Deep is the Pit

by Dixon, H. Vernor

  “Like I said, don’t ever make that mistake again.”

  “Tougher than I imagined. Thought you’d gone soft.”

  “Yeah.” Suddenly Marty was grinning. “I thought so, too.”

  “Give me time to catch my breath. Now that I know how you fight, I think I can take you.”

  Marty laughed and got some water for Wayne to drink. “Forget it.”

  “I’m not walking out of here until I shove your face in the carpet.”

  “Try it and you’ll be carried out. But you aren’t walking out, anyway.”

  “Why not?”

  “You got a job. You still got a job.”

  “You’re crazy.”

  “I don’t think so. Now let me tell you something. What just happened was because I lost my temper. Try anything with Karen and I won’t lose my temper. That’s when I’ll go cold. That’s when I’ll kill you. Understand?”

  Wayne lowered the handkerchief from his face and blinked his amazement. “I think you mean that literally,” he said slowly.

  “If you don’t think so, it will be the last mistake you ever make.”

  “I’ll be damned.”

  “Are you staying?”

  “You couldn’t drive me away. This I have to hang around and watch.”

  Marty held out his hand. “No hard feelings?”

  Wayne stared at him as if he had lost his mind and gasped, “I’ll be double-damned.” But he shook hands with him.

  That night, in bed with Karen, Marty cautiously brought up the subject of Wayne. He attempted a light chuckle as he remarked, “I think the guy is falling for you — badly.”

  Karen stirred at his side and said, “I’ve noticed it, too. I’m flattered.”

  “Yeah? How did you notice it?”

  She replied coolly, “After all, Marty, I’m the target. It would be decidedly odd not to be aware of it.”

  “I guess.” Something about the tone of her voice warned him not to go on, but he could not let it drop. “He’s quite a guy.”

  “Yes.” There was a long pause, as she turned something over in her mind, then she said, “Wayne isn’t an ordinary person at all. He’s terribly good-looking, he’s honest, he has unusual integrity, and he’s admired and respected everywhere. He and I have a lot of likes and dislikes in common, and, as you know, I like men who have direction, a goal to achieve. I like him very much. Perhaps, if I had known him before I met you …” Her voice trailed off into a pregnant silence.

  Marty thought, Now, drop it now, you fool. Don’t get her to say any more. He clenched his hands into fists and stared hotly into the dark, trying to think of something else, anything else, but after a few minutes he said, “Maybe you’re falling for him a little yourself.”

  She answered matter-of-factly, “That’s more than possible.” She sat up and hugged her arms about her knees. “I have even thought,” she said, dropping the fragmentation grenade squarely in Marty’s lap, “that I’m already in love with him. Of course, it’s difficult to be certain about a thing like that — in my position.”

  Marty snapped on the bed lamp and sat up with a roar. “What the hell are you talking about?”

  Karen turned her head slowly to look into his angry, flushed features. She was utterly composed. “I thought you were seeking information, Marty — honestly, for a change. You were asking me about Wayne, so I’m trying to explain how I feel about him. Do you want me to be honest or not?”

  “What the hell has honesty got to do with it?”

  “I suppose you wouldn’t know. I used to think you were honest; hard, tough, even crude, but honest. I could never have been more wrong about anyone. You’re strictly an angler.”

  “Damn it,” he growled, “I told you I think in terms of angles. I was honest about that.”

  “Not exactly. You didn’t tell me what kind of angles. Your definition of an angle is far different from mine. Yours is based on dishonesty and chiseling. I have been watching you operate, now, for some time. I have finally got to know you. I don’t like what I have learned about you.”

  He asked suspiciously, warily, “Such as what?”

  “Your nature. Your character. I don’t condemn you, Marty. I feel sorry for you. You’ve had a rough time of it, no doubt. But you were weak. You allowed it to distort and twist your mind. You don’t think legitimately. Your affair with Miss Kimball, for example. That, too, was the easy way out, the dishonest way.”

  Marty said hoarsely, his throat dry and tight, “Dotty Kimball?”

  “Yes, of course. Does it surprise you that I know about her? I’ve been aware of that for some time. When I changed rooms that night and you broke down the door — you were furious, but you were also lustful. Shortly after that, however, your lust died down. That wasn’t like you. There had to be a reason. Someone else had to be satisfying that animal lust of yours. It was ridiculously easy, once I suspected what was taking place, to learn who it was. I hadn’t quite the courage to do my own foul snooping, so I had Uncle Frank look into the matter. He learned what there was to know and told me.”

  Marty felt trapped and knew he could not lie his way out of it. “So Frank knows, too.”

  “Yes.”

  “I suppose he told you to divorce me.”

  “Not at all. He took the male’s attitude that a man must find satisfaction somewhere. In fact,” she said, smiling lightly at him, but with pity in her eyes, “he was rather on your side.”

  Marty exploded viciously, “Well, goddamn it, what did you expect me to do? Every time I tried to make love to you it was no good. You were responsible for that. You drove me away from you. Believe me,” he said, almost pleading with her, “I don’t know how to handle a frigid woman. I’ve never had any experience with a thing like that before.”

  She said softly but firmly, “I am not a frigid woman, Marty. There were times, a few times, when you were accidentally gentle, or perhaps tired, when our love-making was the most beautiful thing I had ever experienced. That’s why I did my best to go along with you. But those occasions were all too rare, and never at any time did you try to go along with me.”

  “You quit. You simply quit.”

  “Even then, Marty, it could have been saved. Any other man would have made an attempt to understand, to be less fierce, less an animal.” She said wistfully, “You could have had something truly beautiful, Marty. I wanted to give it to you. I tried. But you could think only in terms of force. So you turned to the easy way out, to Miss Kimball.” She said thoughtfully, “She must be a good deal like you. You should have married her. Why didn’t you?”

  “She’s a tramp. Anyway, I wanted you.” He felt something slipping, sliding out of his grasp, something important that when lost would be for all time irrevocably lost. He had to grab at it quickly and hold on before it got away. Otherwise, his beautiful, secure world would turn into a shaky house of cards that would tumble with the slightest breeze. “Well,” he said, holding his anger in check, trying to think from her angle, “I agree it’s a mess and maybe it is my fault. But it isn’t too late to be corrected. I’m willing to listen. I’m willing to learn.”

  Karen gave him a pitying look and lowered her head back to the pillows. “It’s too late for that, Marty. It was too late for that before I ever met you.”

  “Nuts to your riddle. You’re my wife. Understand? You’re going to remain my wife if I have to fight — ”

  “Of course,” she interrupted softly, coolly. “I have no intentions of leaving you. You’re the same man I married. It hasn’t worked out the way I thought it would, but that’s not your fault. I’m the one who made the errors in judgment. And I don’t mean that in the willing-to-suffer sense, either.”

  “Just what do you mean?”

  “I mean that I married you with the clear intention of remaining married to you the rest of my life, that I knew it would be no bed of roses, and that I was willing to suffer the bad with the good. That’s the way it’s going to continue.”


  “What about Wayne?”

  She closed her eyes with pain, her lips compressed to a thin line. She was silent for a moment, then replied, “That’s my problem. I believe I’m capable of handling it — somehow. Anyway, I can assure you that in every respect but one I fully intend remaining a dutiful wife. Now,” she said, sighing, ten thousand miles away from him, an ice fortress that could never be stormed, “if you don’t mind, I’m rather tired.” She switched off the bed lamp and turned away from him.

  It was gone. Marty knew it was gone. It had slipped away from him, completely away, and the frustrating part of it was that he could not put his finger on exactly what he had lost. Apparently nothing had changed, but the whole middle, the whole core of whatever he had with Karen was gone and was now a vacuum. It was as if someone had cruelly pulled all of his fingernails, slowly, one at a time, yet, though he could feel the distinct pain of each pulling, each fingernail was still precisely in place.

  The following days, when they returned to San Francisco, Marty watched Karen with amazement and a growing sence of futility. She was her usual gracious self, as composed as ever, as coolly aloof and as beautiful as ever, and seemingly a happy woman enjoying a successful marriage. Marty raved inwardly. God, if she would only explode, go to pieces, get mad, scratch and bite him, throw things at him, swear at him — that he could cope with. That he could understand. Karen, however went her usual placid way and a dangerous pressure began building in Marty.

  While he was worrying about it, wondering how to counter Karen’s attitude, Dotty telephoned him at the hotel one evening from Beverly Hills. She wasted little time in preliminaries and came immediately to the point. She was not doing so well with her new job.

  “You were right,” she admitted. “I don’t have the setup in the Lotus Room that I had with you. Up there I was the big wheel. Down here I’m just a featured singer, and not so featured, at that. It’s lousy.”

  “Sorry to hear that, Dotty. But I imagine the customers go for you, anyway.”

  “If you do, your imagination is better than mine. To put it crudely, sweetie-pie, I’m a flop.”

  “No.”

  “But yes. It’s a turkey. Even Papa Bentley is very unhappy and wants out. He offered me five grand to tear up the contract. I’m going to take it. If I try to hang on here I’ll die a slow death.”

  “Jees, that’s too bad.”

  She said bitterly, “It gets worse. Wait till you hear. You know what I was really after was a nice, fat, juicy movie contract. I figured it would be in the bag this time. So I got Papa Bentley to pull a few wires with some of his big-shot friends at Paramount. It worked and they gave me a test. It smelled. I couldn’t believe it and went to work on Papa and got him to line up another one at M-G-M. That one convinced me. That smelled, too. It seems that my gorgeous personality just doesn’t get through the cameras. Which ends that little career before it gets started.”

  She paused, waiting for Marty to say something, but he had no comment to make other than “Too bad.”

  “I’ll say it is. I thought I was going to take this place by storm. Good old Dotty Kimball in lights on the Hollywood Hills a mile high. So it all blows up in my face. Down here I’m a washout. I’m coming home.”

  Marty frowned, his brain beginning to click, recognizing danger. “Home?”

  “Yes. I’ll wind it up in the Lotus Room this Friday night and drive up Saturday or Sunday. I’ll give you a buzz at the hotel as soon as I get in. O.K. by you, darling?”

  Marty felt physical desire for her sweep through his body, but the smell of danger was in his brain. Karen knew all about their relationship. It was possible that she could close her eyes to its renewal, but highly improbable. Once she saw Dotty back in town she would naturally assume that Marty was spending his spare time with her. Karen could not tolerate a situation of that sort for very long. It could lead to serious trouble, far worse than what he was presently experiencing.

  He said urgently, “Look, Dotty. I think that would be a mistake. You can’t give up this way. The smart thing to do is stay where you are, angle for another spot that will set you up better, and hang on till you make the grade. If you give up now you may never get another crack at the big time.”

  “Phooey! Listen to me, sweetheart. One thing I never do is kid myself. That’s for the birds. I’ve always thought I was pretty hot stuff, and if I had a chance I’d hit the top. Down here I’ve learned I’m strictly second-rate and that’s it, period. I’ve had my chance. You gave it to me and Bentley gave it to me and it hasn’t worked. I wasn’t able to back it up. So I’m buying out. I don’t go for this second-rate business, not when I have something better practically in the palm of my hand.”

  “Something better?”

  “Certainly. Little Georgie-boy. He’s been down to see me a couple of times. He’s really nibbling at that candy. Now I’ll come up there and really concentrate on him. Naturally, you can help. He respects your opinions. Between the two of us we should be able to swing it. So dust off the Bali Room and expect me this week end. ‘By.”

  She arrived Sunday afternoon and took a two-room suite just down the hall from Marty’s rooms. Marty was away for the day, but when he got to the hotel Monday morning the desk clerk informed him that Miss Kimball wished to see him and told him where she was located. Marty swore under his breath and hurried up to her rooms. She was in bed, asleep, so took a few minutes to answer his knock. She was effusively glad to see him and hugged him tightly and talked quickly and nervously about her drive up from the south and how good it felt to be back in San Francisco. Marty sat with her on a couch, his senses tingling with the heavy exotic perfume she used and more than conscious of the lush figure barely covered with a filmy negligee. Her blonde hair was a shade or so lighter than it had been, but otherwise she had not changed. Marty had difficulty reminding himself that the situation was extremely serious.

  He was paying little attention to what she was saying, simply waiting for her to run down, until she said, “The first person I saw when I got in was Tony Arturo, that Nevada gambler. Rode up in the elevator with me. Said he kept a permanent room on the floor above.”

  “That’s right. Did you know him before?”

  “Know him?” She smiled. “He made a play for me once, in the Bali Room. I gave him the brush-off. Kind of a slimy person. But why does he keep a permanent room here?”

  “Remember the holdup we had?”

  She frowned at him, then nodded. “Yes?”

  “Well, the F.B.I. and Tony Arturo think it was Red Martin who pulled that job.”

  She burst into a loud laugh. “Oh, no!”

  “Oh, yes.”

  “But that’s delicious. My God, if they only knew!”

  Marty said dryly, “Oh, sure. Anyway, Tony comes down from Tahoe every week or so and spends time trying to track down Red Martin. He wants to get back that eighty-five grand.”

  “Marty, that’s really funny. He’s probably snooping all over, and here, right under his nose — ”

  Marty barked, ‘O.K., O.K. Let’s not go into it.”

  “Still touchy, aren’t you?”

  “Red Martin is dead. Leave it that way. What is more important now is what you plans are.”

  She moved closer to him until their thighs were touching and placed a hand lightly on his knee. She said contritely, “I’m sorry I was such a bust down south. Now you have me back on your hands again.”

  “I was just thinking the same thing.”

  She shot him a quick glance, her eyes narrowed shrewdly. “Is that so bad?”

  He shrugged. “Could be. Things aren’t the same.”

  “Oh, now, really. The way you talk, you’d think I had been gone for years and that the whole town has been rebuilt. Nothing has changed that much. I think I’m still liked down here in San Francisco. I can do as good in the Bali Room as I did before.”

  He jerked his head about to stare at her, startled and astonished. “Is that what you meant b
y telling me to dust off the Bali Room? You think I can put you back in there?”

  She, too, looked astonished. “But naturally. Why not? There’s nothing wrong with my reputation here, and I do need work, after all.”

  Marty slapped his hands on his knees and got to his feet. He paced the floor back and forth before her. “Listen, Dotty. I wasn’t kidding about things changing. My wife found out about us. She knows I was shacking up with you. Knows all about it.”

  Dotty lowered her lips to hide an expression of sly pleasure. “That’s news.”

  “Yeah. She didn’t make a scene about it, even seemed to accept it, in a way, but a woman like Karen never really accepts anything like that. Now that you’re back she’ll think we picked up where we left off. And if I put you in the Bali Room she’ll be positive of it. I can’t take that chance.”

  “Afraid of losing the Stannard backing?”

  “Nope. Just Karen.”

  She said sarcastically, “Don’t tell me you’ll fallen in love with your wife.”

  Marty stopped his pacing to look down at her, his expression thoughtful and preoccupied. After a moment he said, “Maybe in my own way I have. I don’t know. All I know is that I don’t intend running the risk of losing her.”

  Dotty leaned back in the couch and looked up at him, her lips twisted into a hard, bitter line. “Now you’re really pulling the blinders over your eyes. I didn’t think you would ever do that. You aren’t in love with her. In fact, as a person, she probably means nothing to you. What you’ve fallen in love with is the new world she’s given you. That’s what you don’t care to lose. Why don’t you be honest about it?”

  He shook his head. “Because you’re only partly right.”

  “Well, anyway, it’s your worry, not mine. My worry is to kill time until I nail down Georgie, and that means the Bali Room.”

  “That’s out.”

  Dotty’s face was contorted as she cried out, “Oh, no, it isn’t. You know damned well you can put me back there. A little build-up, advance publicity — ”