage rising. This woman wasn't anyone to be afraid of, no more than the others. No matter if she did have class and looks and talked like she had swallowed the dictionary. And all this smooth talk-maybe it was just to get her, Noreen, all mixed up and confused. What did this woman really care about Noreen Casey?
The warden inclined her head. The desk lamp she had only now switched on caught the amber crown of her hair and sparked in it. "I would like to listen," she told the girl. "But you'll have to hurry a little, I'm afraid. It is rather late."
After an awkward beginning the girl found herself speaking with surprising ease. She told the warden about coming home that afternoon, after a visit to Lucy Vandiveer's house, to find her father drunk and beating up her mother. Who was also drunk.
Debra Poindexter consulted the file on her desk. She nodded her eyes steady on Noreen's. There was a hint of compassion in her glance but no pity.
"Yes. I understand this was a fairly frequent occurrence?"
"Every time Dad got drunk," Noreen said. "And that was every time he got his hands on any money."
The warden folded her hands on the desk. Her nails, Noreen saw, were immaculate and beautifully cared for. "You have, no other relatives? No one to whom you could have gone? To get away from your home environment?"
Noreen shook her head. "No. There's just me and Mom and Dad. And I couldn't leave home because of Mom. Without me there he might have killed her."
"Go on."
"Well, this afternoon after I came from Lucy's house he was drunk. He hit my Mom, my mother, and I got mad. It was like I didn't know what I was doing for awhile. I got the big iron skillet from the kitchen and hit him on the head with it when he wasn't looking. He was in a chair and had his back to me, taking another drink. I just sneaked up behind him and hit him as hard as I could."
Was there a quirk of amusement about the warden's mouth, Noreen wondered? There for a minute-but there sure as hell wasn't anything funny about it.
"After that I ran out of the house," Noreen went on hastily. "Mom was passed out upstairs and there wasn't anything I could do anyway. I didn't Want to be-around when he woke up, for sure. He might have killed me."
"Was your father in the habit of striking you?"
"Every time he took the notion. Every time he got loaded."
Again the warden glanced through the file. Noreen waited patiently. She felt better for talking about it, to someone who was really listening. No one had ever really listened before. As Debra Poindexter leafed through the file Noreen was conscious of envy. To be like this woman! Not that she would ever want a job like this-but to look like that and talk with that smooth perfection. To have that calm assurance and poise, to know that you could never do anything mean and dirty to anyone. And that they would never dare do it to you. Because, well, because you would be somebody! One of the important people in the world!
"I find no record that your father was ever arrested for beating you and your mother?" Her cool green eyes were questioning. She thinks I'm lying, Noreen thought bitterly. Nobody believes me. She's just like all the rest.
But she was telling the truth. "Mom would never let me call the cops," she told the woman. "I wanted to a lot of times. She loves him, I guess. A lot more than she does me."
"But the neighbors? Surely someone must have known. Have heard-"
"They were all afraid of him. Anyway folks in my neighborhood don't bother much with things like that. It's a lousy Irish neighborhood. I always hated it ever since I was a little kid."
"I see. Yes. Well, so you ran out of the house?"
"Yes. I went down to the Big Juke, that's a place over on the other side of town where the kids I knew hang around." She must be careful now, Noreen told herself. She didn't want to get any of the other kids into trouble. There were some who had been in on the party that night who had never been caught.
The warden noticed her hesitation and interpreted it correctly. "You needn't worry about talking to me, Noreen. Nothing that you tell me in this room will go any further. You have my word on that."
"Yes, ma'am." Noreen stared at the woman for a minute, wondering if she could really trust her. She decided not. You could never trust a cop, Studsy had told her more than once. And Studsy wasn't such a dumb cluck, either, though he had been stupid that night.
Noreen went on. "I was feeling lousy-I mean bad. Low. And I wanted to have a good time so I could forget what had happened. So I-I took a few drinks with my friends. Just wine. But I guess it went to my head."
The warden broke in here. "This party was held in the home of one of your friends, I see by the reports."
"Yes, ma'am. At Studsy's place."
"Studsy? Surely that can't be his right name?" For the first time during the interview Noreen could see a hint of disdain on the warden's face.
"No ma'am. His real name is Jack. Jack Green. Only everybody calls him Studsy." Noreen stared straight at the woman, wondering if she could guess why. Studsy was called that.
Debra Poindexter tapped with her pencil on the file. "That brings up a point, Noreen. According to your father-when he talked with the investigators-you didn't like to associate with people of your own-"
The warden brought herself up sharp. She had been about to say class. That, she knew, would never do. It wasn't even precisely what she meant. She tried again.
"You didn't mingle with people in your own neighborhood. To use your father's exact words,"-she consulted the papers-"you thought you were Miss high and mighty! You were always over on the far side of town, away from your own district. Is that true?"
Noreen nodded. "Yes, ma'am, I guess it is. I liked it better on the other side of town. I liked the kids better, too. They had nice houses and clothes, and all the things I didn't have. They knew I didn't have any money and they didn't care." She stared resentfully at the warden and tossed the bright copper banner of her hair.
"I was planning on leaving home soon anyway, ma'am. I couldn't do Mom any good anymore. She didn't even want me around. And I thought that maybe Studsy, Jack-and Lucy might help me get a place to live and a decent job. I thought they was real good friends."
"You don't now?"
Sullenly the girl shook her head. "No, T don't. I'm in here and they got off. Because their folks had money and knew people. They could have helped me, but they didn't."
But they will, she thought viciously. They will help me when I get out of this place. I'll find a way to make them help.
"I see. Your resentment is natural enough. Now, it also says here that you were smoking marijuana that afternoon and evening. Is that right?"
Slowly Noreen inclined her head. "I had two cigarettes. And some wine. I guess maybe a lot of wine. I guess that's why I was so crazy."
The direct level stare of the warden was on her face. "And so when someone suggested breaking into the tavern you didn't object? You just went along with the others."
"Yes. There was a bunch of us. Everybody was excited and St-I mean someone said that there was a ventilator in the back of Mac's Tavern that we could crawl through. We was-were-all out of money and we wanted more wine."
To ease the tension for a moment the warden said, easily, "I notice that you try to speak good English. And you do-you speak very well."
"I studied hard while I was in high school," the girl said. "I don't want to be dumb all my life."
"Stick to that idea," the warden said. "I'll try to arrange it so that you can attend classes while you're here. Is there anything you would especially like to study?"
Only I'm not going to be here. Noreen thought with secret pleasure. I'm leaving as soon as I can. Meantime she would play along.
"I like to sing," she told the warden. "I've got a good voice. And my teacher in school said I should study voice."
The warden smiled. "We have an orchestra here. And a choral group." She smiled and Noreen had to fight hard to keep from smiling back. Just trying to con me, she thought. Just like any cop.
After a few more minutes of talk the warden stood up. She beckoned to Noreen and they walked to a tall window overlooking the grounds. It was nearly five now and the June sun was beginning to sink rapidly over a line of trees to the west. The shadow of the tall boiler house chimney lay elongated across the grass.
Debra Poindexter lifted one well groomed hand and made a sweeping motion around the grounds. "You see, Noreen, that we have no walls, no fences, no bars. This is not a prison in the strict sense. It is very important that you understand that."
With sudden impish, and Irish, humor the girl said, "Then I can leave anytime I want to, ma'am?"
The warden laughed. "Not as easily as that, I'm afraid. You will have to spend at least nine months here. With good behavior you should be out in that time." She turned to the girl suddenly. "Try to look at it this way. Nine months isn't a long time. Just the time it-it takes to have a child. Don't do anything foolish, my dear girl. Try to bear it. I know it's hard. But you were sent here, by the judgement of the court, for your own best interests. That's why you're here, Noreen. Because the court thought you were worth saving! It thought there was a chance for you-away from your home environment. And since you had no other relatives, no one to whom you could go, this seemed the answer. When you leave here you will be looked after. A job will be found for you. You won't be forgotten."
That's what I'm afraid of, the girl thought bitterly. She wondered if this woman, from her aloofness, really believed what she was saying? What did she know about anything! How could people like the warden ever understand about people like herself! They couldn't-that was the answer. They were do-gooders, as her drunk of a Dad called them. Like die nosy-parker social worker that he had thrown out of the house once. No, the gap was too wide to bridge. Even at her age she knew that. The world was a tough, cruel place and anything you got you got yourself-and paid for yourself.
She said, meekly enough, "I'll try my best, ma'am."
"Good. I'm sure we'll get along. Now, before you go, is there anywhere special you would like to work? We have our own truck gardens, you know. And there are the housekeeping details, the kitchens and-"
"If I could, I'd like to work in the laundry." Waffle was in charge of the laundry sometimes. Noreen had gleaned the knowledge from listening to the other girls.
"The laundry?" The warden felt a sense of perplexity. Usually the girls hated laundry work. "May I ask why?"
Noreen racked her brain for a moment. This had to be good.
Finally: "Just at first, ma'am. Maybe I would want to change later. But right at first I'd like to keep as busy as I can. It-it will make it easier." And she managed to give the woman a wistful smile.
After a moment of hesitation the warden nodded. "Very well. I'll see to it. Goodnight, Noreen. I will see you again before long. I like to keep in close touch with my girls."
With your inmates, Noreen sneered inwardly as she left the room.
When the girl had gone Debra Poindexter walked back to the window and stood watching the sun slide behind the fence of trees to the west. She took a deep breath and put a hand to her left breast.
There had been very little pain today.
That girl, she thought. Noreen Casey. Poor, poor child. And yet she has everything. And doesn't know it. She sat there just now hating me, possibly envying me. She must think-well, God knows what they think, girls like that.
She smoothed her crown of golden hair with long white fingers and turned from the window. There, she thought, but for the Grace-but I mustn't let this thing get too personal. There are too many of them. Forever and always too many! One does what one can, within one's powers, but it is never enough.
Nevertheless I'll try to keep an eye on this one. She's very lovely. And she says she has a voice. Perhaps. But the laundry? That's odd. Ayers is in charge of the laundry most of the time and I've never liked her. There have been a few hints, rumors-but there always are in a place like this.
She walked to her desk and rearranged the roses in the silver bowl. I wonder, she thought as the pain came stabbing again. She clutched her breast and held on hard to the desk, completing the thought the pain had momentarily severed, I wonder what that girl would say if I told her I would change places with her in an instant if I could!
She wouldn't believe me, of course. But it's true! If I could have her youth, her beauty and, most of all, the future to do with as I pleased. And no cancer!
She opened a drawer and took out a small box of pills. She swallowed two, washing them down with water from a carafe on the desk. In a moment the pain began to subside.
I'll have to tell John tonight, she thought. I suppose I should have told him long before now. And I'll have to have the operation soon. As soon as possible, even though Doctor Clarke says it won't do much good with my type of cancer. Poor John. He surely drew a lemon when he married me. First I can't bear him children, now this.
Debra Poindexter went to a closet for her hat. That girl, she thought again, just beginning life. I must help her. I must! Right now she's at the nadir-probably-thinks her life is over.
She smiled, a weary smile, and went home to tell her husband that she was dying.
CHAPTER THREE
Noreen's chance came sooner than she had expected. The first week after her interview with the warden she spent getting into the routine of the place, keeping to herself as much as possible. She carefully avoided Irene.
At the beginning of the second week, after helping in the kitchen, she was transferred to the laundry. This was located in a building near the boiler rooms and, more important, not far from the parking lot.
Noreen reported that morning to Waffle, who sat in a small glassed office just inside the main entrance. From this spot she could keep an eye on the fifty odd girls at work in the great steamy room.
She motioned to a straight-back chair as Noreen entered. "Sit down, Casey. I'll be with you in a minute." She went back to some papers on her desk. Noreen sat patiently, her knees primly together, the seersucker dress pulled down over her knees. From time to time the fat woman glanced up, her eyes black buttons in the doughy face, running up and down over Noreen's body like mice.
At last she leaned back, the chair creaking ominously under her, and took a pack of cigarettes from a pocket of her uniform. She extended it to Noreen. "Smoke?"
"But isn't it against the rules?"
Matron Ayers gave her a pursy smile. "I make the rules around here, Casey. Iflsayyou can smoke it's okay."
Noreen took a cigarette and leaned forward for the matron to light it. The seersucker dress did not fit her too well. Now it fell open. Noreen was wearing one of the cheap prison bras that was too small for her, and she felt the almost physical impact of the woman's eyes on the creamy bulges.
Ayers shifted her gaze from Noreen's breasts to a paper on her desk. She licked her small mouth with a wet red tongue. She held up the paper. "According to this you asked to be assigned here, to work under me. Is that so?"
Noreen looked her in the eye, careful not to show the loathing she felt. She mustn't spoil it. She knew by now that Waffle had a car and drove to work from Crawfordsville everyday.
"Yes, ma'am. It's true. I did ask."
"Why?"
Noreen gave the woman a little smile. A smile with which she tried to hint at things to come without committing herself. Maybe I should be an actress, she thought, instead of a singer.
"You were nice to me," she said. "That first night. Nobody else was. And you gave me some good advice about that Irene. You were right. She is bad." She felt a pang of guilt at this betrayal, but swiftly brushed it away. She had herself to worry about.
The fat woman settled deeper into her chair. "You're sure you want to work here? It's hard, Casey. I might as well tell you-the laundry is usually for girls that have been acting up. It's sort of punishment."
Noreen opened her smoky gray eyes as wide as she could. "Oh? I didn't know that, ma'am. I-I just thought that if I, well, if I could be near you!"
Would Ayers take the bait? Had she laid it on too thick?
The woman was studying her across the desk. Her beady eyes were slitted above the fat pouches. She took a drag of her cigarette ane expelled it toward Noreen. She smiled again.
"All right," she said. "I'm glad you feel that way, Casey. Maybe we'll get along, you and me. Lord knows most of you girls are hard to make friends with. But we'll see. But you don't expect no favors from me, see!"
"Oh, no ma'am. I don't." Noreen kept her eyes on the fat woman. Like hell I don't, you fat cow. You're going to get me out of here.
The matron stood up. "Okay. I'll put you on sorting at first. That's an easy job. You work out all right there and maybe I can use you in the office here with me."
Noreen's heart leaped. Waffle had taken the bait after all. But she was being cagey. Plenty cagey. But at least it was a beginning.
Matron Ayers came around the desk to stand close to the girl for a moment. In a low voice she said, "Mind you don't try to loaf on me, now. Nor any tricks at all. I can spot tricks a mile off. But you get along with me, and do what I tell you, and we'll hit it off fine. I can do a lot for a girl if I got a mind to. I can make it easy for her." For a moment the bloated face tightened and the little mouth snapped like a trap. "Or I can make it tough as hell. Don't you never forget that."
Meekly Noreen said, "I won't ma'am. I want to do anything you say."
There was a faint hint of puzzlement on the matron's face as she led Noreen out of the little office. The girl began to worry again. I can't be so damned obvious, she warned herself. It's plain what she's after, but she's not as stupid as she looks. Maybe she even thinks I'm a stool pigeon of the warden's. I've got to take it slow and easy.
The next week she spent in the sorting room. A dozen other girls worked with her, amid the mountains of dirty linen and feminine attire, but Noreen remained aloof. She was already acquiring the reputation of a loner.
Matron Ayers did not speak to her more than half a dozen times that week. But the following Monday morning she sent for Noreen. When the girl reported to the office the fat woman smiled at her.
"I've been keeping my eye on you, Casey. You're doing real good. How would you like to work here in the office with me? It's an easy job. All you have to do is keep the lists up to date and answer the phone. Maybe run errands now and then. You want it?"
Noreen beamed-at the matron. "Oh, yes, ma'am. I'd love it. When can I start?"
"Today. Now." The woman's flabby features-were moist from the steamy air. A trickle of perspiration ran down one side of her face.
"One thing," she added. "You'll have to work late sometimes. Tonight I'll need you to help me. So you report back here right after supper."
"Yes, ma'am. Will we-I mean, will any of the other girls be here?"
"Of course not!" The matron did not look at her. She picked up a slip of paper and jabbed it on a tall spike fixed into a heavy iron base. "There will be just the two of us. Now get back to your sorting until noon. After lunch come back here and I'll show you the ropes."
Maybe this is it, Noreen thought as she went back to her work. During the lunch hour she merely toyed with her food while her brain sought to cope with this new development. Was there really a chance for escape? She began to outline it in her mind.
Once she was alone with Ayers she would have to catch her off guard. Noreen thought of the woman's fat red face and large, grubby hands, and for a moment her courage failed her. The thought of those hands on her slim young body was not a pleasant one. Yet it had to be done. She would let the matron make her advances, she would seem to succumb to them, then she would have to knock the woman out somehow. Knock her cold and tie her up. There was plenty of good stout cord around the laundry, and handkerchiefs or a pillowcase would do for a gag-
Then she would take the woman's keys, walk to her car in the lot behind the boiler room, and drive away. She was a good driver.
There was a long driveway leading out of the grounds. Where the drive turned onto the narrow blacktop road there was a small brick guard house, with a man always on duty. There was no gate, just two stone pillars. The guard might be trouble, Noreen thought, but that was a chance she must take. It would be late, and dark, and probably he knew all the cars by sight. Or maybe I can rig up some sort of disguise. Noreen told herself. That terrible brown satin hat that Waffle wears just might do the trick.
After lunch she reported back to the office, where the matron put her to work on the files. There was little conversation between them, though several times the girl looked up from her work to find the fat woman's eyes on her in speculation.
Now and then, when Noreen glanced through the glass walls of the little office she could see the other girls, at work in the steamy main room, watching her. They all knew what was going on, of course. Or thought they did, Noreen reminded herself. They thought she was just another brown nose. Hah! Let them think what they liked. Would they be surprised when she was reported missing.
The rest of the afternoon she spent trying to plan what she would do if she actually got off the grounds. Most prisoners, she had read somewhere, made the mistake of concentrating solely upon the initial escape. That, in most cases, was the easiest part. The difficulty came in staying out once you had made a successful break.
She must imagine that she had brought it off successfully. She had knocked out the matron, stolen the keys and the car, and gotten past the guard at the outer gate. Now she was on a narrow, lonely road twenty miles from the nearest town. That was Crawfordsville and she must go there to hit a main road that would lead her to the capitol, Steel City.
That was the danger. If the matron was discovered before she reached the town she wouldn't have a chance. One phone call and the police blocks would be up. Another thought struck her. Last roll call was at nine. Well, maybe old Waffle would take care of drat. But there was the late bedcheck as well. The moment her bed was discovered empty the alarm would be out. Last bed check was usually around midnight.
Noreen began to sense that this was not going to be as easy as she thought. And she knew the penalty for failure: they would send her to a regular State institution. The State Farm for Women. Noreen had heard stories about that place!
For a moment her resolution faltered, then Noreen firmed her will. She had to get out of this horrible place. At any risk. At any cost. All she needed was a little luck, a couple of good breaks. In her heart she knew that she was not a criminal-at least not yet-and she refused to be treated as one. Yes. Tonight, if Waffle was what they all said she was, she would be on her way.
When she reported back to the laundry office after supper the long June dusk was still lingering. The matron was waiting for her. They were alone. Outside the office, in the big room, the tubs and mangles stood in silent ghostly rows.
To Noreen's joy she saw that the matron was now dressed in her own street clothes. A dingy silk frock that could have been used as a tent. On a wall peg was a light colored rain coat and the hat that Noreen had been thinking of. It was a monstrous hat, but for Noreen's purpose it was ideal. That and the rain coat might get her past the gate without questions.
"We'll work until around ten," the woman told her. "Then I'll walk you back to Section Four and drive into Crawfordsville. Now you can finish those files you started this afternoon. I'm going to be back in the sorting room for a while. If I want you back there I'll call you. You understand, Casey P"
Noreen gave her a long level stare. "Yes, ma'am. I understand all right."
The matron flushed. She was sweating again and her hair was blousy and stringy. Her frowzy dress, under each armpit, showed a discolored half moon. Noreen fought back the shudder of aversion. She had to go through with it now.
A hundred yards down the graveled path she watched as a man in overalls came out of the boiler house and filled his pipe as he caught a breath of air. There were few lights along the paths, not more than one to every two hundred yards or so. That would be no problem.
At that moment the woman called from the sorting room in the rear of the place.
"Casey! Come here a minute, will you. I got a job for you."
Here it was. "Coming," Noreen said. She picked up the iron spike, with its papers stuck on it, and its heavy iron base. Then the heft of it made her dubious and she put it back on the desk. Too heavy. She didn't want a murder on her hands.
Yet she must have a weapon. She would be no match for Waffle without one. The fat woman would subdue her in a moment. Well, she would just have to find one in the sorting room. She remembered a flat wooden paddle that hung on the wall there, near the door. The girls did something or other with it around the huge tubs.
"You coming?" Waffle sounded impatient.
"Here I am," Noreen said. She entered the small sorting room. Piles of dirty linen and clothing made small white mountains in the gloom. Waffle was standing near the back door, close to a dirty mound of table cloths. The woman was a huge figure in the half dark. There was no light on in the sorting room, the only illumination coming from the large outer room of the main laundry.
"Over here," the matron said. A new note, almost of tenderness, crept into her voice. "I want you to count these table clothes, Noreen. They don't check out." It was the first time she had ever called the girl anything but Casey.
Noreen steeled herself for the coming event. She approached the matron, who cast a wary glance over Noreen's shoulder at the door. "There ain't anyone hanging around out there?"
"No, ma'am. I didn't see anybody. It's almost time for roll call."
"You don't have to worry about that," the matron said huskily. "I fixed it for you. You're on this assignment for me."
As Noreen came near, the woman put out a hand and caught her arm. "You're a pretty girl, Noreen. I reckon you know that? The prettiest one I've seen around here for a long time."
Noreen stiffened, then allowed herself to be drawn close to the big woman. She could smell the hot reek of the other's flesh.
"Thanks, ma'am," she muttered softly. "I guess I'm pretty enough. Not that it does me any good in this place."
The matron put an arm around the girl's taut waist. "It might, honey. It might, you know. You can have friends, good friends, in here just like on the outside." There was a quaver in the husky voice now and her black eyes were glistening as she stood looking at the girl in the gloom.
"You want to be nice to me, honey? Real nice?"
Noreen feigned puzzlement. "Nice? I don't know what you mean?" Over the fat woman's shoulder she saw the stout wooden paddle hanging on a hook just to one side of the door. It was only about six feet from her. The girl turned a little in the grasp of the matron. A grasp that was fast becoming an embrace. Now Noreen's back was to the door and she was only four feet short of the paddle.
"You know what I mean, all right," panted the fat woman. All her caution and pretense was melting away as the girl did not resist her. "You knew from the very start. Didn't you? You want it just the same as I do. Go on. Admit it!"
Noreen nodded slowly. "Maybe I did, ma'am. I never did it before, though. Honest I haven't. But do you think it's all right? Here, I mean. Someone might-"
"God, you're sweet," said the woman. "As sweet and pretty as I ever saw. You give me a big kiss, honey. Old Ayers will be good to you. You'll see. I'll make you feel things you never felt before."
Noreen felt the fat hands fumbling with her firm breasts. In spite of her loathing, her feeling of something slimy crawling over her, she felt her nipples become rigid. That was her body reacting, not her mind. Her traitor body, just as with the doctor.
The matron was kissing her. Her lips were like slobbery rubber on the girl's. The fat woman was breathing hard. "Over here," she gasped. "Over here, honey, on the pile of sheets!"
Noreen reached behind her for the heavy wooden paddle.
CHAPTER FOUR
As the girl swiveled in the big woman's embrace, reaching for the paddle, the matron fell to her knees. Her thick arms clutched Noreen's thighs like a vise and she pressed her face hard against the girl's trembling body. "You darling! You sweet! You honey!" Noreen hit her with the flat side of the paddle. She was so frightened she could hardly breathe, yet she fought to remain calm. She mustn't hit the crazy old cow too hard!
The blow landed across the back of the matron's skull with a meaty sound, the shock partially absorbed by die woman's thick hair. Matron Ayers moaned and slid down in a mountainous heap of flesh at the girl's feet. Her clutching hands, as she fell, ripped part of Noreen's dress away.
The matron was out cold. The girl, breathing hard, stared for a moment at the huddled figure. Had she struck too hard after all?
After a second or two the stentorian breathing of the matron reassured her. Now there was not a moment to waste. Noreen reached down, put her hands beneath the sweaty armpits, and tugged with all her strength to drag the bulging, corpse-like figure to the mound of dirty sheets. A distance of only a few feet, but it cost her nearly all her young energy. She stopped to catch her breath, glancing around.
She must hurry! She began to twist dirty sheets into stout ropes and tie them around the inert figure of the matron. The woman had not stirred, though her breathing was more normal. Noreen bound her arms, legs, and stuffed a dirty napkin into the flaccid mouth. This she secured with a second napkin. She took her time on the knots, putting every ounce of her strength into the task. When she had finished she was covered with perspiration. But only the first part of the job was done. Now came the dangerous part.
I'm committed now, she told herself. I've done it and there's no backing out. If they catch me they'll send me to the Women's Farm for sure. Maybe even to the Women's State Prison as an incorrigible! Only they weren't going to catch her. Not if her luck held and she didn't turn chicken and lose her nerve.
She felt a draft on her leg, where the cheap dress had ripped. With a final glance at the mummy-like figure of Waffle, Noreen ran quickly to one side of the main room, where the freshly laundered clothes were hung or stacked. She would get a new dress.
She moved along the wall, keeping in the shadows, away from the gaze of anyone chancing to look in the window. Not that there was much chance of that. Outside the prison-for so the girl thought of it-was settling down for the night. Waffle had cleared her for the nine o'clock bed check. With luck, and if Waffle didn't get loose, her absence would not be discovered until midnight. By then she had to be far away.
Her luck was in. Among the dresses on the racks she found one that was not of the prison seersucker. One of the matrons, probably, getting her laundry done for free. The girl snatched at the dress, of light blue material that felt like chiffon. It was too big for her, but not much. She ripped off the seersucker and hurled it away with a little sound of animal delight. Stinking uniform. She would never wear seersucker again as long as she lived. Unless she were caught.
She started for the little office when she had a thought. Even the change of dress might not be enough. She was so slim. And the night had eyes. She ran back into the sorting room Waffle was still out, breathing in a slobbering snore. Noreen quickly heaped a pile of the dirty sheets over the matron, being careful not to smother her. Then she wound three of the sheets around her own lithe body, from her armpits to just above her knees, using them as padding and leaving them loose enough for free movement. Now, with the tent-like rain coat of the matron's, and the horrible hat, she might pass a cursory inspection.
She buttoned the raincoat tightly over the-sheets that swaddled her. It was still much too large, but now at least she looked a little like the fat woman.
She tugged the monstrosity of a hat down over her forehead as she had seen Waffle do. She was ready now. Out the door, turn left, walk the hundred yards to the parking lot. Freedom!
A sudden impulse struck her. She never knew just why she did it. It was risky and took time she could not afford. She found a piece of paper and a pencil on Waffle's desk and wrote a brief note to the warden, spelling the name wrong:
Dear Miss Poindexter-I write this to tell you I am sorry I had to hurt the-matron. But she is a bad one and shouldn't be around young girls. Make her tell you what she tried to do to me. I can't stay here, Miss Pointdexter, or I would go crazy. I am not a criminal. I am running away and am going to try to make something good oj myself. I am only leaving this note because you were nice and treated me like a human being.
Yours sincerely, NOREEN CASEY.
She was about to leave the note on the desk when she thought that the warden might never get it that way. The matron might see it first, or someone else who would tear it up. She took an envelope and a stamp from the desk, quickly addressed the envelope and stamped it and slipped it into the pocket of the raincoat. She would mail it at the first opportunity.
She started toward the boiler house, trying to imitate the slow waddle of Matron Ayers. The gravel was loud beneath the cheap prison shoes she wore, but she dared not step off on the grass verge. It might look funny to anyone watching.
Most of the place had gone to sleep. Here and there in the brick buildings a yellow rectangle glowed. Noreen could see the ghostly blue sheen of night lights in the Johns. The Administration Building was dark.
She passed under the swinging light. It cast wavering shadows as a freshening breeze moved it. There was a smell of coming rain in the air. Noreen held her breath as she crossed the little puddle of light. If the night man at the boiler house saw her and became suspicious....
She needn't have worried. As she plunged into the shadows again she shot a quick glance through a window of the boiler house. The two men on duty were absorbed in a card game. On the table between them was a bottle of whisky. The girl laughed softly. This was her night! A lovely summer night of freedom, with a freshening storm coming on.
The parking lot was deserted except for a dozen cars belonging to the night shift. It took Noreen but a moment to find Matron Ayers' car, a beatup gray Chevie sedan. She prayed there would be enough gas and that the wreck would go a few miles without falling apart. That was all she needed-a few miles. She had no intention of driving through the town of Crawfordsville, where the police block-if any-was sure to be set up.
She was almost sure that Ayers had road maps in the car. She had seen the woman studying them in the office one night and when she had gone for the night she had taken the maps with her.
Noreen found the maps in the glove compartment. She flicked on the dash lights and, forcing herself to be calm, studied the maps briefly. After a moment she found what she wanted, a map of the state showing Crawfordsville as a speck of a village.
The Chevie was a '50, with the gear lever on the steering column. She could handle that. Studsy's hot rod was an old job too. She winced as the gears clashed loudly as she put it into reverse. She backed slowly around, her heart chilling as she saw, from the corner of her eye, the door of the boiler house open. A man stood silhouetted in the shaft of light. But he was looking at her from the rear. If he could make out anything it would only be her padded shoulders beneath the raincoat and the back of the terrible hat.
Noreen resisted the temptation to tramp down on the gas and roar through the gate. That would be a sure giveaway. She kept to an even fifteen miles an hour as the car rattled and chugged down the drive between the thick growing shrubs and tall trees. God-what a clinker old Waffle drove. Noreen gave a laugh of pure triumph. The stinking fat old cow! I sure fooled her! Even if they catch me I fooled her. Fixed her, too. Wait 'till the warden gets my note! Oh, she's a cop too-even if she is beautiful and educated and everything, but I bet she'll fire Waffle. Maybe even put her in prison!
The guard was standing in the door of the gate house. She could see his bulky figure outlined against the soft light behind him. Noreen sank her chin into the raincoat collar, hunched over the wheel, and slowed to ten miles an hour. This was the big moment! If he got suspicious and checked she could still get away, but not for long. If he was unsuspecting she probably had until midnight. Or at least a good start.
Suddenly her breath would not come. Her hands were sweaty on the steering wheel. Then, as she was within twenty feet of the gate house the first driving squall of summer rain came, beating at the car with a flurry of huge glistening drops. In an instant the windshield and the windows were a gray smear.
Laughing, delighted at the break the Fates and her own daring had given her, Noreen waved a hand at the guard as she turned left out of the drive. Through the rain misted window she saw him wave back as he retreated hastily into the gate house. She had done it!
CHAPTER FIVE
By three that morning the rain had stopped. The air was damp and silky with the June smell of growing things. Noreen came out of a line of wet-dripping trees, a black freeze against the false dawn, and saw the lights of cars on the highway. Most of the vehicles would be trucks, she knew. The roar of the great engines came clearly across the wide cornfield separating her from the road. In a minute she heard another truck approaching. Noreen, the raincoat over her arm, stepped to the edge of the road. This was it. She glanced quickly in the other direction. Xo cars were coining. She was afraid of that damned police car mousing around.
She heard the truck shift gears for the slight incline. Must really be loaded. Then the lights shafted over the-rise, tilted down, and caught her full in their white glare.
Noreen stepped into the road. She stood full face, legs apart, so the lights would reveal every line of her body beneath the wet dress. She made the hitchhiker's gesture.
The big truck thundered down on her, picking up speed on the slope. Noreen could imagine what was running through the driver's mind. Holdup? Joke of some kind? Maybe even those lousy road inspectors trying to catch me giving rides? Should I take a chance? Jesus, look at die knockers on that kid!
Airbrakes hissed and squealed. The big double tires smoked and scorched the concrete. Noreen leaped back as the cab of the semi-rig passed her. Then the truck eased to a stop. She ran along the shiny aluminum trailer to the high cab.
The door of the cab opened and a face looked down at her. "What'sa matter, lady? You got trouble?"
Noreen smiled up at him. "Please help me, mister. I want a ride into Steel City." He seemed to be alone. Unless another man was sleeping in the bunk back of the driver's seat.
For a moment the man hesitated. Noreen fretted. Any moment now those cops might come prowling back.
"Please!" she entreated. "It's life or death, mister. I got to get to Steel City by morning!" That was no lie!
The driver reached a hand down. "Okay. Climb in. It's against the rules but I guess I gotta help a lady."
His big rough hand yanked her up to the high step and into the warm, leathery-oil-grease smelling interior of the cab. Noreen saw with relief that he was alone. His face, in the dimmed lights of the dashboard, was only a white blur.
The man slipped over behind the wheel. "Slam that door," he ordered. "It don't work so good." He shifted and the truck moved forward, growling in the low gear.
Noreen huddled in her corner of the cab, feeling his eyes on her even while he shifted, double-clutched, and finally got the rig rolling again. There would be a few minutes respite, she thought, before he got down to business. Before the question started-and the hands.
The driver tossed a pack of cigarettes toward her.
"Smoke?"
"Thanks, mister." She took one, lit it, and handed back the pack. Her eyes were becoming accustomed to the half-gloom of the cab now and she could make something of the man. He was tall and rangy, with big hands and wrists protruding from the sleeves of his windbreaker. He wore an old, oil stained felt hat pushed back from a high, balding forehead. He had a long thin nose and a lantern jaw covered with grizzled stubble. He looked as if he could be mean, the girl thought, and terribly strong.
Without taking his eyes from the road the man said: "What's so important you gotta get to town before morning?"
She was ready for that one. "It's my Mom," she told him. "She's sick. Maybe dying.. I been living on a farm down here and I just got word tonight. But our-the people I was staying with-their car broke down and I didn't have any money so I started to hitch-hike. I got a ride from Crawfordsville as far as where you picked me up, but the fellow had to turn off."
All in all, she thought, it was a pretty good story.
He turned to stare at her. His eyes were small and set close to the thin nose. They roved over her body in the wet, nearly transparent dress. For a long time he stared. Noreen pulled the dress down over her knees, thus only accentuating the long curve of her thigh. Here it comes, she thought. Damn men! Damn them all. One thing they got in mind. Just one! But she had to go through with it! She had come too far to chicken out now.
The man smiled. "You're sure as hell a pretty one! Pretty good liar, too, only I ain't buying that story. You know what I think?"
She gave him a defiant smile. "No, mister. What do you think?"
He chuckled. "Tough, ain't you? Now I'm sure. You're the girl from the reform school that the cops are looking for. They gotta block at the junction back in Crawfordsville. Stopping everybody. How in hell did you get through that?"
To give herself time to think Noreen stuck to her story, though she knew it was no use. "You're wrong, mister. I told you the truth. If you don't believe it you can let me out right now!" He wouldn't, she knew. Or so she hoped. She didn't want to chance the open road again. But she needed time to figure out how best to handle this. Teasing Studsy and the other boys was one thing-teasing a man like this might be dangerous. And she certainly had no intention of surrendering herself to a truck driver. Not except as a last resort.
The driver himself gave her the answer. He chuckled again and grinned at her. His teeth were stained with tobacco juice.
"Cut it out, kid. You and me can get along. I got a record myself. Did two years in State. 'Course that was a long time ago, but I know how it is." He flipped the pack of cigarettes at her again. "Here. And there's a jug in the compartment there if you want a blast. What's your name?"
"I don't drink. And my name is-uh, Debbie. Debbie Mason."
He laughed. "Lying again. Your name is Noreen Casey. The cops told me. They was a pretty sore bunch of cops, too. I guess you foxed 'em good. Said you slugged a screw and swiped a car!" He looked at her with new interest, peering at her face now instead of her body.
"If you did all that," he said, "maybe we can really get to be friends. I can use a kid with guts in a little deal I got cooking." When she did not answer for a moment he continued. "There ain't no side road back there where anybody could let you off. And the cops give a good description of you. Pretty as a speckled pup and built like a brick doniker. Come on, kid. Break down."
Noreen knew when she was whipped. "All right," she agreed sullenly. "You're right. So now what-you going to turn me in?"
So swiftly that she did not see it coming he reached over and put his big gnarled hand on her. He squeezed, his thick fingers like steel talons.
Noreen screamed. "Ahhhhh-don't!" She drew up her knees, squirming, fighting back another scream, tugging at his hand, trying to pull it away from her.
For another moment he squeezed, while the girl writhed in agony. Then he let her go. "That's for talking like that! I ain't a pigeon. I told ya I had a record. I hate cops as much as you do. So watch your mouth. And stop worrying. I ain't going to rape you. I told you I had a deal you might be able to help me out on. So relax, kid, and stop feeding me a lot of bull."
Even with his eyes on her Noreen could not help rubbing herself where he had grabbed. God, that had hurt. What a brute he was! But as the pain began to subside she remembered his promise. He wasn't going to rape her. Then what did he want?
His voice was friendly again. "You better take a drink, kid. Fix the pain."
She shook her head. "No! Drinking got me into trouble."
"Maybe you're right at that. But I'll have a snort just the same. Hand me the bottle out of there." She handed him a pint bottle of whisky from the compartment. He tilted it back and she heard the gurgle as the whiskey poured down his throat. That's it, she thought without surprise. He's a boozer. Most boozers weren't too interested in women, except now and then.
He took the bottle away from his lips and wiped his mouth with the back of his hand. "Ahh! That's the stuff. You sure you don't want any?"
She shook her head. Making her voice friendly and interested she asked, "How come you can drink like that on the job? Won't you get fired?" Her drunken old man had lost a dozen jobs like that.
He snorted. "Fired? Hell, I own this rig. Got my own business. Can't nobody fire me!"
"But you said back there, when you stopped for me, that it was against the rules?"
He narrowed his small eyes at her. "You're a smart kid. Don't miss much. Yeah, I said that. I meant it, was against the rules-my rules! It's also against the state law and I didn't know who you was. Cops will do anything to catch a trucker breaking some half-ass law." He spat on the floor of the cab "Cops!"
He was driving rapidly now, peering ahead into rain that had started again. He started the wipers and their rhythmic swish-swish began lulling Noreen, reminding her that it had been a long time since she had slept. Or eaten. She jerked her head up, fighting off the drowsiness.
"Stay awake," he snapped at her. "You can sleep after awhile. And get down on the floor. We're going through a little town in a minute and I don't want nobody spotting you. These small town clowns of cops got nothing to do all night but snoop. They're worse than city bulls."
Noreen slid off the seat and huddled on the floor of the cab. The pulse of the powerful diesel throbbed in her ear. The brakes hissed as the driver began to slow for the town.
"Once we get to the other side of town," he said, "you can crawl in the back and sleep. It's gonna be full daylight pretty soon anyway and you couldn't ride up here. Don't worry, kid. I'll take care of you. Only you gotta trust me. I'll take you to a joint I know where you'll be safe. I gotta girl friend that'll look after you. Okay?"
"Okay." She had to play along. See what developed. Meantime this strange boozer was a Godsend for the moment. She knew she couldn't trust him. Or anyone. He had something up his sleeve. Time would reveal that. But right now there was nothing she could do but go along with him. She was still in desperate straits. Alone. No clothes, no money, no friends. Nowhere to go except with this man.
With the coming of day she dare not show herself in Steel City in her present condition. She would be picked up in five minutes. She had known that, of course, and had been racking her brains for a way to contact Studsy and Lucy Vandiveer without getting caught. They alone would help her because she could force them to. But now, as the truck slowed and stopped for the town's single traffic light, Noreen wondered if she could ever get in touch with Studsy? The lousy cops wouldn't miss a bet like that. They would probably be watching both Studsy and Lucy-
CHAPTER SIX
The late afternoon sun slanting into the room through dark red chintz drapes, awakened Noreen. She was lying on a cot, naked except for a single clean smelling sheet covering her.
For one wild moment terror and bewilderment struggled in her. Where was she? What had happened to her? Why was she naked?
Memory came flooding back. The truck? And the driver, Ed somebody. He had promised to take her to a place where she would be safe!
But where was she then? She glanced around the room. It was tiny but clean. The floor was of rough planking covered here and there by a bright colored rag rug. In a corner was a wash stand, with a basin and pitcher and clean towels hanging on a rack over it. In another corner was a dresser with a broken mirror. Near a stout wooden door was a tall clothes closet.
Noreen crossed the room to the door. It was locked on the outside. She had half expected that. She peeked into the closet. It was empty. She hadn't a single stitch of clothing, not even the bedraggled dress in which she had escaped.
A roar of motors from somewhere outside made her jump. She went to the single window and cautiously pulled back the chintz drape. Immediately she knew that she must be somewhere on Indian River, the fair sized stream that ran through the heart of Steel City. The river glinted beneath her, gilded by the rays of a westing sun. In the distance she could see the spire of the Chisholm Building, the only real skyscraper in the city. The sun made a thousand flaming eyes of its windows.
Immediately below the window she saw the long, tarpaper covered roof of a canoe shed. On the dock before it men were working on canoes, scraping and painting. Wooden stairs led down to' the river. One of the men looked up in her direction and Noreen ducked hastily back into the room.
Now she knew where she was. The Indian River Boathouse. She and Studsy had driven past it many a time. As she remembered the road-came to within half a mile of the place, then you came in on a private drive. She and Studsy never went canoeing like some of the kids.
"For squares," Studsy always said. "I'll take mine in the back seat of a car."
But what in hell was she doing at the boat-house? And where was Ed? And her dress? Why was she locked in?
Someone fumbled with the lock of the door. The girl raced for the bed, picked up the sheet and draped it around her just as the door opened.
A plump blonde woman, wearing house slippers and a magenta wrapper, stood there holding a tray of food. She smiled at Noreen. "Don't worry, dearie. No men around. How you feeling?"
Sensing no immediate menace in this woman Noreen sank down on the cot, still holding the sheet about her like a toga. "Who are you?" she demanded. "And what am I doing here?"
The woman smiled again, showing some obviously false teeth. "One thing at a time, dearie. You got nothing to worry about. Not right now at least. Look, I brought you some grub. You must be half starved.
The woman sank on the cot beside her with a sigh. "There now. That's better. I'm a pretty good cook if I do say so myself. Maybe that's why Ed married me. And why he don't throw me out. Not that he won't someday."
Noreen looked up from cutting a piece of steak. "Ed? The man who brought me here? He's your husband?"
The woman nodded and smiled. With a trace of pride, Noreen thought.
"That's right. Ed Jeffers. I'm Goldie. We been married nearly ten years now."
Noreen, never a girl to mince matters when her own interests were at stake, asked: "But why did he take my clothes away? And how did I get here anyway?! don't remember a thing."
"Lord," she said, "you were out like a light! Ed drove out here before he unloaded, to get rid of you, and then you wouldn't wake up. Lucky there was nobody around. He just wrapped a tarp around you and carried you .up here and turned you over to me. Didn't anybody see you. Nobody here at that hour but the hired men and they was asleep in the canoe shed. You're safe here, dearie, long as you want to stay."
Noreen finished the last of the steak. "He said lie has some kind of a deal he wanted me to help him with. What did he mean?"
The sheet had fallen to her waist as she ate. Now she saw the woman's eyes on her breasts. Hastily she pulled up the sheet. She didn't want to get into that again.
Goldie Jeffers gave her a knowing smile. "Needn't be so modest with me, dearie. I ain't queer. I was just looking at those boobies of yours. They're terrific. I had 'em like that once. Look at me now!" She pulled the magenta wrapper aside for Noreen to see.
Goldie laughed softly. "I know-I know! You don't like to look at them, do you? Don't blame you. Neither do I. Makes me sick when I look in the mirror-thinking how I used to be. I was a looker, too, dearie. Just like you now."
Noreen broke into the flow of words. "But what does Ed, your husband want me to do?"
A crafty look settled on the flabby face of Goldie Jeffers. "He didn't tell you nothing?"
"No. Where is he now anyway?"
"Gone into town to unload that booze. He'll be back soon now. Drunk as usual. After a run he always gets on a toot. Just as well for me. He's mean at first, but after two days or so he passes out."
So she had been right. Ed Jeffers was a chronic boozer. Yet he was no fool. Look at the way he had handled those cops! But all this had nothing to do with her. She had to be on her way.
She said as much to Goldie now. "I got to get out of here. I'm obliged to Ed, and you, for helping me, but I can't stay around here. If you'll give me back my clothes I'll make out." It would be dark before long, she thought, and she would just have to take a chance on contacting Studsy. She had to have money.
Nevertheless she continued to sound out Goldie. "You see I ain't-haven't got any money. That's why I want to know what your husband has in mind. I'd like to make a few dollars, but I can't hang around this town."
"I know you're in a fix," the woman said. "Ed told me all about it. And you're in the papers. They're looking for you in town. You sure as hell can't go in there, dearie."
So there went Studsy!
"But don't worry," Goldie went on. "I like you. I don't know why, except maybe you remind me of myself when I was young and pretty. So we'll have a nice talk, you and me. Get you straightened around. But first off we got to get something settled. You willing to turn pro or ain't you?"
Noreen stared at her. "You mean sell myself to men-for money?" She knew about it of course, but it had never occurred to her that she might ever be involved in such a thing.
"Don't be so high and mighty," Goldie said without rancor. "Nothing so bad about it. Beats giving it away. I was one myself, after I got pregnant and couldn't stay in burlesk no longer. That's where I met Ed-in a house in Memphis."
"No! I don't want to do it," she told Goldie. "I'm going to have a career. I want to be a singer with a band. Maybe in the movies someday."
"You can do all that and be a pro too," said Goldie Jeffers. "But I ain't trying to talk you into anything, dearie. I just want you to know the facts so you can make a smart decision. Ed runs girls over state lines in his truck. Got a secret compartment in it. He runs other things, too, but mostly girls. He figures on running you up to Chicago soon as he can."
"He sure as hell takes a lot for granted," Noreen flared.
Goldie fished in the pocket of her wrapper and found a pack of cigarettes. She lit one for each of them.
"Maybe he did," she admitted. "But to him it figures. You're a runaway from reform school. Ed ain't much to look at, and he's a drunk, but he's plenty smart. He knows people. He figures you're just right for Chicago. No friends, no money, no clothes and no place to go. Why not?"
"He figured wrong about me."
Goldie went on as if she had not heard. "Ed even figures you might be a virgin. Are you?"
Noreen said she was.
"That's what Ed said. He's good at spotting them. Maybe because he ain't interested himself. Anyway you're worth a thousand bucks in Chicago. First time. You'd get half. After that of course the prices come down. Fine, clean girl like you could get five hundred for a year. Call girl stuff, natch, no houses. Houses is out except in hick towns and in the south."
Noreen had to admit, in all honesty, that for a moment she was greatly tempted. Five hundred dollars! It had never occurred to her that she was worth that kind of money, since she knew nothing of rich and jaded gentlemen.
With five hundred she could do a lot. Get new clothes, go to New York, have enough money for an apartment. After all she would only have to do it once.
Anyway Goldie said: "If you're thinking what I think you're thinking, dearie, don't. There's a syndicate. Once you're in you stay in. You try to run away and they come after you. Beat you up. Scar your face. I know a girl in New York now, friend of mine, who did it and got away. So far. She clanged her name and I'm the only one knows it. She knows I won't squeal. But she's the only one ever did that I know of. And they'll get her sooner or later. So don't be thinking you can sell yourself once and then run."
"That's where I want to go. New York." Noreen had already decided against Chicago, even without Goldie's warning.
"You sure?"
Noreen shook her head emphatically. Her copper hair flamed in the rays of the sun through the window. "Yes. I got to. I want to be .somebody. Please help me, Goldie. Lend me some money and help me get out of town. I'll pay you back, I swear."
Goldie stood up from the cot, pulling the wrapper around her ruined figure. "All right, dearie. I'll do it. Ed might beat the living crap out of me, but I don't care." She giggled. "Maybe it will make him pay some attention to me, anyway. All I do now is sit here and run this lousy boathouse while he's away all the time on the road. Or laying in his room drunk."
"I got to have some clothes," Noreen said.
The woman surveyed her critically. "You got to have a lot more than that, dearie. Clothes ain't no problem. I got some that another girl left here. But we got to dye your hair-shame to do it-and put some years on you. You can wash 'em off when you get to New York. I'll give you the address of the girl I told you about, and she'll help you get started. She's a good kid.
"But I ain't got much money. Ed sees to that. And I can't let you have the car. He'd kill me for that. Anyway I got to make it look like you run off, and I couldn't if you took the car."
Noreen thought again of Studsy. Maybe she could use him after all. And get even with the big louse!
"I think maybe I can get a car and some money," she said. "If I look older and got clothes and a little money. I can leave after dark and I'll be all right."
Goldie studied her for a moment. "Okay, then. Now listen. Ed will be coming in a little while. Probably drunk as a skunk. I'll try to keep him away from you. I'll tell him I talked to you and you're going to Chicago on the deal. I'll say you're tired and want to be left alone. If it don't work and he comes up to talk to you, you just play along. You don't have to be afraid of Ed. Not that way. Only things he likes is booze and money.
"I'll keep pouring booze in him 'till he passes out, then we'll go to work. I still got my old makeup kit from burlesk and I'll fix you up. I got dye that will dry in an hour. Then I'll give you all the dough I got, and Yvonne's address and you're on your way."
Noreen was grateful to the woman. But her own experience, in her short life, made her incapable of expressing that gratitude adequately. She was still wary.
All she could say was, "You're sweet to do this. But why? Why are you helping me?"
Goldie looked back from the door. "Damned if I know, dearie. Maybe it's because I'm so goddamned sick and tired of men having their own way about everything all the time."
"Will Ed really beat you when he finds I'm gone?"
Goldie laughed. "Probably. Won't be the first time,"
"Why do you stay with a guy like that?"
Goldie smiled again. The sad clown smile. She pointed down to herself. "Where would I go? Who would have me? Anyway I love the sonofabitch."
CHAPTER SEVEN
It was very dark and still by the river that I night as Noreen waited for Studsy to pick her up. She had left the boathouse just after dark and walked the two miles to this deserted old landing.
The car eased to a stop at the foot of the dock. Studsy Green put his head out the window, peering into the gloom. "Babe? You here?"
Noreen picked up the little overnight case that Goldie Jeffers had given her and ran swiftly toward the car. She tumbled into the front seat. "Hello, Studsy! You made it. A good thing for both of us. Get going. Out of town as fast as you can. Better head toward Greensburgh." This was a town near the state line. She knew she could get a bus there that would connect with Pittsburgh and New York.
Studsy shot her a glance of mixed resentment and admiration. "Gee, Babe, you're sure giving a lot of orders tonight." Suddenly he laughed and reached for her. "But I don't mind! Not for what you promised me."
She let him kiss her briefly. His breath smelled of wine. He was as big and hard and muscular as ever, but there was no thrill to his kiss. She pushed him away. "Studsy! Get going. The cops probably patrol around here. Remember, if we get caught now we're both in lots of trouble."
Studsy slowed the Cad as they passed through a little town, already gone to bed. When he picked up speed again he said: "Only fifteen miles to Greerts-burgh, babe. Guess we better start looking for that motel pretty quick, huh?"
She slapped his hand away from her bare flesh before she answered. "Get in as close to town as you can. I want to catch a bus afterward. And you better give me the money now."
Grumbling, he fumbled for his wallet. "How am I gonna pay the motel?"
"You can keep five bucks for that. And another two for some wine if you want. I can use a couple of drinks myself."
"Okay! Just a couple winos, that us, huh?" He sounded more cheerful.
Noreen took the bills and tucked them into the purse Goldie Jeffers had given her. Goldie, she thought, might be nothing but an old bag, but she was better people than Studsy and his sort any day. Goldie had helped her, a perfect stranger. She had given her the entire outfit left by the other girl: underwear, nylons, a pair of suede pumps, and a lightweight gray faille suit. No hat. To this Goldie had added the overnight case and the purse. In the purse was fifty dollars, the woman's own money.
In addition there was the phone number and address of Yvonne Speers in New York. Yvonne was the girl who had fled the syndicate in Chicago. Goldie had given Noreen a pass word to use when she called Yvonne, so the girl would know she was from Goldie and trust her.
"She won't have nothing to do with you, dearie," Goldie had said, "unless she hears the pass word. Then she'll know you're okay. I guess I'm maybe the only one in the world she can trust. She's living with another girl now, but I don't know anything about her. Yvonne's a good girl, even if she ain't very smart, and she'll help you get started. Only if I was you I wouldn't hang around her too long. Sooner or later the syndicate is gonna find her and half kill her."
They were coming into the outskirts of Greens-burgh. Studsy slowed the Cad as they approached a line of motels. Large and small, luxurious, medium, poor class, they lined the road. Each with its own sign, the red and green and blue efflorescence filling the night like some weird flower.
"Which one?" demanded Studsy. He was idling along now, letting other cars pass him as he scanned the motel signs. "There's one with a vacancy. And a liquor store just across the street, too. How about it?"
The motel was called the Green Dragon. The vacancy sign was on, a's Studsy said. It appeared to be an older motel, with phony looking log cabins. The parking space was badly lit. Might be just the thing, Noreen told herself. She had two plans for taking care of Studsy boy, but for the better plan she needed an old-fashioned bathroom.
He was in the bathroom now, turning on the shower. "This is gonna be the shortest bath on record," he called. "Open the champagne, babe." He began to sing one of the new juke hits.
For a moment she was tempted. She felt hot and flushed and little shivers kept running down her spine. What would it be like with a man like Studsy? She looked down at her taut breasts, felt a little throbbing ache in them. I'm ready, "she thought suddenly. I'm a woman! I want a man!
But not Studsy! Don't be a little fool all over again!
She took the key from her stocking and tiptoed toward the bathroom door. Studsy, with the shower curtain half drawn, never saw her. She pulled the door gently to and twisted the key. Click. Sing on, Studsy boy!
Noreen flung on her clothes, not bothering to button anything. She scooped his clothes from the floor and bundled them under one arm, picked up her purse and the overnight case and was out the door before the sound of the shower stopped.
The Cad was just outside the cabin, with the keys in the lock. He always left them in the lock. Noreen tossed his clothes in the back and slid behind the wheel. The powerful motor purred into life. She backed around and was just leaving as she heard the first bellow of outraged surprise from the cabin.
Noreen smiled as she drove through the entrance. The clerk didn't even look up from his comic book. There was no phone in the cabin. She had made sure of that. Oh, let's see you get out of this one, big boy! No clothes, fifty miles from home, the car gone! Studsy was going to have to dream up some tall stories.
She left the Cad parked on a lonely street near the bus station, after first determining that the next bus for Pittsburgh left in ten minutes. It would be at least an hour before Studsy could get out of the bathroom, find some clothes, and come looking for the car. Probably he would guess that she was catching a bus and wouldn't even call the cops.
How would he dare? He would be lucky if the motel clerk didn't!
Just as she was about to slam the door of the Cad she had a thought. She looked in the glove compartment. There, beneath a clutter of maps, was a thin sheaf of bills in a money holder. Studsy, running true to form, had lied-about being broke.
Noreen went down the dark street carrying the little overnight case. Her high heels beat out a defiant tatoo on the sidewalk. She walked with shoulders back and head high. New York, here I come. Look out!
The brightly lit bus station was almost empty. No one paid any attention to her. She bought her ticket and counted the money she had found in the glove compartment. Nearly a hundred dollars.
As she was stuffing it back in her purse she noticed the crumpled letter. It was the one she had written to the warden of Sunny View. She hesitated a moment, then mailed it. Another score taken care of.
Five minutes later the big Greyhound came in and she climbed aboard. She would change at the next sizable town, take a feeder line and double back north and west, then catch another bus direct for New York. No use taking any chances.
With a new name and a new personality, a whole new life, she intended to find herself.
CHAPTER EIGHT
When the greyhound finally gave a hydraulic sneeze and stopped at the New York depot. Noreen was tired and grimy and very sick of busses. She vowed that the next time she traveled it would be in style. Her firm little behind felt as though someone had shot novocaine in it.
Noreen was nervous when she got off the bus. Somewhere around the station, she thought, there must be plainclothes men and women. But no one-so much as looked at her twice. She was just another pretty girl in the crowd.
She walked over to Eighth Avenue and went into a drugstore. She dialed the number Goldie Jeflers had given her. It was a Riverside number.
A limp female voice answered. "Yes?" There was a faint note of anxiety, of chronic fear, in the voice.
Noreen's quick mind assumed at once that she was talking to Yvonne Speers.
"Is this Yvonne Speers?"
"Who is this?"
"It's all right," Noreen said. "I'm a friend of Goldie Jeffers in Steel City. She told me to call you. She said to tell you the hanging man was still in the deck." She had memorized those words, though she had not the slightest idea what they meant. There had been no time for explanations. Goldie had just said something about Tarot cards and how Yvonne would understand.
Apparently she did, because she said quickly, "Is anything the matter? Is Goldie all right?"
"Fine." Noreen hoped she was telling the truth.
Before she could continue Yvonne said, "Come on up, honey. 410-12 West End Avenue. You got that? Repeat it."
As Noreen repeated the address she got the idea. The woman did not want to talk on the phone.
"Grab a cab," Yvonne said. "Apartment 4B. See you soon." She hung up.
On the way uptown in the taxi Noreen had time-to think. From what Goldie had told her of Yvonne Speers the girl was a prostitute, a call girl who had broken away from the syndicate and was working on her own. That's probably why she's so friendly, Noreen thought. She thinks I'm like her. That I'm one of Goldie and Ed's girls come to work in New York. Well, she would just have to put the woman straight on that, right from the start. But she hoped they would get along. She was alone in New York and desperately needed a friend. Yvonne must have a lot of connections in her business. Maybe she could help her get a job.
410-12 West End Avenue was near 79th. West End was a street of imposing looking apartment buildings, most of them with marquees and uniformed doormen.
Noreen went to the fourth floor in a rickety, open cage elevator and found 4B. There was a gargoyle knocker on the door and she let it fall with a brazen clangor. She was about to knock again when the door opened. A tall woman with gold hair cut short and close to her head stood there. Her eyes were a very dark blue. She smiled at Noreen.
"You're Goldie's friend?"
"Yes. Are you Yvonne?"
"Yes. Come in." She turned and left Noreen to follow.
Yvonne Speers walked with a long, hip swaying movement. She wore a short brocade jacket of white, with a gold dragon on the back. Her slim legs were displayed by skin tight toreador pants of black. She was bare-footed.
In a living room that seemed to Noreen to be as large as the lobby Yvonne gestured to a sola. "Sit down, honey. Drop that bag anywhere. Say, that looke like an old case of Goldie's."
Keeling strangely on the defensive, and very conscious of her youth, her inexperience and her nearly penniless condition, Noreen admitted that Goldie had given her the bag. "She was awful nice to me," she said. "I-well, I had to get out of Steel City fast and Goldie helped me a lot." She decided she would not tell Yvonne more about herself than was necessary. The fewer people who knew about her the better.
Yvonne settled in a chair, crossed her long legs, then sprang up. "I'm a hell of a hostess. You must be starved! How about a drink?"
"'I don't drink much. But I am hungry. If I could have a sandwich or something-"
"Sure, honey. Anything you want. Buddy keeps the refrigerator loaded. If I ate the way she does I'd be fat as a hog and never make a dime. But I'll have a short one first if you don't mind waiting, first today. And I been hung all day."
Yvonne made a face and poured more booze into the glass. "Oh-I needed that. Nothing like vodka, honey, to bring a corpse back to life. Last night I had a rough one. A tobacco buyer from North Carolina on his way to Africa. I thought that son-of-a-bitch would never get enough."
Noreen went to the bar. "Maybe I will have just one. I'm sort of beat. You got any wine?"
Yvonne finished her drink. "We got everything in the world, honey. You name it. One thing Buddy docs do, like keeping the food on tap, is keep a good bar. Only she don't drink much herself." Yvonne giggled. "I'm the one that really laps it up."
Noreen sipped at her small glass of wine. It was dry and tart and the first sip started the glow.
"Who is Buddy? Your roommate?"
Yvonne laughed, showing teeth that were white and a little too long. Noreen noticed that her throat was a bit crepy. She had thought Yvonne about twenty-five; now she changed her estimate to the early thirties.
"In a way you might call her my roommate," the woman said. She stopped and stared at Noreen with her dark blue eyes. "My God, honey, but you're young! Under all that goo I can tell. For God's sake take a bath and wash it off so I can tell what you really look like."
"Goldie did it," Noreen said a little petulantly. Of course she was young. But people didn't always have to be throwing it up to her.
Yvonne nodded as though she understood. "You on the run from the cops, kid?"
There was that kid again! But Noreen was determined to make this woman like her, to use her. Yet how much could she safely tell her?
She decided to compromise. Tell Yvonne as much as she had to, no more. So she said that she had gotten into a jam and had to leave town. Her folks were no good and didn't want her around.
Yvonne filled her glass again. "Don't mind me, honey, if I get half crocked. I got a mean one tonight. Some grease ball from the Coast. He wants to go wild for a lousy hundred bucks."
At the look on Noreen's face the woman laughed. "Never mind, honey. You'll find out what it means soon enough. But all this yak-yaking ain't getting you any food. Come on."
They went into a huge kitchen with spotless white walls, an old fashioned gas range and a tall refrigerator with the working parts in a metal cylinder atop-the box. The sink was narrow, with brass faucets, and had a time eroded wooden drain board.
Yvonne opened the door and started pulling out plates of food. Ham, cold chicken, jellied consomme. "They built these apartments in the year one," she laughed as she cut a crisp French loaf and put half a pound of butter before Noreen. "But I like it. God, we got nine rooms here! Ninety-five a month! Imagine it. Buddy's folks lived here twenty years before they died and then she got it."
Noreen munched at a huge sandwich. "You never did tell me who Buddy was."
Yvonne was sitting across the table from her. She lit a cigarette and peered at Noreen through the smoke. Her eyes were a little glassy from the vodka.
"If you been around Goldie Jeffers I guess you know the score. I don't know anything about you,-honey, and I ain't the nosey type. Don't tell me anymore than you want to. I'll help you out if I can. Favor to Goldie, and anyway I like your looks." Yvonne stopped to drain the last of her vodka.
"About Buddy Pressman and me-that's simple. Buddy is a butch. A Lesbian. You know anything about that?"
Noreen nodded, repressing a smile. Did she! Ask old Waffle.
Yvonne went on. "Now there's all sorts of relations between Lesbians. And between a Liz and a straight girl. Now I'm straight. I ain't queer myself. But Buddy is-she's the butch. The man in this house., I'm her fern. Buddy is in love with me. Wait a minute until I get some more vodka."
While Yvonne went down the long corridor to the living room Noreen found herself thinking that she certainly had a gift for getting herself into strange situations. But that needn't bother her. Yvonne was a friendly drunk, she could see that already, and just what she needed to get started in New York.
Noreen already felt her sell more than a match for the gold haired woman.
Yes, Noreen told herself. I can handle this one just the way I did Goldie. But how about this Buddy Pressman? The butch? She sounds like she might be tough. And it's her place. I gotta figure some way to keep her from throwing me out.
Noreen had already decided that she wanted to stay in this huge old apartment for a time, at least until she found her bearings. Maybe she wouldn't have to pay any rent at all. Might even get her food for free. She wanted to save every dime she could for clothes. If she could sponge off Buddy for a few weeks it would make all the difference. She decided that she must ingratiate herself with this Buddy when she met her.
Yvonne came back with a glass in one hand and the vodka bottle in the other. By now she was well along the way.
She settled down at the table, drank a shot of vodka, and looked at the platinum watch on her thin wrist. "Jesus. Almost eight. I got to start dressing soon. Got to meet this John in the lobby of the Waldorf." She peered at Noreen unsteadily. "I'll be all right. Good cold shower fix me up. Anyway I was telling you about Buddy."
She winked at Noreen. "One reason I went to get the bottle. See if she was in yet. Sometimes she comes in and I don't even hear her. Jealous as hell."
Noreen didn't quite get that. "But you say you go out every night, almost. How-"
Yvonne laughed. "Oh, she don't mind that. Not when I go with Johns. That's business. But if another butch looks at me-or a man! You know, a man. Not just a John. Then Buddy flips her wig. Mostly I don't fool around with anybody, though. I got it good here. Buddy pays all the bills, you see. I don't have to work if I don't want to."
Yvonne broke off to take another swig of vodka. "My last. This has gotta be my last. I don't wanna stand this John up."
Noreen decided to take advantage of Yvonne's condition. She might get one night's free lodging even if Buddy tossed her out in the morning.
"Could I stay here tonight? I've got no place to go vet. If I could stay here just tonight I can get out and find someplace tomorrow."
Yvonne laughed tipsily. "Bless my cotton picking heart, honey! We got three extra bedrooms here. My friends stay here all the time. Sure you can stay. Stay as long as you want. I'll make it all right with Buddy. She won't care."
"You sure?"
"Sure I'm sure. But I wanna know one thing, honey. You aiming to work this town. You know-you going to sell it?"
Slowly Noreen shook her head. "N-no! At least I don't think so. I sort of want to look around before I make up my mind about anything." She did not want to offend Yvonne by any hard and fast refusal to share her profession. She might be touchy and think Noreen was putting on airs.
But the other woman only nodded. "Well, you don't have to worry yet then. If you was going to work right away there would be a lot of things you would have to know. Like telephone codes and all that. We got a vice squad here in New York that is rough. You notice I didn't want to talk much on the phone? You never know when the bastards are tapping in. I been lucky so far. But if you ain't going to work you don't have to worry about all that. Plenty time anyway."
She gave Noreen a vacuous alcoholic smile. "And don't you worry about a 'lil old thing. Yvonne will take care of you. 'Cause you're a friend of old Goldie's. Good old Goldie. Heart big as the Empire States building. She tell you how I was on run from the syndicate?"
"She mentioned something about it."
"She helped me too. 'Course the bastards will get me sooner or later, I guess. Probably kill me. But that ain't your worry, honey. Now you go wash that goo off your face and go to bed. Do anything you want. Joint is yours. Buddy won't be home 'till late and I gotta work. C'mon, I'll show you your bedroom. "
Yvonne was swaying gently from wall to wall as she led the girl down the corridor to a large bedroom. She pointed out the bath.
"Take a good long tub," she advised. "Make you feel like new. You got the place all to yourself."
Noreen went into the living room to get her overnight case. When she came back she passed what was obviously the master bedroom. In the center was a great round Hollywood bed.
Yvonne stood naked in front of an ornate, gold chased mirror, full length, that hung on one of the pale green walls. Noreen had to admire Yvonne's figure. Tall, slim, with the thin arms and full breasts of a good model. Her neck was long and slim, with little hollows around the collar bone; her legs a perfect, slightly incurving taper from hard white buttocks to fine boned ankles. Her breasts, unlike Noreen's own firm and swelling bounty, were small and pointed with large brown nipples.
Yvonne looked up from examining herself in the mirror. She smiled at Noreen. "Not bad for an old bag, huh? Only it don't last long, honey. Not long at all. You got to get everything you can out of it while you can." She seemed, by some miracle, to have sobered completely.
When Yvonne turned to her Noreen saw that the golden hair, which she had thought too beautiful to be real, was natural after all.
What she did not see was the scores of tiny punctures in the tender white flesh of Yvonne's thighs.
Yvonne pulled a robe about her and came into the corridor. "Let me have the bath first, hon. I really got to run or this John will be steamed."
Mindful of what the woman had said about having the place to herself Noreen asked, "You don't bring your dates here, then?"
Yvonne laughed shrilly. "God, no! Buddy would throw a fit. Except one guy she lets me bring here. Teddy Phipps. Buddy feels sorry for him, I guess. She don't mind if he comes up. I guess she don't really consider him a man."
Noreen was intrigued. "Why not? Can't he do anything?" She had heard about impotent old men. "Is he too old?"
"Teddy? Hell, no. Young man. Handsome devil, too. Sometimes I wish he was all there. Not that I don't do what I can for him. But Teddy was in the Korean war. Poor unlucky bastard. He got a bad wound in a bad place."
Yvonne stepped into the shower. "See you tomorrow, honey. I'll leave a note about you for Buddy so she won't think I got a new girl friend. I bet you're sound asleep before I get out of the place."
"Goodnight. And thanks for everything. You been swell to me."
Noreen went into her bedroom and closed the door. She dropped the overnight case on the floor and took off her suit and carefully hung it in the closet before she collapsed on the bed.
There would be plenty of time for the bath tomorrow.
Noreen heard nothing. She was already fast asleep in her panties and bra. She was on her back, with one arm out-flung, her full young breasts rising and falling with each deep breath. In this perfect relaxation she looked what she was-a child. All her defenses were down, her soft red mouth screwed into a little pout, her long lashes making shadows on her cheekbones. She had neglected to turn off the light and the soft glow of tinted bulbs gave her perfect skin a tawny hue.
No man, seeing her now, could have thought of her as anything less than an angel. And no man could have been more mistaken.
CHAPTER NINE
The next morning at breakfast Noreen met Buddy Pressman. Buddy was a stout woman in her early forties. Big but not fat. She had thick shoulders and large breasts and piano stool legs.
She greeted Noreen warmly. "Good morning, I read Yvonne's note about you. Sit down and have some coffee. Toast?"
"Thanks." Noreen slid into a chair across the table. She felt clean and refreshed and happy, having just come from a fabulous tub and shower. She had used scads of Yvonne's bubble-bath and talcum. All of Goldie's pancake and grease paint had been scrubbed away and her complexion was radiant again.
Ruddy Pressman poured coffee from a big silver urn. "Are you planning to stay in New York, Noreen?"
Noreen was quick to take advantage of the friendly tone. "I want to. I hope I can. But I ain't-haven't got much money. And hardly any clothes. I'll have to get a job real fast. And I got to find a place to stay." She made her tone as wistful as possible, hoping Buddy would take the hint.
The older woman chose to ignore the gambit for the moment. She had an angular face with a thin hooked nose jutting over a wide mouth. Her brown eyes, large and slightly oval, studied the girl with sympathetic interest.
"What can you do? In the way of work, I mean? Is Yvonne going to help you?"
No mistaking the import of that question. "No," Noreen said firmly. "I'm not going to do that. I want to be a singer if I can. With a band. I got a good voice."
Buddy brushed a thick fingered hand over her mannish cut dark hair. Noreen, naive as she was, flushed as she read the look of mingled pity and amusement on Buddy's swarthy features.
"I do have a good voice," she said defiantly. "My high school teacher, and a lot of other people who have heard me sing, they all say so. All I need is a chance."
Buddy reached over and put her big hand over Noreen's small one. "All right. I wasn't laughing at you. It's just that so many girls-thousands of them every year-come to New York with the same idea. It isn't easy to get started, you know. It's tough as hell. Most girls give up after a time and go back home."
"I won't," Noreen told her sullenly. "I can't! I got to make it."
Buddy's deep brown eyes were shrewd. "Like that, eh?"
"Yes. Like that."
Buddy laughed and held up a hand. "Okay. Don't tell me anymore. I-don't want to know. You're one of the sisterhood. We're all remittance women here, in a manner of speaking."
"I don't know what that means. I a-haven't got much education yet. But I'll get it."
Buddy patted her hand again. Noreen wondered if the woman's hand didn't linger just a little too long, then decided it was her imagination. The experience with Waffle had made her leery.
"It means that your folks send you money to stay away from home," Buddy said wryly. "The checks keep coming as long as you never go back. It happened to me. Right here in New York. I had an apartment in the Village and the folks paid all my bills as long as I never stepped foot in this apartment. Then they died and I got it anyway. They hated me because I was queer."
"My folks just hate me period," Noreen said. "At least my old man. My Mom is drunk half the time and don't know what's going on."
After that the talk was of one thing and another until they were on the last cup of coffee. Yvonne, Buddy said, was in bed. She never got up much before three. Especially after a hard night. Ruddy was staying home from her office today. She ran a small, practically one woman advertising agency. Cheap fashion accounts, patent medicines, honeymoon tours, etc.
"It's a good deal," she admitted as they went into the living room to smoke a cigarette. They took the coffee cups with them and sat on the sofa together.
"I make more than I would working for a big 4A outfit," Buddy explained. "I do my own layout, write my own copy, and I'm account executive too. The works. Of course I have help-two girls that are learning the business, and an artist." She exhaled smoke through her nostrils and leaned back against the sofa, her stout legs crossed. Noreen sipped her coffee and kept silent. She knew better than-to come right out and ask to be allowed to stay in the apartment. The initiative must come from Buddy.
It came in the next moment. "I'm wondering how I could work you in?" Buddy leaned to put her cup on the glass topped table. "You don't have any experience at all, I suppose? Any business experience, I mean? Can you type of take dictation?"
The girl nodded. "I can type pretty good. I took it in high school. My shorthand is lousy, though." And I don't want to be any lousy typist, she added mentally. I'm going to be a singer. But in the meantime she had better play along with Buddy. Any sort of a job would help for a few weeks. Especially if free board and room went with it.
Buddy put her hand on Noreen's bare knee. The girl was wearing a borrowed robe of Yvonne's, and it had fallen away. Noreen tensed for a moment, then relaxed. This was somehow very different from her experience with Matron Ayers. Buddy's hand was warm and dry, the pressure merely friendly. After a moment the hand was removed.
"You come into the office Monday," Buddy told her. "I'll put you to work doing something. I like you, Noreen. I like you a lot. You stay here until you can find a place. Plenty of room, as you can see.
She stood up. "Well, I'd better get Yvonne's tray ready. God, but I spoil that woman! Breakfast in bed every day I'm home."
Buddy leaned over and kissed Noreen on the lips. Just a momentary pressure which the girl did not find repulsive. The brown eyes smiled down at her. "Don't get any ideas. I love Yvonne. That's just because I like you."
At the door she paused and looked back. "You have any money at all?"
"About a hundred and twenty dollars."
Buddy frowned. "That won't last long in New York. Tell you what-I'll give you an advance on salary Monday. And I suppose you need clothes? Yes. Well, you can use my chargeplate at Bonwit-Tellers next week. Up to three hundred. I'll take it out of your salary a little every week. Okay?"
"God, yes," exclaimed Noreen. "You're swell to me, Buddy. You and Yvonne both. I'm sure lucky I found such good friends."
Buddy regarded her for a long moment. She smiled faintly. "It might be just as well if you didn't mention any of this to Yvonne. About the clothes, anyway. Not even the job until after Monday. Okay?"
"Sure. If you say so. Anything you say, Buddy"
"Right. Now I've got to fix that tray before she starts yelling."
When she had gone Noreen curled up on the sofa, feeling a lot like the cat that has just eaten an especially plump canary. It looked like she was really in. Buddy liked her. Then her native intelligence asserted itself. What was behind all this? The usual thing? Noreen just didn't know. What she did know was that she would have to be careful. This was a potentially explosive situation.
How explosive she was not to find out until late Saturday evening, when the top of the world fell in.
That weekend she lounged around the apartment, eating and drinking, and watching Yvonne tell her own fortune with the Tarot cards. Buddy was gone to Long Island on business.
That long Saturday afternoon, with no date, Yvonne drank huge quantities of vodka and gloomily shuffled the Tarot deck over and over. The hanging man came up with great frequency. This card was the picture of a man in medieval knave's costume, dangling from his ankle from a gibbet. There was a look of excruciating agony on his face, like that of a character in one of Bosch's terrible paintings.
The look on Yvonne's face, as the hanging man came up again and again, was almost as bad. "God," she moaned. "I'm going to die soon! Look! Every damned time. Something terrible is going to happen." And she would pour herself another drink of vodka.
When the hanging man came up for the thirteenth time Yvonne cursed and threw the deck of twenty-two picture cards across the. room. "Something terrible is going to happen to me," she moaned as she hurried toward the bar for more vodka. "The cards have never been this bad."
Noreen examined the cards. Yvonne had explained that they were very old. She was hazy on the exact history of the Tarot deck, but she thought that the gypsies in ancient Italy had first used them to tell fortunes.
Noreen was looking at the hanging man, understanding now the password that Goldie had given her, when the gargoyle on the front door banged.
Yvonne picked up the vodka bottle and dashed for the bedroom. "You get it, Noreen. It's probably Teddy Phipps. Jesus, I clean forgot he was coining up today. Keep him happy until I get some clothes on. But not too happy, mind. He belongs to me." She gave Noreen her silly, friendly smile and staggered a little as she left die room. Noreen went to the door. The man standing there was incredibly beautiful. That was the word. Beautiful! Noreen's first impression was that of a lovely woman dresse'd in man's clothes. She was staring when he smiled, displaying perfect teeth, and said: "I'm Teddy Phipps. I have a date with Yvonne. May I come in?"
Noreen stepped aside to let him pass. "Sure, I'm Noreen. Noreen Casey. I-I'm staying here with Yvonne and Buddy."
"Oh?Is Buddy home?"
"No. She's gone to Long Island on business."
They went into the living room. Noreen explained that Yvonne was getting dressed.
"Pity," smiled Teddy Phipps. "She'll only have to take it off again, won't she?"
Noreen couldn't help giggling as she remembered what Yvonne had told her about Teddy. About the war wound. Instantly she felt contrition. It was cruel to think that way. Why, he was probably a hero!
She watched as Teddy approached the bar. He was tall, but of slight build. There was something vaguely feminine in the way he walked, but nothing of the woman in his build or mannerisms. He wore an expensive gray palm beach suit. His hair was dark brown, inclined to curl even though it was clipped very close to his well formed skull. His skin was so flawless, with the blood showing through, that Noreen wondered if he ever had to shave.
Teddy fixed himself a scotch and water and turned from the bar. He held up the glass. "To a very beautiful young girl. I take it that you are the latest addition to Maison Buddy's?"
Noreen liked him. She smiled and went to the bar. "If that means what I think it means I ain't. I mean I'm not. I'm just staying here until I can find a place of my own."
"Oh? A wise decision." He held his glass high and made a little bow in her direction. "A whore's life, like a policeman's, is not a happy one. But then who does have a happy life?"
Noreen saw that he was a little tight. His eyes, large and of an absurd violet color in a man, were a trifle glassy.
Noreen helped herself to an unusually large glass of wine. She suddenly felt good, almost gay. She had a home, at least for a time, and she was safe from the police. She was well fed and clean and Monday there would be all the new clothes. And now here was this strangely beautiful young man who talked so funny.
On impulse she asked, "Do you always talk like this? Screwy, I mean?"
Teddy Phipps filled his glass again. "Only when I am bombed. It's a defense thing, you see. Rather like the clown who laughs to keep from crying! I stay swacked most of the time so I won't have time to think. You know about me of course? Yvonne has a busy tongue."
Noreen finished her wine and refilled the glass before she looked at him. Then: "She did tell me you were wounded in Korea."
This time there was a tinge of bitterness in his laughter. "That is the understatement of the century. Wounded? I was deprived of all that used to be most precious in my life. A judgement, some would call it, for being a satyr when I was young-and a whole man. You do know what a satyr is?"
Noreen felt no anger at the trace of amusement in his tone. Usually she would have flared up, but now she smiled at him. "No, I don't. I'm dumb as hell."
"No matter. And don't mind my superior manner. The defense thing again. I don't really mean it. And a eunuch cannot offend in any case. But not to change the subject, where in hell is Yvonne?"
"I told you. Changing. She'll be along soon." Noreen found herself hoping that Yvonne would be a long time. She was liking Teddy more and more. For once she didn't have to fight a man off.
He went over to pick up the scattered Tarot deck. "I see she's been at it again. She scares herself to death with these things. Silly, superstitious nonsense."
"Yvonne doesn't think so."
"Yvonne is a beautiful moron. But perhaps I shouldn't say that. She is very good to me."
She noticed that he was picking up the Tarot cards one at a time, bending over each time, then straightening up completely before he bent for the next card. When he had gathered all the cards he tossed them on the floor again and did the whole thing over.
"Why do you do that?"
"Good for the waistline-. Best in the world if you do it a couple of hundred times a day. I learned the trick from a jockey."
Noreen took a sip of wine. "Your waistline looks okay. Why, it's nearly as small as mine. Why do you worry?"
He picked up the last card and looked at her in surprise. "You mean Yvonne didn't tell you that too?"
"No. Tell me what?"
"About my job? That I'm a female impersonator."
Anyway she asked, "What's that?"
Teddy riffled the deck of Tarot cards in his white tapering fingers. He gave her a look of mock disdain. "My dear child-"
Noreen, who by now was feeling the wine, put her glass down on the bar with a clatter. "If just one more person calls me that I'll scream. I am not a child! I busted-I mean broke-out of reform school and fooled all the cops and got all the way to New York! And they ain't-aren't-never going to catch me. Don't tell me a child could do that!"
For once Teddy's aplomb was broken. His jaw had fallen a little. "I take it all back! You're only a child as far as beauty is concerned! You really did do that?"
Noreen felt instant remorse. She stared at him, her fingers to her red mouth. "I did. But promise you won't tell anybody."
He came to the bar to refill his glass. He made her another toast. "Of course I won't. As they say in the English detective novels-I ain't no nark. To you, my dear. The most beautiful escapee I ever met."
They clinked glasses. By now Noreen was getting tight. "Okay. So what's a female impersonator?"
Teddy swayed a little and clutched at the bar. "A profession, my dear, a profession. Maybe the fifth or sixth oldest. I wouldn't know. But let me begin at the beginning, since we have lots of time and it is quite obvious that Yvonne has passed out.
"Look at me. Observe my beauty. I say it without shame. In the twenties I could have posed for the Arrow Collar ads, no? Yes. Okay. I have always had a skin like this, a build like this. My parents wanted a girl and thought they had one until they looked closer. But don't get me wrong. I was all man. Still am. Or would be if I had anything to be a man with. No chance!"
Sudden pity suffused Noreen. Tears welled in her eyes. She swayed against him and stroked his smooth cheek. "Poor Teddy. Poor, poor baby."
"Poor Teddy indeed. Until I stepped on a mine on Porkchop Hill I was Adonis. Immediately afterward I became Venus. In a manner of speaking. But I must admit that a contributing factor was that I am very lazy. I can also dance and sing, having planned a career on the stage or in the movies before the-accident.
"So, to make a long story short, I came to New York to forget. And play the piano. I play a real mean piano. But instead an agent, a most astute man by name of Mauri King-and a louse if I ever saw one-saw me and asked me if I wished to earn a lot of bucks as a female impersonator? I thought why not? In a way, you see, it was an instance of the old adage being true-sweet are the uses of adversity."
"I wish I could talk like you," Noreen murmured.
"You talk swell. All them-those-big words. Only trouble is I can't understand you half of the time." By now the room was filled with a rose glow.
"I can't understand myself half of the time. And you speak very well. At least you are trying. But let. me get back. I figured that as long as I am what I am I might as well capitalize on it. I did. I took lessons, from another female impersonator. And I was amazed. Marvelous what one can do with a little rubber and plastic, and a wig, and the proper girdle. They love me at the Sawbuck Club in the Village. I make two notes a week for five performances. Which reminds me-" Teddy glanced at his wrist. "Jesus! I'll be late. Tell Yvonne I hope she had a nice nap."
"Tell her yourself, honey."
They turned from the bar to see Yvonne swaying in the door. She clung to the sides. She was naked except for a pair of black patent leather pumps with six inch spike heels. In one hand she carried the empty vodka bottle.
Yvonne waved the bottle at them. "Hi, honeys. You two having fun? Me too." She took a step into the room and stumbled, falling to her knees. She remained so, her small pointed breasts hobbling as she laughed. "Get me. Drunk as skunk. Sorry, Teddy boy. But had bad day. Tarot cards say I'm gonna die soon. Gotta get drunk first."
Teddy glanced at his watch again, then at Noreen. "Come on. I'll help you put her to bed, then I've got to run. I've got to get back to the apartment and dress."
As they started for Yvonne the sound of the door knocker came heavily into the room. Teddy looked at Noreen again. "Expecting anyone?"
"Not me. I don't know anybody in town."
"Prolly for me," giggled Yvonne. She staggered to her feet. "Prolly old friends. I'll answer door."
She went staggering toward the foyer, still carrying the vodka bottle.
Teddy made a move to intercept her but she slipped past him with a shriek of laughter. "No. Lemme lone. Maybe Fuller brush man. I'll give 'em helluva shock."
The knocker pounded again, reverberating through the house. Whoever was at the door was becoming impatient.
They heard Yvonne fumbling with the door. Teddy shrugged his thin shoulders at Noreen. "I hope to God it isn't the gendarmes. You can't do a thing with her when she's like this."
Yvonne screamed. A short high yelp of terror that was cut short. There were sounds of a struggle in the foyer.
"What the hell!" Teddy started for the foyer, motioning Noreen to remain where she was.
Two husky, hard-faced men came into the room shoving the naked woman before them. One of them, an ape of a man in a gray chalk stripe suit, was gagging her with his hand. Yvonne was kicking and struggling, but the man handled her as though she were a doll.
Teddy Phipps had been brushed aside by the other man. Now he leaped forward, his fists raised. Noreen huddled on the sofa, shocked and staring. Were the men cops? For her?
The other man showed Teddy a pistol. "Back off, Buster. Take it easy. We ain't gonna hurt you or the other doll." The man with the gun looked at Noreen. "You ain't bad, sister. You a friend of this little two-timer?" With the pistol he indicated Yvonne, who was still struggling in the iron grip of the bigger man.
Noreen understood then. These weren't cops. These were the men from the syndicate that Goldie had mentioned. Come to take revenge on Yvonne. Noreen thought fast. She wanted out of there-right now.
"N-no," she stammered. "I-I was just paying a visit."
The man with the pistol nodded curtly and looked at Teddy Phipps. Teddy was standing near the bar, looking as though he might pick up a bottle and hurl it. Noreen had to admire his courage."
"Don't do anything silly," the man with the gun said to Teddy. "Take your hand away from that bottle! What you doing here?"
"Miss Speers is a friend of mine," Teddy said coldly. "You had better let her alone. The police-"
The big man, still holding the struggling Yvonne as though she were a rag doll, laughed harshly. "Get him, Hymie! The cops, he says. Maybe you better teach nancy boy some nice manners."
The man with the gun stared at Teddy and Noreen with eyes as cold and deadly as a snake. "Naw," he said finally. "We ain't getting paid for no extras. Our job is with the frail there. You two get out. Fast!"
Yvonne made a strangling sound behind the big hand clamped over her mouth. Her blue eyes, wild with terror, pleaded with Noreen. She kicked at the man holding her. He put his free hand on one of her breasts and twisted it brutally. Yvonne tried to scream and slumped forward.
The gunman said: "I told you two to get out. So go. I gotta tell you again it's trouble. For you."
Teddy Phipps surrendered. He looked at Noreen. "We'd better go. There's nothing we can do to help her."
"Now you talk like a wise character," said the big man. "Scram. Stay scrammed. Call the cops all you want. We ain't gonna be here that long."
Noreen said, her voice trembling. She tore her eyes away from those of the half fainting Yvonne. "I'll have to get my stuff. M-my bag and purse and-"
"So get them!" The gunman took a step toward her. "I'll go with you just in case you got ideas about the phone." He looked at the big man holding Yvonne. "You can handle Nancy here alone?"
The big man stared at Teddy with contempt. He laughed. "I can handle a dozen like him. Go on, get 'em out of here. I wanna get this job over with." He reached into his pocket and brought an old-fashioned straight razor.
Teddy, his voice shaking with terror, gasped, "By God! What are you going to do to her? You can't-"
With a flick of his wrist the big man brought the glittering steel free of the sheath. He waved it at Teddy. "Shut up or you'll get it too."
He squeezed one of Yvonne's firm breasts again as she writhed and screamed behind his gagging hand. Her knees buckled and she sagged in his grip, her eyes rolled back in her head with only the whites showing.
Noreen was near fainting herself as she got her things from the bedroom. The man with the gun watched her coldly, without speaking. When they got back into the living room the scene was the same. Teddy stood near the bar, his face a frozen mask of rage and horror, and Yvonne still slumped unconscious in the big man's grip.
"Just a little beginning," the big man grinned at his companion. "Sort of a shame, ain't it? These are nice."
"Goddamned fiends!" Teddy lashed at them.
"Shut up and get going," snapped the man with the gun. "Now!"
He pushed them toward the door. "You try to come back, or start any trouble for five minutes, somebody gets killed. You're real smart you'll forget all about this. Better for your health that way."
As the door closed behind them they heard a stilled moan from the living room.
The instant they were in the hallway Teddy grabbed Noreen's hand and raced for the stairs. "Come on, we've got to get to a phone and call the police! I think there's one in the lobby!"
He dragged her down the stairs at a breakneck pace, her high heels tripping her up half a dozen times. As they reached the last flight of stairs she gasped, "I can't get mixed up with the cops! They'll send me back."
"Okay-okay. You go on out and down to the next corner. To the left. 79th Street. I'll be there as soon as I make the call."
There was a phone booth in the lobby. Teddy gave Noreen a little push toward the entrance, then went into the booth. Noreen turned left and walked rapidly to the corner. She was sick and shaking inside at what she had seen. She felt so dizzy that at the corner she had to stop and lean against a building for support. She shivered and closed her eyes for a moment. Goldie had certainly been right about the syndicate! The Tarot cards had been right, too. Poor, poor Yvonne! She was all through as an expensive call girl now.
Maybe Buddy would still love and take care of Yvonne, though. Noreen hoped so.
Her thoughts came back to her own plight. She was homeless again. For the moment, at least. Maybe she could go back, later, but she disliked that idea. There were sure to be cops around now.
She had her overnight case, her purse with about a hundred dollars, and the suit she stood in. Just as she had gotten off the bus. Damn, Noreen thought. Damn-DAMN! There would be no job with Buddy now, either, or any charge account at Bonwit-Tellers. Cops. Cops snooping everywhere. Later, she mused, she might take a chance on contacting Buddy and meeting her someplace. But for right not she was out in the cold again.
Teddy Phipps touched her on the arm. He was livid, his delicate girl's mouth a thin red gash. "Come on, Noreen. We can't do anything more for her. The cops are on die way. Taxi!"
In the cab, headed downtown, he took her hand in his. "You're trembling. I don't blame you. I've got a bad case of the shakes myself. God, that was an awful thing to see! I felt so damned helpless. I was, too. And scared. Jesus, what a poor excuse for a man I am. Man!" He laughed bitterly. "I guess that mine on Pork Chop Hill took away more than I thought. I should have gone after them with a bottle."
Noreen squeezed his hand. "You did everything you could," she comforted. "I thought you were real brave, the way you stood up to them. I was paralyzed."
They rode a little way in silence. The cab was on the West Side Highway now, making for 14th Street and the Village. Noreen was content for the moment to drift along with Teddy. Maybe he could help her find a place to stay.
"Do you think the cops will get them?" she asked.
Teddy shook his head gloomily. "No. I'll bet they were out of there before I got through calling. I didn't see them, but that doesn't mean anything. Probably used a service entrance at the rear. I feel sick. I'm sober again, too. All that booze wasted. Well, I can sure as hell do something about that!"
"I can use a drink myself," the girl admitted. "I'm shaky."
"In a way we were lucky," Teddy said. "Those men must be from out of town. They didn't care if we saw them or not. Lucky for us. They're probably on their way right now to catch a plane back to where they came from."
Chicago, thought Noreen. If they were sent by the syndicate that Goldie told me about. Must be. How close I came to getting mixed up in it. If I'd gone to Chicago with Ed Jeffers!
"Poor little Yvonne," Teddy said sadly. "I wonder what she got mixed up in?"
Noreen decided to keep her own consul. She hardly knew Teddy Phipps. The less he knew about her the better.
He sighed. "One thing-those damned Tarot cards of hers were right for once." He glanced at his wrist. "Can't you hurry it a little, driver. Please."
They were passing the Hudson River piers now. Noreen saw the huge white bow of the Queen Mary shining in the spotlights.
"God, I need a drink," Teddy moaned. "And Christ how I hate to work tonight. But I'd better. They couldn't get a sub this late."
He glanced at Noreen. "I forgot. You've got nowhere to go, have you?"
"No."
"Any money?"
"A little."
"Then you had better come home with me for now. I've got a studio couch you can have. Later, when I calm down enough to think, we'll see what to do about you. Okay?"
She took his hand. "Thanks a lot, Teddy. I was wondering what I was going to do."
His voice dry, he said, "Well, at least you can sleep in peace. You won't have to be afraid of me. Now let's go get that drink. Hurry, driver!"
CHAPTER TEN
The mutilation of Yvonne Speers was a three-day sensation. Things were dull, news-wise, and the tabloids leaped on the story with avidity.
Yvonne was not talking, for which Noreen thanked God. Even in her pain and great mental distress, Yvonne refused to speak from her bed in the hospital. Though not a criminal in the ordinary sense of the word, she was on the fringe and kept faith with the criminal precept that you didn't squeal.
She insisted that she had been alone when two unknown hoodlums burst into her apartment. They had left ..her lying on the floor, screaming, and she had succeeded in staunching the flow of blood with towels. The police, called by some unknown party, had arrived about five minutes after the attackers fled. They were never arrested. There was a great deal of speculation in the press as to the motivation for the crime. Yvonne had no record as a "prossie," as the cops call whores, and Buddy Pressman came up with the theory that the men were dope addicts and maniac thrill seekers.
It was three days after the attack on Yvonne. Noreen and Teddy were sitting in the living room of his small apartment on Charles Street, in Greenwich Village. They had worked out a rather unique relationship, which both understood was temporary. Teddy worked five nights a week at the Sawbuck Club, on Third Street, and bought food and drinks and paid the other expenses. Noreen did the cooking and kept the place clean and tidy. She slept on the studio couch in the living room. She did not go out more than was absolutely necessary. On Teddy's advice she had gone to a hairdresser. Alphone, on Sixth Avenue, and had her hair dyed again. Still black. She got a new hairdo and spent some of her precious money on a couple of outfits from a store, on Union Square.
Teddy taught her a lot about makeup. How to change the contours of her face by the skillful use of eyebrow pencil, mascara, and rouge. She often sat on the bed in his room and watched him make up for his performance. He always dressed at home and, when he left the apartment to grab a taxi, was a lovely woman to all intents and purposes. He often made Noreen giggle by recounting the number of times that sailors had tried to pick him up.
Noreen, fascinated by what she was learning, could hardly blame the sailors. Teddy was an actor, for one thing. Or an actress, as he put it, and when he put on his rubber breasts and his girdle-which he didn't really need-and donned long stockings and high heels, with a form fitting evening gown, he actually would have fooled anyone. He wore a beautiful long curly wig of dark brown human hair, so cunningly fitted to his own head that it seemed a part of him.
"I've always got to watch myself," he quipped, "or I'll be going in the ladies room."
Teddy's pride and joy was the spinet which he had somehow managed to fit into the tiny apartment. He played often for Noreen. His taste ran to the classical, but for her he played a lot of pop stuff. One afternoon, a week after they had met, Noreen joined in and sang as Teddy toyed around with These Foolish Things. She sang it sweet and soft, with no strain or pain, in her natural contralto.
He looked at her in surprise. He was a little drunk again, having been hitting the bottle constantly since that horrible bloody afternoon.
"That's nice natural Irish voice," he said. "Easy, good timbre. I'll bet you could do something with that if you wanted to. You'll need a lot of coaching, though. Maybe a few voice lessons, but I'd say mostly coaching."
Noreen, slim and lovely in her new slacks and candy striped blouse-$9.99-ruffled his close cut hair. She had grown very fond of Teddy in the past week. She was using him, yes, but nonetheless she had a genuine affection for him.
"I want to be a singer," she told him. "More than anything." She told him about her singing in school, and how the teacher had encouraged her. How she used to sing for the kids back in Steel City.
"You've got the voice, honey. You don't have to know a hell of a lot about the technical aspects of music. But you do need training, coaching. Only that takes dough. Lots of dough."
"I ain't-I haven't got any money. You know that!" She was .wailing. She liked Teddy Phipps, and trusted his judgement. He had already helped her so much, with her English and general deportment-the way she spoke and walked and sat-and, as he said, he was trying to make a lady out of her. Well, anyway, a pseudo-lady. Now he thought she had a good voice. Really thought so, or he would not have said so. He had never lied to her.
"You'll have to go to work," Teddy said. "I'd help but I just haven't got it. The whiskey bills keep me broke, as you know. Tell you what I'll do, Noreen. I'll see if I can get you a job at the club. You wouldn't mind waiting tables and posing as a Lesbian?"
"Posing?"
"Yes." Teddy strummed impatiently on the keys. "I told you. I explained the setup at the Sawbuck Club. It's a tourist trap. Supposed to be a Les joint for the yokels to rubber at when they hit the Village. No self-respecting Les would be found dead in it, of course. They have their own camping ground. So Nick, he owns it as I told you also, he has to hire gals to dress butch. In drag, you know, and act like they're real queers so the yokels won't go back to Iowa disappointed. Nick hires a lot of girls from Columbia and NYU. Straight as a string. But they make a few bucks. I think I can get Nick to take you on if you're interested."
"How would I have to dress? I mean I can't afford to buy costumes or anything. Or do they furnish them?"
"No!" Teddy ran off a glissade, his white fingers twinkling. "I told you. You'll work in drag."
Noreen boxed his ears playfully. "You know how dumb I am. What in hell is that?"
"Dress butch. Men's clothes. Slacks, or a regular suit. Shirt, tie, everything just like a man. You're supposed to be a bull Les. You think you could do it? Some of the girls make a pretty good dollar."
"Yes. I think I'll try it. When can I start?"
Teddy said, "Hell, I'll have to fix it with Nick first. I think that part will be okay. But there is one thing-your hair. You'll have to have it cut like a man."
"Oh! No!" Noreen put her hands to her luxurious, shoulder length hair. "I couldn't. Anyway. I just got my new hairdo."
Teddy shrugged his thin shoulders and turned back to the spinet. "Suit yourself. But it's a job. And you might consider that cutting your hair, and dressing like a man, will be a hell of an effective disguise. About the best you can get. The cops won't be looking for a butch!"
Two days later Noreen went to work at the Saw-buck Club. It was housed in a long, low ceilinged, dingy room in a century old brick building on Third Street. The very heart of the Village. Everything about the Sawbuck Club was spurious.
It had only one thing to sell-SEX! Even that was phony. The Lesbian waitresses, as Noreen soon found out, were not really queer at all. Some were college girls, as Teddy had pointed out. Some were regular waitresses who could make more at the Sawbuck than elsewhere. One was an aspiring writer, another a painter, both fending off starvation by working at the club.
Noreen had her hair cut off and now wore it as a man, parted on the left. She spent the last of her money for some men's slacks and shirts, and a cheap suit. Teddy gave her some of his old ties.
"You make a beautiful butch," he told her. He was drinking that first night she went to work. "God, what a menage we have around here! A woman who isn't a woman and a man who isn't a man. Oh, well, here's to us, Noreen." And he downed half a glass of scotch.
The first night she made over twenty dollars in tips. Nick, the owner, showed her the ropes. "Keep the drinks moving," he commanded. "That's all you gotta do. Don't let the saps sit and nurse their glasses. Stay after them. Never serve water unless they ask for it a couple of times. Keep the peanut bowls filled. Peanuts make 'em thirsty. Never encourage any of the suckers to order food."
"They're crazy if they do," Noreen muttered. She had just eaten her dinner at the club, meals being included to partially make up for the pitiful two dollars a night that Nick paid.
"Another thing," Nick added. "Don't try to sell any beer. Never mention it. I gotta charge a buck a bottle for it and sometimes the hicks get mad. Push the hard stuff-that way they think they're getting more for their money."
For entertainment, in addition to Teddy, who was billed as the star attraction, there was a four piece band and a nance comic and MC. The MC told dirty stories and doubled in a couple of sexy blackout skits with Teddy.
Norren, watching Teddy perform that first night, felt a pang of sorrow for him. She knew him well now, and knew how much he hated what he was doing. But where else, as he put it himself, could he make two bills a week?
Teddy played and sang some of the old, nostalgic songs at first, then gradually slipped into the risque numbers. In the soft baby spots he was the sexiest looking "woman" that Noreen had ever seen. A great many of the tourists were fooled until the last minute, when he took his last bow and swept off the wig and bra.
Her fourth night at the club Teddy introduced Noreen to his agent, Mauri King, who had dropped past to pick up his ten percent of Teddy's check.
It was early and the club was nearly empty. The three of them sat a table. "Noreen wants to be a singer," Teddy told the agent after the introductions. "She's got a good natural voice, Mauri. With a little coaching I think she could go places."
"So do a million broads think they can go places."
"But I really can sing, Mr. King! If I could just get a chance. Teddy and I have been working together. He's taught me a lot."
Teddy nodded, his eyes cold with dislike for the agent. Mauri King was vermin, he had confided to Noreen, but necessary vermin.
"She's really got it, Mauri. I wish you would look around for a beginner's spot for her."
"I got a file of would-be canaries a mile long," he sputtered. "Christ, Teddy, you know that! Every dame comes to New York thinks she's the end. I got no time to fool with them all."
Teddy spoke curtly. "You might at least listen to her! As a favor to me!" He glanced around the nearly deserted club. "How about right now? No one much around and Nick won't mind."
The agent gave in, obviously to mollify Teddy who was making money for him. "Oh, all right. Only snap it up, huh? I gotta be uptown in half an hour."
As they went to the small stage at the rear of the room Teddy told Noreen: "He's a real lousy rat, this one, but he might be able to help you get started. No first class agent would take you on-not with your background. You can see that? No reputable agent is going to invest time and money in a girl who might be back in jail tomorrow. So we'll have to string along with this rat. Only never trust him. But we'll worry about all that later. Right now I want you to sing like I know you can. Don't be nervous:"
"I am a little."
"Forget it. Just imagine we're back at the apartment. Sing to me." Teddy, who was dressed for his act, spun the stool and adjusted the flounces of his gown. "Goddamn this dress! It costs me a fortune to keep it pressed!"
After a quavering beginning, because of nerves, Noreen went through These Foolish Tilings very well. She and Teddy had worked hard over the song. As she went into the reprise Teddy whispered. "Swell. You're doing okay. Now give it the old smaltzy ending."
As the song ended there was a spattering of applause from the semi-dark room. A large party had come in just as Noreen began.
"See," Teddy chuckled as he left the piano, "somebody likes you already."
When they got back to the table Mauri King said: "I gotta admit you're right about one thing, Teddy. The voice is there. Needs coaching, though. A lot of work."
Teddy nodded. "We know that. I'll help her all I can. And she'll get the coaching-that's why she's working in this joint, to get money for training."
King stood up, glancing at a huge gold watch on one skinny wrist. "I gotta run. Okay, I tell you what, Teddy. You get her a repertoire-say a couple dozen songs. Get her some decent clothes, teach her how to stand not with her gams apart like a bull moose. Then I'll see what I can do. Okay?"
"Okay. She'll be ready in a couple of months."
The agent shot Noreen a glance of disdain. "Yeah? That I'll have to see. Rut okay, try it. I got nothing to lose but my time. Say-" he looked closer at the girl-"you ain't a real butch? I can't sell no Lesbians."
Noreen found her voice. "Don't let the suit and the haircut fool you, Mr. King. I ai-I'm not queer."
"She just works here," Teddy put in. "And Noreen is a hell of a beautiful girl, Mauri. Wait until you see her dressed like one."
Noreen seized Teddy's hands, her gray eyes huge and shining with unshed tears. "Oh, Teddy! Teddy, you darling! Y-you did it!"
"Cut it out," he grinned. "Remember I'm a lady. You want people to think you're a real butch?"
"I don't care. I'm going to be a singer! A real singer. I've got a chance to be somebody at last. And you did it!"
Nothing could dampen her spirits that night. She floated through the evening on a purple cloud, even forgetting to shortchange the suckers when they got drunk. She had taken the first step toward her heart's desire-no matter how short the step or how tawdry the means. She was on her way.
That night, when Teddy came into the living room very drunk, she was more than glad to submit to him. It was her first experience with him, and it gave her no thrill as he did all he could do to her. But she held his sleek head in her hands and crooned to him softly out of gratitude and pity. She did not even mind that his strange love making left her stranded and unfulfilled. Teddy, on that night at least, could do no wrong.
After he had gone back to his own bed she lay sleepless for hours, gazing into the dark, wondering what marvelous things lay in store for her.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
Three days later fate kicked Noreen squarely in her beautiful little behind. She was alone in the apartment when the phone rang. It was Mauri King, the agent.
"You better get down here right away," he said. "I think maybe I got something for you. And come dressed like a woman, huh? Can you make it in an hour?"
As she dressed hurriedly she felt a few qualms. Teddy did not like or trust Mauri King, and had often warned her against being alone with him. So far she never had. Should she call Teddy, who was rehearsing a new number at the club, and tell him about the agent's call?
Then she decided against it. Mauri King was nothing but a little old man who thought he was a wolf. Skinny, drooling, runny-eyed. Hell, she could handle the likes of him any day.
Noreen wore a new pair of high heels which enhanced her already perfect legs. She brushed on a scarlet mouth in the manner Teddy had taught her, used eye shadow and mascara and was ready. I don't look much like the girl who ran away from Sunny View, she told herself as she preened before the makeup mirror in Teddy's room. Poor dear Teddy. There had been no repetition of the love making between them, if you could call it that. Not that she would have refused him but Teddy had been morose and distant since that night. Noreen knew the trouble. Teddy was half in love with her, and mourning over what might have been.
The agent's office was' on Eighth Avenue, near 49th. It was not a good neighborhood, but Noreen did not know that and wouldn't have cared.
It was after four when she entered the dingy little office. The frosted glass door stood ajar so she walked in. She found herself in an outer office that was hardly more than broom closet size. Through another glass door she heard the slow tick-lock of a typewriter operated by an unfamiliar hand.
Noreen rapped on the glass. "Mr. King?"
The machine stilled. "Come on in," called the agent's voice.
She opened the door. The agent sat behind a battered old desk in his shirt sleeves, staring at a piece of paper in the machine before him.
"I came as quick as I could," Noreen explained.
"Okay. Sit down. I'll be with you in a minute." He pointed to a greasy black leather couch in one corner of the room and went back to his typing.
As Noreen obeyed she felt a slight queasiness. She had expected someone else to be present. Maybe someone who wanted to audition her. Certainly she had assumed that King had a secretary.
Noreen glanced up to see him staring at her legs, his pale blue eyes a little protuberant, the red veins lurking in them like scarlet spider webs. Noreen pulled her dress down over her knees as far as it would go. She felt the uneasiness return. Cod! She hoped this wasn't going to turn out to be another false alarm, and that King wasn't going to chase her around the office.
If he turns out that way, she thought fiercely, I'll paste him with something. So help me I will! She let her glance rest on a heavy glass paperweight on his desk. That would be just the thing.
King was in no hurry to speak. He let his glance rove up her long thighs to her breasts, so large and firm under her thin blouse. "Teddy was right," he said at last. "You're all dame. A looker. How old are you, anyway?"
"Twenty-four," Noreen lied.
"Yeah?" He dabbed at the corner of his moist lips with a dirty handkerchief. "You close the door out there?"
Noreen knew when to be firm. "No, I didn't. And I'm not going to, Mr. King. What did you want with me, anyway? Is it a job?"
He pushed back his chair and stood up. There was something sly about his smile. "You're a hard-boiled little doll, ain't you? But no matter. I'll go close the door myself. We got business to discuss and I don't want to be disturbed."
As he made a move toward the outer office Noreen leaped to her feet. "No you don't! I-I'm not staying here alone with you. If you really got a job for me we can talk about it with the door open. And I warn you, Mr. King, I can scream real loud! I'm strong, too. I'll bet a lot stronger than you!"
No doubt of that, she told herself. King was wearing a soiled, wilted shirt that showed his scrawny neck and pipestem arms. She could handle him easily.
He walked back to the desk and opened a drawer and took something out of it. He ripped the sheet of paper out of the typewriter and handed both the objects to the girl. "Take a look at those, sister, before you do any screaming."
Noreen sank slowly back onto the couch, her stomach convulsing, staring at the pictures in her hand. It was a prison picture of herself, taken that first day in Sunny View. Three views, front, right and left profiles. She was wearing the hated seersucker dress, the white stockings and the cheap Mary-Lou shoes.
"You look a little mad there," King said. He was lounging on the side of the desk, lighting a cigarette. "Don't blame you. But there ain't any doubt about who it is, is there? Not when I see you in real woman's clothes, there ain't. I thought I had you made as soon as I saw the pix, but I wanted to be sure."
Noreen shot him a glance of hatred. "How-where did you get this?"
"Routine." He waved the cigarette in the air. "All agents get 'em. Or most. In New York at least. A girl runs away from a place like that where do the cops figure they'll head? New York, Chicago, some big burg. They figure they can hide better in a big town. And when they got ambitions about the stage, or singing-well, you see how it is. Just routine. Must be five thousand of those over the country. I just happened to pick you out of the crowd, you might say. Lucky for you it wasn't some other agent, huh? A guy who ain't as understanding as me. Now do I close that door? But maybe you better read the letter I was writing first."
Noreen, her fingers trembling, glanced down at the sheet of paper. It was not finished, or signed, but one look was enough. It was addressed to the Chief of Police in Steel City.
"I don't want to send the letter," Mauri King wheezed. "I sure don't want to. But that's up to you. Now do I close the door and we talk?
"Use your head," the agent wheedled, his watery eyes crawling over her body. "What you got to lose, baby? You be nice to me and it's just our little secret. And I meant it about the job-I got you booked into The Lighthouse out on Montauk Point. Fifty a week and your board and room. And the tips are good." He chuckled, a greasy sound. "I'll even run up every now and then and keep you company. What do you say, kid? Ain't it a lot better than being on the run again? I know you got no dough, no friends. What else can you do?"
Noreen glared at him hotly. "Teddy said you were a louse!"
King laughed, a nasty sound. "That little wonder. I got a little score to settle with him, too. The little bastard-trying to ring a con in on me like this. I can get him in plenty of trouble too, believe me, unless you play ball. Aiding a fugitive will be just one of the charges."
"You leave Teddy alone, you filthy bastard." Noreen was on her feet again, her eyes flashing fire. "He's worth a hundred of you!"
King held up a hand. "Okay-okay! Don't get so hot! Nothing is going to happen to Teddy boy if you play ball. Only you ain't staying with him no more, and you ain't going to tell him what happened today."
Noreen still hesitated, but only for a moment. She knew she was beaten.
"You're telling me the truth about the job on wherever it is?"
"Montauk Point. Yeah, sure. It's the McCoy, baby. It ain't classy but a lot of big spenders go there. The guy that owns it, Rocco, just called me this morning. Wants a singer right away-tomorrow night. I told him I had a natural. You, baby. You wanta get started this is your chance. What do you say? Do I close the door-and lock it?"
The girl regarded him with icy gray eyes, her red mouth curled in contempt. "You dirty rat! This the only way you can get it-blackmailing girls?"
He flushed. "Never mind that! Don't get so snotty. I can still mail that letter, you know, or call the city cops."
Noreen decided. She was caught. She might as well do it and get it over with. Probably it would hurt. But that would pass. And once she had done it she would be safe again. King would never dare tell the police after he seduced her.
"Lock the door," she said wearily. "But hurry. And you take it easy. I never done it before."
He stared at her, his loose mouth drooping. A thin strand of milky spittle dangled from his lower hp..
"You-you never did?"
"No! NO! You want a doctor's report?" She was trembling with rage, trying to restrain her flaming Irish temper. She longed to pick up the glass paperweight and smash in his ugly face. After all her struggling, her fight to keep herself intact-now this. In a crummy office with a nasty degenerate like King. But Noreen was a girl who faced facts. She was trapped. So make the best of it. At least she would have a job, and Montauk Point, wherever that was, sounded like a good place to hide.
"If you're lying about the job," she spat on him, "I'll get you. I'll give myself up and say you raped me. That's a promise, Mr. Bastard!"
"The job is there just like I said. King darted into the outer office. She heard the door close and the snick of the lock. Well-here it was.
When he came back she avoided his gaze. She already felt dirty, used and tarnished. But she was still thinking straight. "You got anything? I don't want to get in trouble."
"I got something." The agent reached in his pocket. "Got them this morning. I been counting on this ever since I saw that picture. I figured you would come across."
Noreen took off her suit coat and blouse. The man stood watching, licking his lips. She unzipped her skirt and let it fall to the floor.
"My God," he exclaimed, "you're something! You're really something, kid!"
She turned her back on him and walked-to the couch. "Come on, you filthy sonofabitch. Get it over with. Don't touch me anywhere you don't have to. And don't try to kiss me. I'll throw up right in your face."
CHAPTER TWELVE
She never saw Teddy Phipps again. After the sordid episode in Mauri King's office she went back to the apartment. Teddy had been in and out and had left a note saying he would see her that night at the club.
Noreen stood in the shower for an hour, trying to wash the dirt off her. The actual physical ordeal had not been so bad, because King was only half a man and had been able to do little but grunt over her rigid body. Noreen had closed her eyes and endured it. Better Studsy than this, she told herself, but it had not turned out that way.
She dressed, packed, and left a note for Teddy. She wrote simply that she was going away and would probably not see him again. She thanked him for everything he had done for her. Quite sincerely. Teddy Phipps Was one of the few nice people she had known in her brief life.
King had given her a hundred dollars advance on her salary and a note of introduction to Rocco Blase who owned The Lighthouse. He had also written down directions for getting to Montauk Point.
Noreen took a last look around the little apartment, felt a pang for poor Teddy, then went out into Charles Street and hailed a passing cab.
"Pennsylvania Station, please. Long Island side."
At three the next afternoon, having spent the night in a rooming house in the little village of Montauk, she was trudging along the blacktop road that led to The Lighthouse. Taxis were at a premium in Montauk, and anyway she was determined to save every. dime she could. She was not planning on staying at The Lighthouse very long, if what her landlady had told her was true.
That austere widow lady, with a hatchet face and leathery skin and the look of a Cape Codder about her, had sniffed loudly when Noreen explained why she was in Montauk.
"Nothing but riff-raff goes to the Lighthouse," she said. "None of die locals. Just bums from New York and Brooklyn. Gangsters, I call them. A bunch of no-goods who come up here to fish and get drunk. Drunk, mostly."
She looked at the girl. "Hmmmmm-a pretty girl like you shouldn't go getting yourself mixed up with trash like that! That Rocco Blas' has got a bad name around here."
Now, in the bright afternoon, with the sea a deep blue to her left and the gulls wheeling and mewing over the endless length of sepia beach, Noreen told herself that she must stick it out for awhile, no matter how bad. She had to have money!
The sun grew hotter. The Lighthouse was about three miles out of town, where the beach rumpled itself into enormous dunes. Her reliable and disapproving informant, the landlady, had informed her that the place was in a desolate part of the beach. 'There were no near neighbors.
"Couldn't nobody live near that crew," the old lady said, acidly. "No decent folk would want to!"
When she reached a culvert Noreen stopped for a moment. She dropped the suitcase and sat on the little concrete bridge, watching the gulls fluttering and swooping over the beach. The breeze off the ocean was tinged with salt and she was grateful for the invigorating dampness. She tilled her lungs with a sigh. Ah, that was good. In time perhaps she might get the smell of Mauri King out of her nostrils.
The sound of a car approaching made her look back along the way she had come. It wasn't much of a car, judging from the way the engine was banging and knocking. As it grew nearer there were several loud explosions and gouts of blue smoke hovered around it. Noreen, even in her tired and dispirited mood, couldn't help smiling. It reminded her a little of Waffle's old Chevie, only worse.
To her surprise the wreck stopped as it drew abreast of her. A young man was driving. He was good looking in a skinny kind of way. He poked his head out the window.
"Excuse me, Miss. Would you happen to be Mary Cassidy?"
Noreen nodded. It was the name she and the agent had agreed on.
Now she said, "Yes, I'm Mary Cassidy. What about it?"
The young man's smile vanished. "No need to get huffy about it, Miss Cassidy. I'm only trying to do you a favor. I'm Hank Butler. I work at the Lighthouse too. Rocco sent me in to meet you at the train, but I got balled up somehow. How did you get way out here?"
Noreen still eyed him with suspicion. "I walked, that's how. I came up last night on the last train from New York."
"Oh, I see." He reached to push the car door open for her. "Hop in, then. I guess we all got our wires crossed. Rocco just got the telegram this morning saying you were coming."
Noreen decided that he looked okay. He was skinny, with narrow shoulders under the plain white shirt with no tie. His face was deeply tanned, but she thought he looked sick just the same. A small spot of color burned in each of his lean cheeks. His hair was thick and dark as her own, brushed back away from a high forehead.
"Well? You think you can trust me to get you safely to the Lighthouse, Miss Cassidy?" His eyes, alive and snapping back, were amused.
"I'm sorry." She lifted her suitcase into the back of the old car. "It's just that I don't like to take rides from strangers." She got in beside him and pulled her skirt down.
"Don't blame you. But we won't be strangers long. You arc the singer, aren't you?"
Noreen nodded, thinking of the half dozen or so numbers she had learned with Teddy before the roof fell on her. "Yes. What kind of place is this Lighthouse?"
Hank Butler gave her a quick glance of surprise.
"You mean you don't know! You came out here cold, without knowing what it's like?"
"I said so, didn't I. My agent didn't have time to tell me much."
"Okay-okay. Get the chip off your shoulder, for Pete's sake. It's just that, well, Rocco's joint is pretty bad. Even for a joint. And the entertainers we get are usually the same-usually they're beatup old has-beens. Or never was's." He shot her another look. "Sure can't say that about you, Miss Cassidy. You-well, Rocco is going to flip when he sees you!"
Noreen was liking him by now. She wondered how old he was-surely not more than twenty-five or so. And why did he give such an impression of illness?
"I just hope he flips over the way I sing," she said.
Hank Butler was driving as fast as the old bus would go. Around thirty. "You needn't worry much about that! Not with your looks. Anyway that's what I meant when I asked you if you knew about the setup here. Rocco isn't so much interested in how his singers sing as in how they treat the guests." He snorted. "Guests! Well, I suppose you can call them that. They pay their bills. But they're a pretty rough lot."
Noreen felt her heart sink. What had she gotten into this time?
"What do you mean?" she asked. "And how come you know so much about it? What do you do at the Lighthouse?"
"Wait a minute." He swung the old car into a narrow sandy lane leading to the beach. A moment later they passed a faded wooden signboard that read: The Lighthouse-Food-Drinks-Dancing-Entertainment.
Hank Butler eased the junker to a stop. Noreen looked at him in momentary alarm. Surely her luck couldn't be this bad-
"Relax," he told her as he correctly read the expression on her face. "I'm not going to make a pass at you. But I think we should have a little talk before I take you any farther."
"Talk about what?"
"You. And this job and the Lighthouse. I've got an idea that you haven't the faintest idea what you're getting into. You're a very beautiful young girl, Mary, that's obvious. And that's the key word-young. I wonder if you know the score?"
"Tell me, then," she commanded. "What's this all about?" She fumbled in her purse for a pack of cigarettes. When she offered him one he refused. "No. Can't. Doctor's orders."
He waited until she lit up before he continued.
"Rocco Blase is an old Brooklyn hoodlum. The stories are that he was a small cog in Murder, Inc. I wouldn't know about that. From the type of patrons we get I'd say that it's probably true. You see, Mary, the boys come up from the big town to cool off and relax. Some of them bring women with them, some don't. But there's always a lot of drinking and hell-raising. Sometimes it gets pretty tough."
Noreen smoked and watched him with a little quirk around her red mouth. She was worried by this turn of events but she had no intention of letting him see it.
"And you think this is no place for an innocent little Irish girl like me? Is that it?"
He did not smile. "I didn't say that. I don't know anything about you. Maybe you know exactly what you're doing. Then maybe you don't! You want to take some free advice from' a guy you just met?"
"What?"
"Let me turn this heap around and drive you back to Montauk. Take the next train back to town. I'll give Rocco a story that you never showed up."
"That bad?"
Hank nodded, his lean face serious. "That bad. Well?"
She shook her head. "No. Thanks for the advice, Hank, but I can't go back now. I need this job.
Don't worry about me. I can take care of myself." Yeah, she thought bitterly. Like with Mauri King I can.
Hut this was different. Rocco would have nothing on her. Unless King told him, of course. A chill traced down her spine at the thought. But that was a bridge to cross when she came to it.
Hank started the car again. "Okay. I tried. Now about your routines? I hope you don't run to anything fancy. I'm probably the world's worst pianist."
She stared at him with new interest. "You? You play the piano here?"
He flashed his perfect teeth at her, shining in his dark face. "I'm the piano here. The orchestra, too. What did you expect? A symphony?"
"I-I told you I didn't know what to expect."
"So you did. Well, I'm the music department. A real sour piano, but I'll do my best for you. I'm really a composer, you see. Trying to be anyway. And most composers are lousy musicians." There was an edge to his laughter. "If that's any criterion I should be a great composer someday."
"Do you live at the club too?"
"No. I've got a shack, a hovel, a little way down the beach. Some rich fisherman built it a few years ago and then got tired of fishing. I get it for free. I take my meals at the Lighthouse. And speaking of that eminent night spot, there it is. Now do you still want to stay?"
The Lighthouse was a large sprawling two-story frame building. It gave the impression of having been built a little at a time. On the roof, supported by guy wires, was a wooden mockup of a lighthouse. Behind the place was a fenced in parking lot.
The whole layout spoke of neglect and decay. The building badly needed a coat of paint.
"Not much to look at, is it?" Hank was letting the old Ford idle along, barely moving. "Still not too late, Mary. We can still go back."
Hank Butler carried her bag into the building. It was cool and dark inside and she heard the gentle whir of a large airconditioning unit. A not unpleasant smell of food and beer and tobacco permeated the place.
She followed Hank down three wide stairs, past a checkroom and into a long wide room filled with tables and chairs. Along one side was a long bar. A juke box glowed silently in a corner. At the rear of the room was a tiny stage with a grand.
Hank jerked his head toward the piano. "Our spot. I play, you sing, nobody listens." He put her bag down near the bar. "Stay here a minute and I'll find Rocco. He's probably back in the kitchen." He disappeared through a swinging door to the left of the stage.
She regarded the back bar, shiny with bottles and glasses. Someone had left a shot glass on the bar near her and she picked it up. Full measure. At least this Rocco Blase didn't run a gyp joint like Nick's Sawbuck Club. Probably afraid to, she thought with amusement. Some of the customers might shoot him.
Hank Butler came back with Rocco Blase. Hank's manner had changed now. He was stiff, almost formal. He introduced them and picked up Noreen's suitcase. "I'll take this up, Rocco. Same room?"
"Yeah, Hank. You know. End room."
Rocco Blase was the fattest man Noreen had ever seen. He must weigh 500 pounds, she thought. His head, with thick gray hair, perched on his body like a grape on a pumpkin. His voice, issuing from that huge body, was absurdly high and thin.
"Come sit down," he commanded. He waddled over to a table near the stairs leading up to the foyer. The girl noticed that his chair was specially built for him. He sank into it with a grunt, looking and sounding like an elephant that has had a hard day. His little eyes peered at her through rolls of flesh.
"For once I gotta admit that bum King told the truth. You're a real looker, Mary. Okay I call you Mary, huh? Everybody good friends around Rocco's joint. No formality."
"Of course, Mr. Blase."
"Mr. Blase? What I just tell you? No formality. You call me Rocco, okay?"
Noreen smiled at him. "Okay."
His little head wagged. "Okay. I think you'll do all right. You sing good? That bum agent says you got a voice like an angel." Rocco laughed. "That bum? He wouldn't know an angel if he sees one. But I guess you can sing good enough for my joint. You and Hank work all that out. I don't care so long as you keep the creeps happy. King tell you about your other job?"
"No. I thought I was hired as a singer."
"Sure. Of course. But also you gotta sell cigars and cigarettes, like that. Stand up."
Wondering, the girl stood up. Rocco's beady little eyes ran up and down her figure. "Pull up the skirt so I can see the gams."
Noreen listed her skirt above her knees. He leaned forward with a grunt. "Higher. Come on. Say like I'm a customer maybe. I gotta right to look."
She hoisted her skirt to her stocking tops.
Rocco leaned back with a satisfied look. "Okay. Fine. You got 'em, Mary. Too good for my creeps. You should maybe be in a chorus line someplace in the big time. Maybe, you work out here, Rocco fix that, huh?"
"Thank you, Mr.-Rocco. I'll try my best. I want to make good."
She was glad to see Hank Butler again. Rocco seemed harmless enough, but something about his eyes made her nervous. But she told herself that it was nothing. Just a nervous hangover from her experience with the agent.
Hank showed her to her room, pointed out the shower, and said he would meet her downstairs so they could work out a routine for the evening. Noreen bathed, changed into slacks and a halter and went down. She was starving but made no mention of it as she worked with Hank.
Hank had been right about his piano playing. He was terrible. Even Noreen, with her brief experience, could tell that. Compared to Teddy Phipps he was little better than an amateur. Yet she found herself more and more attached to him as they worked. She began to think him handsome, with his thin, flushed features glowing as though she had a perpetual fever. He was kind to her, and in a very short time they managed to work out a routine of a dozen songs, old and new, that Hank thought would satisfy the patrons.
That first night went off easier than Noreen had expected. She put on her costume, a pair of brief spangled pants, a tiny bra, black net stockings rolled high on her thighs and high heels. In this outfit she circulated among the tables peddling cigars and cigarettes. By midnight the tender flesh of her thighs, between the stockings and pants, was black and blue from the pinches but she did not really mind.
When she told Hank about it he merely gave her a little smile and said, "I told you. You've got to expect that. If that's the worst that happens you'll be lucky. Now why don't you take a break while I give them some of the oldies. This bunch likes to sing."
Noreen began to see that singing was going to be the least part of her duties. Hank knew his audience and, if he played badly, they did not know or care. Most of the men, Noreen had noticed, were middle aged. Some were quite elderly. They dressed well, if flashily, and the predominant accent was that of Brooklyn "and New York. Large bills were tossed around with abandon, though none had yet come her way. Most of them were in some form of the rackets, Hank said, and this was their playground-one of them, at least.
The women were younger looking. Floosie types, the girl thought. For a moment she remembered Mrs. Poindexter, back at Sunny View, with her beautiful face and manners, her poise and air of breeding. Noreen shook the thought away. Maybe she could never be like that, but on the other hand she didn't have to be like these women either.
The place was still half full at three o'clock, when Rocco told Hank and the girl to knock off. By then she had made sixty dollars in tips. One man had given her a twenty dollar bill for a cigar.
This partially compensated for the fact that nobody had paid any attention to her singing. Most of the time she could hardly hear herself against the uproar in the place. The men watched her, though, their eyes approving her slim legs in the black net hose and lingering on her exposed bosom. Some of the women were hostile.
Rocco, however, was well pleased. "You gonna do okay," he told her. "Just what I want in this joint. You sing okay, too, even if I can't hear you." He placed a fat hand on her bare shoulder. "You go to bed now, okay? Goodnight, Hank."
Hank said goodnight and left. Noreen went to her room and locked the door. Later, just as she was about to fall asleep, she heard the waddling shuffle of Rocco in the hall. He stopped before her door and she could hear him wheezing. She watched, in the bright moonlight, as the doorknob moved several times. Then he shuffled away.
Noreen sighed. She was too beat to really worry at the moment. She could handle this too, she supposed. So much had happened to her in such a short time. Things just kept getting tougher. Well, you had to face it. You didn't quit.
Hank's face drifted before her as she went to sleep. He was nice. Sick, too. One of the bartenders had told her that Hank had the bug. TB. Wouldn't go to a hospital until he finished his symphony or concerto, or whatever he was writing.
Noreen wondered how it would be to fall in love with Hank Butler? To be loved by him? Really loved, cared for, protected for once in her life! Could it happen?
And she could take care of him, too. Nurse him back to health. Cherish him forever.
She knew she was dreaming like a silly girl, imagining impossible things, but she didn't care. There were times when you just had to let your guard down.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
The next three weeks were the happiest of Noreen's life. She and Hank Butler went about the business of falling in love without speaking of it, or even being conscious of what was happening. When they were not working together on the routines, or he was not composing, they swam and lolled on the beach which they had all to themselves.
Hank never touched her or attempted to make love to her. He had taken to long silences and sometimes he would look at her with his dark eyes full of shadows and his thin face inscrutable.
He had told her about his TB the first week. They were on the beach, drying in the sun after just coming out of the surf.
"This sun is good for me," he admitted. "Keeps me going. I've got the bug, Mary. Or did you know?"
She admitted that she knew.
He smiled wryly. "It's no secret, I guess. Does it show much?"
Noreen was idly piling sand over his legs. "You're way too skinny," she told him severely. "And you cough too much and look like you have a fever all the time. Oh, Hank, why do you wait! Why don't you go in the hospital before it's too late!"
"In the fall," he said stubbornly. "I know what I'm doing. I talked to the doc the other day. He says I'm in an arrested stage. Anyway I've got to finish my concerto first. I'm really getting along with it now. It's good, Mary. I know it's good. Maybe this is the one I get published and performed. Then I'll be on my way. A success. Somebody. Because of something I did all by myself. Then, after that, I'll turn myself into the VA and get cured. It will be okay. You'll see."
"I hope so," she told him softly. Suddenly she wanted to take him in her arms and hold him. Nothing more. Just hold him.
Noreen could understand this man. She who wanted so much to be somebody.
It was Rocco Blase who brought matters to a head. The fat man had undergone a subtle change in his attitude toward Noreen. He seemed to be always around, and several times when the customers had been too obnoxious Rocco had thrown them out bodily. He was immensely strong and when he got his bulk behind a man and pushed the man went.
One afternoon, at the beginning of her fourth week at the Lighthouse, he sent for Noreen. She went to the tiny office on the second floor. Noreen was carrying her swim suit and a towel, dressed in the scantiest of sun suits because she was meeting Hank later for a swim.
Rocco was wedged in behind his desk, his vast buttocks overflowing the chair. His silk sport shirt could have been used for a circus tent and through the thin material the girl could see his great wobbly breasts, like those of a plump woman.
"Sit down." Rocco pointed to a chair before his desk. His little eyes roved over Noreen's bare legs. She sank into the chair, tugging down the shorts as best she could. She was uneasily aware that her firm breasts were almost bursting out of the wispy bra. She had become so at ease with Hank, who never appeared to notice what she wore, that she had grown careless. Now Rocco's eyes were devouring her.
Rocco leaned forward with a grunt. "You like it here, Mary, huh?"
"Oh, yes, Rocco! I'll be sorry when we close up for the winter."
He grunted again. "Yeah. You're a good girl, Mary. Beautiful girl. Customers like you, too." He gave her a sly grin. "They not bother you so much now that Rocco looks out for you, huh?"
Noreen, wondering where all this was leading, said that there had been a marked decrease in the pinching and buttock feeling.
Rocco nodded and half closed his small eyes. He hesitated for a moment, then said, "How you like to marry Rocco? I'll take good care of you. Rocco is a very rich man?"
It came so suddenly that Noreen did not have time to think, to handle it properly. It was too much of a shock out of the blue. She burst into laughter. "Marry you, Rocco! Oh, don't be silly!"
Instantly she knew she had made a mistake. Something changed in Rocco's eyes. For a moment Noreen got the impression of looking at an enormous toad with cold, merciless eyes.
Rocco's high squeaky voice changed, too. No longer was it merely ludicrous in a man of his bulk. Now it held a soft undernote of menace. "You laugh at Rocco, huh? You think I'm too fat, too old and ugly for a beautiful dame like you?"
Desperately she tried to retrieve her error, knowing in her heart that it was useless. Who would have thought that this grotesque fat man had so much vanity?
"I wasn't laughing," she stammered. "Really I wasn't, Rocco. It's just that, well, you took me so much by surprise! I never thought-I never dreamed that you felt that way. I-I just didn't know what to say at first. I still don't. Gosh, Rocco, why would you want to marry me?" She let her words trail off, feeling futile and foolish and, for the first time now in weeks, frightened again.
Rocco's voice was soft. "Maybe you're in love with that piano player, huh?"
Her face gave her away. Before she could deny it he said, "So that's it, huh? Rocco is right. You love Hank. But you make a mistake, Mary. Hank is a bum. Also a sick man. He thinks he can write music, huh? Maybe. Maybe not. If he does he's still a bum. Who starves more than musicians? You make a big mistake, Mary, if you pass up Rocco for that bum. I gotta half million bucks salted away. You marry me you get it all when I die."
Maternal instinct, always close beneath her hard exterior, made her fly to Hank's defense. "You leave Hank out of this," she flared. "What if I do love him? That's my business! Hank is a sick man now, but he'll get well. And he'll write good music, too. You see if he don't!"
"If he stays alive," Rocco said. It was just a statement, with no particular inflection on the words, yet panic gripped Noreen. For once in her life she was thinking of someone other than herself.
Her smoky gray eyes, more striking than ever in her tanned face, stared at the fat man. "Y-you wouldn't hurt Hank!"
Rocco lifted one hand from the desk in a gesture of deprecation. "Hurt him? Naw. This ain't old times, huh? Everything legit now. Even bump-offs. Naw. I meant maybe he dies of the bug, Mary. Then maybe you wish you had listened to old Rocco, huh?"
Noreen stood up abruptly. Her legs were trembling. She had to get out of there before she said something that would make matters worse. "I got to go, Rocco. Thanks for-for asking me to marry you. But I can't. I hope you ain-aren't sore? But it wouldn't work. It really wouldn't. Rocco. I'm sorry."
Rocco smiled gently, the movement almost hidden in his flabby face. He pointed a pudgy finger at the chair. "Sit down, Mary. Rocco is not through yet."
She sank into the chair again, her heart thumping.
"Like in the song," Rocco said. "Rocco gets what Rocco wants. Rocco wants you, Mary. Maybe Rocco gets you, maybe he don't. But one thing for sure-no bum piano player gets what Rocco wants."
Noreen stifled a hot retort. She remembered what Hank had told her about this fat man-that he had once been associated with Murder, Inc. She was too young to know anything about that, but the very name was enough to chill her blood. Noreen forced herself to be calm. She must wangle a way out of this somehow. Nothing must happen to Hank.
Rocco was looking at a paper he had just taken from his desk. "You think you fool old Rocco, huh? Hah! You're a baby, Noreen. A beautiful baby. Rocco's baby."
She looked at him, stunned. Noreen?
"Noreen Casey," Rocco went on calmly. "Wanted back in Illinois. Broke out of a girl's stir. Slugged a matron. You was in for a two bit job-breaking in a cheap tavern." He let the paper flutter to the desk. "Yeah, some kid."
Noreen looked him in the eye. "All right. So what?"
Rocco clasped his fat hands. "So maybe nothing. I'm a squealer? I just don't want you, a baby, to think old Rocco was born yesterday. A real doll like you come to a place like this there is a reason, huh? Fur sure you 'ain't no professional canary. So Rocco sends a couple boys to talk to that bum agent. He talks in one minute. So Rocco knows for a long time about you."
It explained why Mauri King had never carried out his sly threat to visit her at the Lighthouse.
By now her nerve was back. Noreen tried to lean back in the chair, to appear relaxed. "So what are you going to do about it, Rocco? What do you want me to do?"
His voice took on a warmer note. "Okay. Now maybe you're getting wise, huh? Maybe we get along yet. Now you listen to Rocco."
Noreen smiled weakly. He's cunning, she thought. I mustn't overdo it. But he's a man after all. A horrible fat slug of a man, but still a man. I should be able to handle him if I go about it right.
"It looks like you win, Rocco." She slumped in the chair, the picture of dejection, letting the shorts ride up as they pleased. Let him look her over all he pleased. It might help. Noreen knew that she was going to need every inch, every point of advantage, she could gain.
"I gotta gang coming up here tonight," Rocco said. "All men. This is strictly business. Maybe you and the bum play a little, sing a little, but not much. We got important yakking to do. The gang will be here two or three days. Until this is over we do nothing. You act like normal with Hank, huh? Tell him nothin'. Only stay away from him, you understand, except maybe for playing, huh? Rocco don't like damaged stuff, huh? I think maybe you ain't been around too much, huh?"
Even then, with her heart sick with fear for Hank, Noreen could not resist the opportunity to revenge herself on Mauri King. She had an idea that Rocco meant what he said-he did not like damaged goods. And already he thought he owned her.
"I was a virgin until I met Mauri King," she said solemnly. "Honest, Rocco. He made me do it-in his office. He was going to turn me over to the cops if I didn't."
The fat man studied her. "You telling me the truth, baby. Don't never lie to Rocco." I swear it.
The sharks moved again in Rocco's small eyes. "Okay. I believe it. But no hurry. Rocco will take care of him. Now like I said I'll be busy as hell for two, three days. Then we go down to Brooklyn, get married, huh? I gotta nice place in Brooklyn. Out in Seagate. Big place. Ten rooms. Rocco will get you a mink for a wedding present. Also a check for five Gs you spend anyhow you want. Clothes, anything, huh?"
Noreen stood up again. "All right, Rocco. I won't tell you I want to do this. Maybe I don't. Maybe I even love Hank, like you say. But I have to look after myself, I know that. I like money like any girl. So I know when I'm beat. I don't want to go back to that reform school. So I'll do what you want. Only you got to promise to leave Hank alone! You hurt him and the whole thing is off." It was as close to a threat as she dared make, but if her thinking about Rocco was correct he would respect her for it. She must sell him a bill of goods. She must convince him that she was a great deal like himself.
Rocco pulled himself up, grunting. "Okay. A deal.
You stay away from Hank until this business is over. Sing, yes, but that's all. When you leave he can stay-maybe even I'll raise his salary."
"Thanks, Rocco. I will." She added, quite truthfully. "There has never been anything between us, honest."
"This I know." Rocco laughed his high pitched note. "I got eyes. Also I got a pair expensive field glasses and a roof. You keep it that way and Hank will be okay. You don't maybe he has an accident."
At the look on her face he continued. "Nothing fatal, huh? Just maybe a couple broke arms, legs, skull fracture. Be out of the hospital in a year maybe, huh? S'long, baby. See you later. No monkey business."
"No monkey business, Rocco." She posed for a moment by the door, letting his eyes sweep over her. She adjusted her tiny halter, nearly letting one creamy breast escape. "I'm going to be as expensive as hell, Rocco. I won't kid. Long as you're buying me you have to pay. Plenty."
There was a fool hidden somewhere in that fat carcass.
Rocco said: "I got it to pay with, baby. We talk the same language, huh? Rocco ain't never been wrong about a dame yet. Now beat it. I got work."
Noreen went back to her room. Hank would be waiting for her on the beach but that couldn't be helped. She sat on the bed a long time, deep in thought.
Finally she went to the window and looked out. It was a sheer drop of nearly twenty feet to the ground. That wouldn't have been so bad, because of the sand, but just below the window was a pile of old beer cases. Noreen cursed softly. Damn the beer cases. They were as effective as a fence. No way to avoid them. She would break a leg, or cut herself to bits.
She looked up. A gutter was just out of reach. But maybe if she stood on the ledge and reached out and up!
Noreen took a quick look around outside. No one was about. She climbed on the ledge and, reaching, tested the tin gutter. It squeaked and groaned at the pull, but held firm. Of course with her whole weight on it-well, that would have to be risked. Once on the roof she could cross the peak and drop on the sand on the far side of die building where it sloped close to the ground.
Now to warn Hank.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
She changed into her cigarette girl's costume, ate her dinner in the kitchen, and got into the main room around nine. She had not seen Hank. While eating in the kitchen she listened to the idle gossip of the cook and his assistant and the single-bus boy. Food, as at Nicks in the Village, was not of prime importance at the Lighthouse, though the shore dinners were good. The chef was from New York, all the other help was local. None of them had ever paid much attention to Noreen, except for covert looks at her body. Rocco, she thought, had undoubtedly taught them the virtues of minding their own business.
The chef, his tall white hat askew, a cigarette dripping from his mouth, was complaining about the orders. "Thirty dinners," he lamented. "All got to be first class, Rocco says. Important people tonight. And me with no help."
The assistant bristled. "What ya mean? No help? Ya got me, ain't ya?"
The chef, who Noreen suspected was a good friend of Rocco's from the old days, laughed. "You okay, Pete. Only you ain't no cook. Let's face it. As a cook you wouldn't make a good pimple on my nose. But never mind. I still got to get the dinners out."
The assistant grumbled a moment, then asked. "What's so important tonight? We gotta break our backs? Ike is coming to dinner maybe?"
"Important people,"-the chef said. He glanced swiftly at Noreen, who feigned lack of interest.
"Big shots," continued the chef. "The biggest. One reason I want the dinners should be good. Lotsa my old friends here tonight. People I knew from way back, when I was cooking in classy joints."
As Noreen prepared her cigarette tray for the first round she was thoughtful. Hank had not yet put in an appearance, even though the place was beginning to fill up. A glance through the window showed her that the parking lot was crowded with Caddies and Lincolns and Chryslers. There were Jags and even one Rolls.
The owners of the cars were different from the usual crowd at the Lighthouse. Young, middle aged, older, they all dressed well and conservatively. They might have been any group of successful business men at a convention. They separated into little groups and there was not much table hopping. The hum of conversation was low and discreet. Rocco was everywhere, seating people, calling greetings, shaking hands. He did not so much as glance at Noreen.
The girl saw one jarring note. A set of six tables, back in the shadows and away from the stage, had been reserved. She watched as these tables were gradually filled by a crowd of hard looking young men. They were different from the rest of the patrons. They dressed too flashily and their clothes bulged here and there. Though they were grouped together they did not have much to say to each other, and Noreen noticed that they broke up into cliques, each to a table.
She was watching them when Hank touched her arm. "The guard of honor."
She turned to him. "What?" He was wearing his only good suit tonight, with a white shirt and blue tie. Against the starched white collar his face was pitifully thin.
"The guns," he explained. "Some of them need a good tailor. They come to this meeting, but none of them trust the others."
Noreen turned to look at die tables again. "Oh! You mean they're bodyguards?"
"What else! Every big time hood in the East is here tonight. Must be important. You ever hear of the Mafia?"
"No. Should I?" She glanced around for a sign of Rocco. It wouldn't do to be seen talking to Hank like this. And yet if this meeting was so important it might be a blessing. She and Hank could run for it.
"Skip the Mafia," Hank was saying. "Not important. Where were you, this afternoon? I waited for two hours."
Noreen saw Rocco ushering a new party down the steps of the foyer. "Don't ask questions," she whispered to Hank. "Just listen. This is life or death, Hank. We've got to get out of here, both of us. I-"
His dark eyes widened. "What in hell are you talking about?"
"Please, darling! Believe me! Trust me! Just go through our routines as usual, then go home. Meet me on the beach about three o'clock at the cove. I'll get there some how. Don't try to be alone with me, or even talk to me, before then. Okay?"
"Okay. But one thing-did you mean what you said just now?"
"Mean what?" Rocco was looking their way. "Darling?"
Noreen smiled at him. "I meant it. I never meant anything in my life like I meant that. I love you, Hank."
"Thank God you said it," he muttered. "I haven't been able to get up the nerve."
"This morning on the beach. Three. I love you! Now go and don't look at me the rest of the night."
Hank went to the piano and began to play softly. Noreen slipped the strap of the tray around her neck and began her rounds.
As the evening wore away she was conscious of Rocco's eyes on her. He always seemed to be watching. Noreen sang her few numbers-Rocco had ordered that they be only a few-without trying to talk to Hank. She hardly looked at him. Only during the final number did he speak. Then, during her last reprise, he muttered: "Is it Rocco?"
She was catching breath at the end of a long note. "Yes. Don't talk to me. At three."
"Okay. But if that fat bastard tries anything with you I'll kill him."
Just before two Rocco cornered Noreen. "You quit now, huh? I want the joint quieted down. Go to your room and stay there."
"What else would I do? Fly out the window?"
Rocco smiled in his fat face. "You might. Only I don't think so. I tell you Rocco wasn't born day before yesterday. You try to drop out that window you'll break your pretty neck, also cut those gorgeous gams to pieces. All the bottles in those cases now have the necks broken off. An old gag in the good days. I used to fight with a broken bottle. And I'll have a guard outside your door all night. To protect you, huh, in case the boys get ideas?"
Noreen forced herself to smile. She patted his cheek. "You sure trust me, don't you?"
"Rocco trusts nobody. Not even Rocco. If I'm fooling with jail bait I ain't fooling, if you get what I mean, huh?"
As she was heading for the stairs Rocco called softly: "You give that bum his walking papers?"
Noreen turned. "Yes. I told Hank I couldn't see him again. You satisfied?"
"Maybe. Goodnight. See you tomorrow."
In her room Noreen waited half an hour after changing into slacks, a blouse, and sandals. She made all the proper going to bed sounds. Rocco had kept his word. She heard the man come down the corridor, try her door, and draw up a chair. From time to time he coughed or scratched a match on the wall.
Finally she eased the window open as far as it would go. There was no screen. She leaned out and looked down at the pile of beer cases. Rocco had told the truth. The cases had been rearranged and now moonlight glinted on row after row of broken beer bottles. For a moment her heart failed her. If she lost her grip, or the gutter broke, she would be ripped to shreds. Probably kill her. A fall of twenty feet on those jagged glass daggers would impale her in a dozen places.
Noreen stared down for a long time, feeling the cold sweat collect. God! She didn't want to die like that!
Noreen lifted herself to the window ledge, careful not to make a sound. There had been no sound from the guard for a long time. Probably dozing.
She balanced precariously on the ledge and reached out and upward to grasp the guttering. It creaked ominously and she stopped, her heart leaping wildly as she listened. Had the man outside her door heard?
After a moment she exerted new pressure on the guttering. It complained but it held. Noreen glanced down, saw the light reflected from the bottles, and looked hastily away. She mustn't think of that.
She took a deep breath. Sweat congealed on her.
I'm scared, she told herself, scared to death! Only I got to do it! Get out of here, tell Hank, make him take me away. Tonight!
She took a final, gradual breath and easily, so easily, swung her full weight out on the guttering.
Fast, she told herself. Fast! Don't think. Just do it!
The guttering sagged, groaned, began slowly to pull away from its anchoring. Noreen, using every ounce of strength in her long and beautiful muscles, the heritage of swimming and tennis and of natural good health, lifted herself up. UP!
She reached and found a purchase on the roof. It was not steep. Her fingers encountered a wooden cleat, left by someone who had repaired the. roof long ago. That was the difference. Noreen blessed the man who had left the cleat as she tugged and rolled her body onto the edge of the roof. The guttering she had just left was sagging like spaghetti.
Ten minutes later she reached the little cove where she and Hank swam. He was waiting for her, sitting on a blanket in a small cave they had hollowed out of a dune. In the ghostly moonlight his tan was pallid, and his skin was drum tight on his skull. As she ran toward him her heart said: I've got to help him. He's .sicker than he thinks! But I'll take care ol him. He's mine now. Now and for always!
Hank said not a word. He drew her gently down on the blanket beside him and they kissed for the first time. It was a long kiss, the first such kiss that Noreen had ever known. Their mouths met and mingled and his breath was hot in her nostrils. She held him gently and stroked his dark hair and did not care that she could hardly breathe.
Finally he let her go. He rolled away on the blanket and said, "Now you've got the bug too. I guess you know that?"
"I don't care. I love you. And anyway I'm as strong as an ox and I never get sick. And if you're sick I want to be too."
"You're nuts!" He pulled her to him again. "So am I. Tonight I don't give a damn about anything. I've got a couple of bottles of champagne cooling down in the sand. I thought we would have a picnic to celebrate finding each other. If that sounds juvenile and corny then it is. I am. I've been crazy about you ever since that first day! You're all I've ever dreamed about, Mary."
She pushed him gently back on the blanket. "I know. Maybe it was that way with me too. Only there's no time right now, honey. We're in trouble. No! Keep quiet and listen! Please, darling, we haven't got much time. In the first place my name isn't Mary Cassidy...."
Swiftly she told him the story. All of it.
When she had finished he took her hand and rubbed it against his bony cheek. "I knew there was something. Okay, what do we do now?"
"Later," Noreen told him. "Later, darling. Now take me. Do everything to me! We might not get another chance. No. Don't talk. I don't want to hear a word out of you except that you love me!"
If I never have anything else, she thought fiercely, I'm going to have this tonight!
"You better know," Hank-whispered into my ear. "I'm insatiable. It's a symptom of my disease. People like me can never get enough!"
"I can never get enough of you," she whispered back. "Now will you shut up and make love to me!"
So it was, with the stars and moon bright, and the surf breaking soft and creamy on the sand, and the sleepy gulls talking to themselves, that Noreen came at last to grips with the real thing. Here was no furtive love making, no half-ashamed and shy groping. Hank was a man in the truest sense of the word. Tender at times, nearly brutal at others.
He undressed her slowly and with relish. When she was naked on the blanket, her eyes closed, her mind so much warm mush from his caresses, he kissed each inch of her superb body. His lips moved over each firm up-right breast, until she was nearly mad with delight and close to fainting. When he kissed her she felt as though death was imminent. But such a death!
By now she was incoherent. She could hardly breathe and could emit no sounds other than sighs and groans and long shattered cries. Noreen was unashamed. She didn't care who heard her. She screamed softly and clutched him to her and begged him to make her scream again.
She knew the end was not yet. There could never be an end! Not to this ecstasy!
When at long last, after a long time, when she lay supine and defenseless-like all women should be and want to be-he made love to her.
She exploded! This made everything that had gone before like the play of children. Noreen wrapped him tightly in the soft enclosure of her arms, penned him, imprisoned him, sought to draw him to her.
At last the agony was so terrible and beautiful and hurting that she could not bear it. She screamed again and flung him away from her. They both lay for a long time on the blanket, sobbing and gasping for breath.
So deep and delicious was her languor that she forgot the menace hanging over them. Forgot or did not care. This was her first real fulfillment, she had become a woman, and nothing else mattered at the moment. It was Hank who had to take over.
After a few minutes, when his own breathing was under control, he said: "I love you. I'm never going to lose you. Now we have to start thinking! Rocco is mean. Art old time gangster with no more scruples than a weasel. I don't think I'm a coward, honey, but I'm afraid of Rocco and his sort. For both of us. I think we had better run for it."
Noreen rolled over on the blanket and sighed. Her eyes were half closed, misty with satisfied desire and the urge to sleep. "I suppose so, darling. Oh-I never want to move again. Just lie here and-"
"We can't!" Hank spoke sharply. He got to his feet and pulled her up. "It will be getting light soon. If we're going to run for it we have to get started."
Noreen began to come back into the world. "My money! It's hidden back in my room. I can't leave without it-and my clothes."
"How will you get back in? Over the roof?"
"No! I can't. That gutter would never hold me again. Oh! I was a fool not to bring the money with me. But I was so worried-"
Hank put his arm around her. "Come on. We'll go to my place first. I have to get my music. You'll just have to kiss that money goodbye. The clothes, too."
She trudged beside him in the sand. "I don't care so much about the clothes. They're not much. But my money!
"We'll get by. I've got a little over five hundred saved. I think the old clunker will get us down to New York, then I can sell it for a few bucks. We'll find a little place and go to work."
She squeezed his hand hard., "I'll go to work! You are going to rest and write your music. And just as soon as your concerto is finished you're going in the hospital until you're well! Promise?"
Hank stopped to kiss her. "I promise."
False dawn was lurking in the east as they approached the little fishing shack where Hank lived. Noreen had been in it half a dozen times. It was only an unpainted shack with a crude plank floor. Hank had a cot, an oil stove, one chair, a few cooking utensils. It was enough for him. The important thing was the battered old upright piano and the packing crate littered with music sheets.
Hank pushed open the creaky, badly fitted door as he fumbled for a match. "Just a minute and I'll light the lamp. I think I got enough oil-"
The beam of a flashlight splashed over them.
"Never mind the lamp, huh?" said Rocco. "Just come on in and don't try nothing! Rocco he ain't in such a good humor."
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
They stood silently, still clutching each other's hands as someone lit the single oil lamp. Then Rocco flicked off the flashlight. In the dim yellow light he nearly filled the little shack, his flabby shadow leaking across the floor. There were four of them. Rocco and three of the hard looking men Noreen had noticed earlier at the club.
Rocco said: "You play Rocco for a sucker, huh?" With amazing speed for so huge a man he stepped forward and slapped Noreen across the face. The blow sent her reeling back against the wall. "You son of a bitch!" Hank leaped at the fat man, smashing at his face. Rocco smiled, absorbed the blow in his flesh, put one short arm around Hank and pushed his belly against him hard. Hank went spinning into the arms of two of the other men.
Rocco said: "Fix him up a little, huh? Not too bad. Just a once over lightly for now."
Hank struggled vainly, kicking and twisting in the powerful grasp of one of the men. Another man hit him brutally in the belly. Hank sagged. The man hit him in the face with both hands, the blows sounding whap-whap in the morning silence.
"Let 'em go," grunted the man hitting him.
When he was released Hank fell to his knees. The man stepped close and hit Hank across the back of the neck with the edge of his hand. Hank slumped to the floor, blood trickling from his nostrils.
"That's enough," Rocco commanded. "We don't want no murder rap, huh? Now you guys can have the girl."
Noreen, her face a crimson blotch from Rocco's blow, was still clinging to the wall. Stunned, she could hardly see or hear, but she knew they were doing something terrible to Hank. She had to stop them! But her legs were numb, her whole body nearly paralyzed.
As her vision cleared she saw Hank on the floor, bleeding. She staggered toward Rocco, her hands outstretched. "Please, Rocco! Please-please! Don't hurt him. I'll do anything-anything you say! Only don't hurt him! Please, Rocco."
"Go ahead, beg," said Rocco. "I like to hear it. Only it ain't gonna do you any good. You had your chance. Anything Rocco hates is a lying, double-crossing dame!"
He reached suddenly, grabbed her arm, and flung her at the three men. "Go on, you guys. Rocco will watch."
One of the men muttered. "Hell, Rocco, that's a bad rap. This ain't Brooklyn. Maybe this dame-"
"This dame is a big nothing," Rocco spat. "A tramp! A nobody! You can get-her all day and night and nobody cares. And she can't squawk on account the cops want her. So goon. She's so bad she laughs at Rocco and sneaks out with the bum here. So give it to her plenty!"
Noreen started to kneel beside the unconscious Hank. One of the men laughed, seized her around the waist and flung her on the cot. "Okay! Who first? You got a coin, Johnny?"
Noreen closed her eyes and waited. No use trying to fight this. She must endure it. She only wished they would rape her and get it over with so she could start taking care of Hank.
A rough hand was fumbling with her slacks when Rocco said: "Hold it! Somebody's coming!" The hand went away. Noreen kept her eyes closed.
She heard the door slam open. A strange voice, tense with excitement, said: "Rocco! It's a pinch! Law all over the place. State cops, locals, Christ knows what! They got most of the boys already. How you get off this beach without going back?"
Rocco cursed. "Only one way. Down the beach toward Montauk. Maybe a mile I guess. There's a lane takes you to the road. Me, I'm staying. No cops are running Rocco off his own place. You guys better blow fast."
Noreen opened her eyes. The others had already fled the shack. Rocco, squeezing himself through the door, looked back at her for a moment. "You're one lucky little tramp, huh? Okay. Rocco don't fight the odds. You take the bum and blow. Rocco better not see you around again."
When he left Noreen staggered off the cot, feeling sick and weak, her head spinning crazily. She found a jug of water and a towel and went to Hank. He was just coming out of it. As she wiped his face with the damp towel he started upright. "Noreen! Honey! You all right? Where are those-"
She kissed him gently. "Not now, Hank. It's all right. They're gone and they won't come back.
We got to get out of here too, right away. The cops are up at the club. Come on, try to stand up."
She got him on his feet. Led him to the chair and made him sit down a minute. "Where's your money, darling? Hurry!"
"In the piano."
Noreen found the wad of bills and stuffed them into his wallet. As he slumped in the chair, trying to snap out of it, she hastened frantically around the shack collecting his few clothes, his music, and stuffing diem into his suitcase. She did it all in three minutes.
When she went back to get Hank she saw a fishing rod in a corner and had an inspiration. She led him out to the car, got him into the front seat, and hastily lashed the rod on the fender. Then she rail around and climbed in behind the wheel.
"We just might do it," she told him. "I heard Rocco tell those men about a lane off the beach a mile down. Maybe there won't be any cops. But if there are we got to have a story, darling. We been fishing all night, understand?"
Hank nodded. He kept swabbing his bruised face with the wet towel. "Yes. I know the place. Go on. I'll be all right now." He cursed. "Goddamn it! If only I had my strength. Those toughs handled me like a baby!"
She kissed him swiftly. "You're all the man I ever want. I love you. Now here we go. You better pray!"
She drove down the smooth beach. The title was sweeping in, foaming around the wheels of the car as she approached the turnoff.
"just up here," Hank pointed out. "Around that next dune where the sand fence starts."
Noreen found the narrow lane and turned left toward the blacktop road. As she approached the road her heart sank. A State Police car was blocking the turnoff onto the main road.
Hank was fast regaining his composure. "Don't panic," he said. "Maybe we can bluff our way out. Remember we been fishing. If they ask about my face I got drunk and fell against the car. Just act normally, as though we don't know what it's all about."
Noreen slowed and stopped as a State trooper waved them down. He was a young man with sergeant's chevrons. He put one shiny boot on the running board and looked at them with interest. "Let me see your identification, please."
Hank fished out his wallet and handed it to him. The trooper looked at the cards, then at Hank and Noreen. "This looks okay. But what are you doing out here at this time in the morning?"
Hank was a good actor. "We've been fishing," he explained. "Just down the beach there. What's all the excitement, officer? We heard shouting and saw a lot of lights."
The trooper shot a glance at the fishing pole. "Catch anything?"
Noreen smiled at him. "We didn't fish all night, Captain. We're engaged. But what's going on?"
The trooper smiled slightly. "We caught something, just police business. What happened to your face, Mr. Butler?"
Hank managed to look and sound very sheepish. "I-I got a little drunk to tell you the truth. We were sort of celebrating. I tripped and fell against the car."
The trooper studied them for a moment with the impersonal eyes of a good cop. He looked at Noreen. "Your name, Miss?"
"Mary Cassidy. I live in New York." On impulse she gave the address of Buddy Pressman on West End Avenue.
The trooper scribbled in a notebook. He handed Hank his wallet. "Okay. You can go through."
As they turned off on the blacktop Noreen saw another police car parked a little way off. Three men were sitting in the back of it, guarded by two troopers. The men who had been with Rocco.
She glanced at Hank. He was slumped in the seat, looking sick and wilted. "Cheer up," she told him as she rounded a turn and came in sight ol the village. "We did it. We're on our way."
He reached over to take her hand for a moment. His dark eyes were tender. "Yes, sweetheart. We're on our way! But I wonder where and tor how long! Those cops back there made me think. No, I guess I been thinking ever since you told me the truth about yourself. We got to do some talking, Noreen."
A pang of fear shot through Noreen. "What do you mean? You sound like, well, like you're sorry about us!" lie smiled, a sweet smile, and released her hand. "Sorry? No. I'm glad! I've found you and I'll never let you go. That's why we have to work this out. Drive to a motel, honey, where we can get something to eat and a drink. Then I'll tell you what we have to do."
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
Neither spoke much as they left Crawfordsville in the rented car headed for Sunny View. Noreen watched the familiar flat countryside as it spun past. Hank was driving fast. The sooner they did this, he had convinced her, and got it over, the better for both oi them.
She saw the decaying chute of the gravel pit where she had left Wajfle's car that night. She pointed it out and Hank smiled gravely. "I don't think you have to worry about her. If the warden got your letter she's probably been fired by now."
"I hope so. She can make my life hell if she's still around."
"Don't worry about it. From what you've told me this Mrs. Poindexter is a very decent person. I'm sure she'll help you all she can." A week had passed since they fled from Rocco.
They had driven across country in the old Ford until it expired near Dayton. They had come on by bus and finally rented a car. The nights had been spent in wild love making, the days in dreaming and planning.
Ironically, now that she was returning to give herself up and serve out her time, not a cop looked at them twice.
Noreen was content. Nervous, a little fearful of her reception at Sunny View, but content in her Jove for Hank and the knowledge that he was right. They couldn't run the rest of their lives. Never having a secure home, never knowing any peace. It was better this way.
"It will count a lot in your favor," Hank had told her. "Giving yourself up of your own free will. I know you've had a terribly rough life, darling, and I don't blame you for not trusting anyone. But you've got to get over that! People, a lot of them anyway, are kind and want to help if they can. You'll see."
They were getting close to Sunny View now. Noreen reached out to Hank. "Hold my hand, darling. I'm shaking."
"Don't. I love you. I'll always be with you, even when we're separated for this little time. A year, Noreen, only a year. It will pass in no time. Then we can be together forever."
"Yes. I know you're right. But I'm still scared. I hate that place so. But I'll do it, Hank. I will!"
He drove with one hand, holding her close against him with his free arm. "Of course you will. And don't forget I'll be close. Right in Steel City. Only ninety miles away. I'll come down to see you as often as they'll let me."
That will help so much, the girl thought. That will give me courage and strength. The knowledge that Hank is in the hospital getting cured. She nestled against him. "We're getting close, darling. Just around the next bend. Stop the car and kiss me. Kiss me for a long time."
Hank pulled over to the side and stopped. They came together with a passion that the almost continental love making of the past week had not begun to slake.
Their mouths melded together. After a moment Noreen said: "My God, darling! You can't! Not here in broad daylight!"
Hank muttered into her hair. "Why not? No one coining."
Fifteen minutes later they drove through the gates of Sunny View. 'The guard glanced at them but did not come out of his box. Visitor's day, Noreen thought.
She looked about her with mild surprise as they drove along the winding lane leading to the Administration Building. Nothing had changed during her brief absence. Somehow, without reason, she had expected that it would.
When they pulled up before the building Hank said: "You sure you don't want me to go in with you?"
They had discussed this many times. Hank thought it would help if he talked to the warden. Noreen, with typical independence-only Hank called it Irish stubbornness, said she must do it herself.
"No," she said softly. She leaned toward him, gazed into his eyes for a long moment. Satisfied with what she saw there she kissed him lightly on the mouth.
"Goodbye for now, sweet. Let's not drag this out. We'll be all right as long as we love each other. Write me every day?"
"I'll write," Hank said. "I'll come as often as I can. God, Noreen, but I love you!"
"I love you, Hank. Goodbye."
Noreen turned and walked into the building. Hank watched her go, then started the car and drove off around the circular drive.
From her window Debra Poindexter, the warden,
THE END watched Hank leaving. After a moment she turned back to her desk. She was smiling. Miracles do happen, she thought, and knew a sudden, inexplicable happiness. I was right about this one after all. I can help her.
She reached for her inter-com. "Marcy?"
"Yes, Mrs. Poindexter?"
"Put through a call to the Commissioner of Correction in Steel City."
"Yes, Mrs. Poindexter."
"And when Noreen Casey comes in show her straight into my office."
"Noreen Casey? Why, that's the girl who-"
"Never mind, Marcy! Just do as I ask."
The warden leaned back in her chair. There had been no pain today yet. The doctor said she might have a year. Well, a year would be long enough. Noreen wouldn't have to stay that long, not when all the facts were put before the Commissioner.
Life is so strange, she thought. I'll be able to leave something behind me after all.
She looked up with a smile as the door opened and Noreen came in.
