by Orrie Hitt
"All right," she said. She wasn't smiling. "That's fair enough."
She walked past him, smelling good, and over toward the stairs. At the bottom she swung around.
"There was a phone call for Mrs. Reid," she said. "It was her sister. She wants Mrs. Reid to call her."
"But she went to her sister's," Jerry said, startled.
Peggy started up the stairs.
"Not today, she didn't," she said. "Her sister hasn't even heard from her."
After the girl was gone he walked out to the kitchen and lit the gas under the coffee.
Funny about Mrs. Reid. Very funny.
And there was something funny about Peggy Markey, too.
He poured the coffee and sat down at the table, but he didn't touch the cup. His mind was moving like a rocket through space.
Ten thousand dollars was a lot of money. And Peggy Markey was a lot of girl.
One way or another, no matter what he had to do, he was going to have some of both.
CHAPTER 6
The room on Kennedy Street was not as nice as the room at Mrs. Reid's, but it could have been worse. There was a ragged gray carpet on the floor, an old fashioned four-poster bed against one wall, a dresser which Helen never used and a chair, in which she was now sitting, that made noises every time she moved. But the room was pretty warm.
She got up now and moved to the window. It was dark outside and snowing hard, and she felt the draft coming in around the sill and flicking against her legs. Helen had not seen snow until she was eighteen and there was still something fascinating and terrible about it for her. She liked to watch the way the flakes hit against the window and then slid down to form miniature houses and people and all sorts of odd designs and shapes. But the snow was terrible, too. It ruined the weekend for her, killed business deader than last year's taxes, and there wasn't much she could do about it. There wasn't, in fact, anything she could do about it. There were several bars nearby but a lot of the boys from the college went slumming in them, and she had to be careful. As long as she didn't sell herself to the fellows in the school, she was all right; as soon as she started doing that she might as well pack up and leave. There would be nothing then, nothing. And now there was little enough for her.
She smiled and turned away from the window. Little enough? She was wrong. There was a lot. There was Peggy.
She wished now that she had stayed at Mrs. Reid's for the weekend, that she hadn't told Peggy and several of the other girls that she was visiting friends out of town. She could just imagine what it would be like in that comfortable room, on that double bed, the door locked, Peggy warm in her arms and love running wildly through the night. It would be good, good, good, and when morning came, the light gray and dim against the windows, they would love again and again.
That first afternoon in the shower, wild and wonderful, would never be repeated, could never be equaled. Again after again, she had tried to surpass the glory of that moment, a moment of pleadings and cries and sobs, a moment of ecstasy, and she had failed each time. Maybe that was because the mystery was gone now, the wonders known fully and deeply. Never again would she experience that searching frenzy and the final climax of its goal, the sweeping terror and happiness and wonderful joy of finally giving to another all that love could ever give.
Helen crossed the room and found cigarettes on top of the dresser. Still thinking about Peggy, she lit a cigarette and saw her hand trembling. What could she have done? She had fought against it, fought savagely and hard, and she had lost.
And Helen was not ashamed. She was a victim of circumstance, a toy of her own desire. She could no more stop what she felt than she could stop being trapped in a room on Kennedy Street during a raging snow storm. All of these things were part of her, shaping her life like pieces of a puzzle fallen into place. Good or bad, she had to live as she knew herself. Escape—if there were ever escape—was a long way off.
Where had it started? How had it begun? Perhaps during that frightful instant when she had first seen her mother and that man together, when she had been too young to realize fully what the man was doing to her mother. Or when she herself had experienced, at an age too young, the knowledge of a man and of what he could do to woman. There had been hate then, and loathing, and whenever she thought of it, remembering, the hate was still there, the loathing more intense. Yes, it might have started then, burning far into her mind and her body. And maybe that was why she sold her body to live. She was always in complete control as she watched every man writhe and ache with the agony of the passion that she had created in him. But however it had begun, now she was caught up in the net, struggling against an overpowering force she could not control. And, frankly, she wanted no control. She wanted to live every tender second of it, to enjoy every frantic minute of this love that went far beyond the bounds of reason. She wanted to know that soft and glorious body again and again, to please it and please it, to bring to it the love for which it yearned.
She let out her breath as she heard someone moving along the hall. It would not be Jerry. He disliked this room; the night before he had said that if the storm continued they might as well forget about the weekend. The men with the cash would be with their wives or girl friends, taking what they could get and liking it—well, not liking it, maybe, but making the best of a bad situation. Some wives, she knew, were worse than nothing and some girl friends just wouldn't do anything.
Somebody began knocking on her door.
"Helen?"
It was Adam Frank, the owner of the rooming house.
Frank was in his forties, an ex-pool hall operator, and he always smelled heavily of shaving lotion. The first few weeks that she had rented the room the year before she had used the name of Polly Decker, but one night she had gotten drunk with a customer—A hundred bucks, baby if you live it up with me and do what I want you to do— and she had passed out. Afterward she had discovered that Frank had come into the room, gone through her things and found out who she really was.
"Helen?"
"Just a second."
She opened her pocketbook, took out a ten, and walked to the door.
"I guess you want the rent," she said, opening the door. He accepted the ten, folded it once and shoved it into his pocket.
"Thanks, Helen." He was short, shorter than she was, and he grinned up at her. "Business bad?"
"Terrible."
He found a toothpick, poked at his teeth—they were false but he wouldn't admit it—and then threw the thing aside.
"You're not alone," he said. "Less than half of my rooms are rented."
She didn't care whether he had rented any of them. "That's tough," she said.
Frank nodded. "It is when you have to pay taxes and buy oil for heat. You have to snatch up every buck you can—in any way that you can.''
"Well, you've got my ten."
He grinned. "I wish everybody paid ten for two days."
"And still rent the room out the rest of the week?"
"That's right. But, as I say, things have changed since last year. Some of the factories have shut down and work on the river is quiet. A lot of the kind of people I used to get have drifted away. A year ago I was turning them away and this year, right now, I'd take in a guy with a broken leg, even if I had to cook for the bastard."
Helen wanted to close the door and be rid of him, but he had pushed into the room, standing there and looking up at her.
"I don't really want to do it," he said.
"Do what?"
"What I have to do."
"And?"
"You do all right, don't you?"
"You know what I do."
"And that Jerry, that guy who hangs around, he does all right, too."
"Nobody's getting rich."
"But richer than I'm getting."
"I doubt it."
Frank stared across the room at the snow coming steadily against the window.
"I want a piece of your cake," he said slowly. "Just a little of t
he frosting."
Helen knew what he meant. She had expected it before, feared it, and now he was closing in on her.
"Damn you," she said heatedly.
He laughed at her.
"What did you expect?"
"See here, Frank—"
"What can your kind ever expect?"
He was right, of course. She was nothing, a nobody, and she could expect nothing.
"You leave me alone," she said.
"I'm not going to touch you."
She was surprised.
"You aren't?"
"No. I don't want you. What would I want you for? I've got two other girls in this rooming house that work out their rent and that's enough to keep me busy. Hell, I'm forty—you know that? A guy in his forties don't have the same capacity any more."
The steam pipes banged a couple of times and she could hear the storm, the snow now mixed with sleet, rattling against the window.
"What do you want, Frank?"
His reply was simple and direct.
"Twenty-five percent of what you take in."
"No."
He shrugged.
"Suit yourself. I run a risk having you here, you know that?"
"You get five dollars a night."
"Big deal."
"What do I have left?" she demanded. "There's this room and Jerry and then I do have some expenses."
He sneered. "Sure, sure. But twenty-five percent," he repeated. "Either that or I write to the school and tell them what you are."
"You wouldn't!"
"I told you things are rough, didn't I?"
"But—"
"How much do you get? Twenty bucks?" She felt sick and miserable.
"Not always, no."
"Why not?"
"I don't know."
"If you ever get less than twenty that Jerry is underselling you." Frankly, smiling a little, he appraised her. "You've got a good body. Big breasts. Nice hips. A guy ought to pay twenty or more for that kind of fun."
She wished for Jerry. He could tell her what to do. But Jerry was probably with that Evelyn or some other girl.
"Don't do this to me," she heard herself begging.
"You've done it to yourself."
Once again, he was right.
"You don't have to get upset or anything. All you have to do is what I want and everything between us will be fine. You have your men up here, many as you want, give me my cut and nothing will be said. Do it differently, or hold out on me, and I'll drag your name through all of the slime in Youngsville."
She had no choice. To refuse him was to destroy everything that she had worked for, to ruin herself completely.
"All right," she said weakly.
"That's more like it." He held out his hand. "My cut from last night, baby."
"I don't get it all. Jerry gets some of it."
"You start at the top with me and work down," Frank said.
"And I get what's left?"
"That's right."
"Damn you!"
"Sure. Damn me. What do I care what you think or what you say? Just give me my money."
"There was only three."
"Three or one or a dozen—twenty-five percent baby." Without arguing with him more she took fifteen dollars from her pocketbook and gave it to him.
"Thanks," he said.
"Don't mention it."
He walked to the door.
"It's a good arrangement," he said. "The more you make the more I make. What could be sweeter?"
She watched the door close behind him, listened to his footsteps retreating along the hall. Wearily, Helen sat down on the edge of the bed. Leaning forward, her hands over her face, she began to cry. She hated him, hated him. She hated all men. Ah men. None of them were any good.
The bar was small, a little place off Kennedy Street on Drake. The room smelled of stale beer and sweating bodies and it was filled with the heavy laughter of men and the shriller laughter of women.
Helen sat near the end of the bar, drinking rye and ginger and feeling sorry for herself. That Frank was a bastard, he really was. And that Jerry was, too. All men were bastards. The only men who were any good were the men who paid.
She lifted her glass and tasted her drink.
Someday a man would really pay.
Someday some man would pay with everything he had.
"Hello, honey."
She glanced at the man standing next to her and then looked away. He was big, smelled of the river front, and was drinking beer. On the other side of him a woman with rumpled brown hair attempted to light a cigarette.
"Damn!" the woman said.
The man struck a match and held it.
"You're drunk, Belle," he said. "Whyn't you take off?"
The woman's eyes hardened.
"You'd like that, wouldn't you, you woman-chasing bastard," she said and pushed the match aside. "You think she'll pay any attention to you?" She nodded toward Helen.
"Shut up."
"I won't shut up."
"You'll shut up or I'll slap you silly."
The man on Helen's right finished his drink and slid away from the bar. She started to move down to the next stool but she wasn't quite quick enough. A young man in a gray topcoat, smelling of pipe smoke, sat down beside her.
"Hello," he said.
She recognized him from the college but she couldn't remember his name. In one of her classes, he sat far back in the room and never said very much. "Hello," she said.
He grinned, seeming pleased that she had spoken to him.
"You come in here much?" he wanted to know. The man on her left was pushing up against her. She sighed and moved away from him. "Not often," she said.
The young man surveyed the interior of the bar.
"It's a dump," he observed.
"Yes."
"They say you can find anything in here."
"I guess you could."
The bartender came over and the young man ordered a beer. He asked Helen if she wanted a drink but she shook her head, smiling, and said she would accept a rain check.
"Good idea," the young man said. "I'm just about broke anyway."
They drank in silence. The woman down the bar was still trying to get her cigarette lighted and the man was now calling her names.
"I'm Harry."
Helen remembered. Harry Martin. She had heard that he was considered brilliant by most of the college instructors and that he worked part time for a mortician.
"I'm Helen."
"I know."
"Miserable storm."
"Worse than that," Harry said.
"I think it cost me my job."
"How is that?"
Harry ordered another beer, neglected to ask her if she wanted a drink—which she would have accepted this time —and put his elbows on the bar.
"Funny how things work out," he said. "I work for this undertaker, Snelling, and we went down to New York to pick up a body today. Usually I don't go out of town with him but with the weather so bad he wanted somebody to drive. So we picked up the body and on the way back we stopped at this gas station for gas. I didn't get out, he did, and I didn't know that some guy was there hitching a ride. Afterward I found out that Snelling had told the guy he could ride in back with the body—there's only two seats in front of the hearse—but he didn't mention anything to me. Well, we left the gas station and started up the road and pretty soon this guy in back knocks on the glass and wants to know if he can smoke. It was silly, I guess, but I didn't know what to think. As far as I knew there was just a body back there, nobody alive. It sure shook me up. It shook me up so good that I drove the hearse right off the road, into a drift, and jumped the hell out. It took an hour for us to get out of the snow and Snelling wouldn't talk to me all the way back. I—well, what's so funny?"
Helen was laughing so hard she could hardly stop.
"It's a scream," she said. "You driving a hearse and thinking that a body had come back to life."
"Wasn
't much else to think. Oh, it's silly now, when I think about it, but at the time—say, you've got hazel eyes."
"Have I?"
"Never saw a redhead have hazel eyes before. It's a good combination."
"Thank you."
"Have a drink now?"
"All right."
"What are you drinking?"
"Beer is okay."
"Thinking about my wallet, huh?"
"All of us have to think about money, don't we?"
"I sure should now. Snelling's going to let me go. I can feel it."
They had a drink, talked about school, made general chitchat, and she found herself moving closer to him, away from the man on her left. When she felt their legs touch, she became determined that she wouldn't move closer.
"How come you're down here?" he wanted to know.
"I was visiting somebody."
"Oh. Well, I'm glad. I've seen you in school, lots of times, but I've never had a chance to talk to you before." He put his beer down and looked at her. "You're nice," he said. "I've wanted to tell you that."
Helen felt funny sitting there beside him. She felt more strange than she had ever felt with a man before. There was something about him—the smell of the pipe, the way he looked at her?—that pushed inside and made her feel warm and decent. Yes, decent. Not because he changed anything that she felt for Peggy, anything that they shared together, but decent because he wasn't buying her. He wasn't like Jerry, he was totally different and somehow clean.
"Thank you," she said quietly.
"Running into you was a break."
"Was it?"
"I'd like to see you again."
She said nothing.
"Could I?"
"Well—"
The man on the left gave her a shove and she landed hard up against Harry.
"You'd drink with him," the man said, his breath hot on her neck. "But you wouldn't drink with me. What's the big idea, you little snip?"
She stumbled, grabbed Harry, and almost fell down.
"Leave her alone," the brown haired woman said. "She ain't your kind, Tad."
"Shut up."
Harry, whose beer had been knocked over by Helen's arm, moved away from the bar.
"What's going on?" he demanded.
"None of your business," the big man on Helen's left said sourly. "Why don't you take a course in college about how to keep your nose out of things that ain't none of your business?"