by P. N. Elrod
I straightened and dusted my suit, took Marian’s arm, and made a decent exit myself as far as the lobby before stopping to square off with her. “Okay, who was he?” I already knew, but had appearances to keep up.
“Nobody important. Are you all right?” Her face was bright with excitement.
“Give me a name.”
“Just some guy I used to date.”
I kept looking at her.
Exasperation superseded the excitement. “Harry Summers,” she snapped. “Is nosiness a part of your profession? No, forget I asked, the answer’s got to be yes.”
“I always like to get the name of anyone who sucker-punches me.”
“Harry’s got a jealous streak a mile wide. I’m really very sorry.” Her apology was light, just words she was expected to say. Her mind was on something else.
“I think you should run along now, the management is figuring that we’re bad for business.”
She saw the tux talking with another tux and both were looking our way. “I’m not worried about them.”
“I am. I don’t want my girl to get canned because of this.”
“They wouldn’t do that,” she said with the airy confidence of the unemployed rich.
“Don’t bet on it.”
“Then come with me. I know a very quiet place that Harry doesn’t—”
“Excuse me, sir.” It was the second tux and he knew me by sight if not by name. He’d seen me pick Bobbi up at the stage exit often enough.
“Never mind, I was just leaving.”
“I think that would be best, sir.”
I redeemed my hat and coat, Marian got her fox wrap, and we left with as much dignity as we could muster. It wasn’t much; Marian started giggling before we were out the door.
“Did you see the look on Harry’s face?”
“Yeah, we could sell tickets.”
“My car’s right over here.” She steered me off to the left. I went along, keeping an eye out for Summers. Marian opened the passenger door, slid in first, and patted the leather seat for me to join her.
“Uh-uh. Time to say good night.”
She shook her head in amused disbelief, then realized with a shock that I was serious. “But I want you to come with me.”
“Not tonight, sweetheart.” I shut the door on her. She flopped across the seat to try and open it again and, failing that, she rolled down the window.
“Jack, I said I want you to come with me.”
“And it’s the nicest thing I’ve heard all evening.”
“But—”
“Marian, to tell the truth, you’re just too much woman for me.” I backed away and walked fast, putting a line of cars and a lot of darkness between us before vanishing into thin air.
Distant and muffled, I heard her door open as she charged out to chase me down. She called my name a lot, growing more and more frustrated as the minutes passed. I simply waited and floated free until she finally gave up. It took a long time, and even then she didn’t go to her car, but back into the club. The clack of her heels faded and I returned to solidity again with relief.
I was crouched next to a Rolls and a Caddy and straightened with care. No one was in immediate sight, which was lucky. Pulling my vanishing act in a public place was strictly for emergencies only, but Marian more than qualified. As far as I was concerned, she was about as welcome as a case of warts—and as hard to lose.
Belatedly, I remembered that I was supposed to be looking for Stan McAlister. Maybe he was somewhere in the club and Marian had been putting up her best smoke screen to distract me. It would mean that she was in on the bracelet business, but nothing much would surprise me about that girl.
I’d been distracted, all right, but if McAlister was here, I’d find him. I started to go around to slip in by the stage entrance and had to stop cold. Harry Summers was coming across the parking lot straight for me, looking like a bulldozer on legs.
2
HE stopped about five feet short of me and glared, breathing hard. With wavy black hair and a strong, square jaw, he was matinee-idol handsome, but his hands were big and he looked as though he wanted to fasten them around my neck.
I was tired of him and he’d already put scuff marks on my suit. My conscience didn’t chafe too much when we locked gazes and I told him to calm down. He was plenty upset, but soon stopped puffing so much, and the red mottling finally drained out of his face. He was unaware of what had happened; one minute he was ready to tear into me, and the next we were walking up and down the parking lot having a smoke like old friends.
“What was the donnybrook about, Summers?” I asked in a reasonable tone. “You must know I’m not interested in Marian.”
Summers rumbled a curse and wearily leaned against a car, shaking his head. “I dunno. Something just comes over me when I see her look at another guy. She’s crazy and she only makes me crazy. I wish I’d never met her.”
I could sympathize. “You can’t pick fights every time she looks.”
His face was sour. “She was doing more than that with you. I saw it. Christ, the whole room saw it.”
“Her idea, not mine.”
“Then what were you with her for?”
“She didn’t give me much of a choice. I’ll level with you, Hairy, I’m doing a job for her father and she only came on like gangbusters hoping I’d tell her about it.”
“What’s the job?”
“I can’t say.”
Like a lot of people, he ignored that fine point and pressed on. “Does n have to do with Marian?”
“Not really. What’s she want to hide from her old man?”
He shrugged. “Me, probably.”
“Something the matter with you? Pierce seems to think you’re okay.”
“Only because Marian doesn’t let him look too close.”
“(Got a past, huh?”
Summers nodded. “Cops had me on a couple of assault charges.”
What a surprise. “Like what you pulled on me tonight?”
“Yeah. Sorry. Nothing much came of it. I did some time and got out, but the records are there for anyone to find. Pierce won’t think that that’s okay.”
“Tell him about it and see.”
“I don’t think it’s worth it. Marian’s flighty, she’ll probably drop me for someone else after this. She doesn’t forgive much of anything when she’s crossed.”
“She’ll have to learn sometime or lose a lot of friends.”
“With her dough, she can always buy more,” he said bitterly.
I didn’t gainsay him or offer advice or anything stupid like that. If he wanted to feel sorry for himself that was his business, doubly so it it had to do with Marian.
He tossed away his cigarette. It was only half-smoked and continued to smolder long after it bounced off the sidewalk. “I know I’m out of my class with her. She’s as much as said she goes with me because I did time. Tin not the tough she thinks I am, all I got is a bad temper. But it makes her feel like she’s breaking the rules herself. You know how that makes me feel?”
He didn’t really want an answer, so I kept my mouth shut.
“She’s got everything now and will have more of that when her dad goes. Maybe I’d have a chance if she didn’t have so much.”
“You don’t want a rich wife?”
“The money doesn’t matter to me, it’s hers. I’d be working my own way no matter what. What it is … I dunno, it just gets between us somehow. Like with this.” He gestured at the lavish front of the club. “I wouldn’t come to a place like this in a million years, but she’s here and she expects me to be here, so I come.”
“No taste for the high life?”
“Too much of a good thing. I love strawberry ice cream, but I don’t eat it till I’m sick. Marian would, and she’d insist that everyone else do the same.”
The more I learned about Marian, the happier I was at ditching her, but Summers was genuinely miserable. He saw her faults and still wanted her, which c
ould add up to a bleak future. We can’t always choose whom we’re going to fall for, and I felt sorry for the guy.
“Guess I’ll be running,” I said.
“Wait…”
“Yeah?”
“If you see her, tell her I said I was sorry.”
I looked up at the brightly lit entry doors to the club. Marian was just starting to come through them. Her step was brisk and she wore a determined look on her delicate face. “Right, but maybe you should tell her yourself. See you around.”
I ducked down among the cars before he could stop me again. In the general darkness, she might not have been able to spot me from the club. A second later, nobody could see me at all, and I floated off with the wind. When enough distance and time passed, I went solid and kept walking until I reached the rear of the building. At the top of some wooden steps was a metal fire door that could only be opened from the inside. I had to sieve in around the door, using the extremely thin space between its dense metal and the jamb.
No one seemed to be around. I materialized under a dim red exit light and dropped my nearly forgotten cigarette in a bucket of sand hanging on the wall. I rarely smoked the things anymore; my lungs didn’t like them, but they made useful social props.
The band blared away in front of me, masked off from the backstage area by a silver curtain. It was flimsy enough to see through when the lights were up on the other side. A dozen girls wearing strategic bits of tinsel and tap shoes were trying to beat holes in the dance floor, an encouraging sight, because it meant Bobbi would be in her dressing room. I didn’t waste any more time.
She said “Come in” to my knock. This time I turned the knob and walked through like a normal person. Bobbi was at the dressing table checking her makeup, a glowing oasis of platinum blond sanity in an otherwise screwy evening.
In the light-lined mirror she saw the door open and shut all by itself. Her wide hazel eyes blinked once in puzzlement, and then she broke into a smile.
“Jack!” She turned around so she could see me and opened her arms. I did what I could to fill them, half lifting her from the padded satin chair she’d been perched on. We were pretty incoherent for the next few minutes until she insisted on coming up for air.
“How’s the show going?” I asked.
“Pretty good for a slow night. What are you doing up here so early?”
“On a job for Charles. If you have time, I’ll tell you.”
She glanced at a clock on the dresser. “I got five minutes.”
“Okay.” I gave her a very quick rundown on things, including Marian’s attack on my lips, and the follow-up with Summers. Bobbi looked my face over and pursed her own lips critically.
“You run in rough company, buster. I didn’t notice before, but that is definitely not my shade.” She grabbed a cloth and briskly wiped my mouth. “The little tramp,” she muttered. “Good thing you confessed or I might have clobbered you myself.”
“What’s to confess? I was just an innocent bystander. She was the one who got all the ideas, and then her boyfriend added a few of his own. He could have busted my eardrum.”
Bobbi tossed the cloth on the table and swung around to sit in my lap. “Which ear?”
I pointed. She kissed it and tugged at the lobe a little with her teeth.
“Does that hurt?”
“Keep doing that and you won’t make it out of here in time for your cue.
“Ah, nuts,” she complained, and stood up to smooth her dress. She was wearing some kind of sparkly black thing tonight. Everything important was covered, but it looked as though it had been painted on. “I get a thirty-minute break after this set. Will you still be here?”
“Sure. If I watch out for your boss, you think I can see the show?”
“If you’re careful and stick backstage. The girls won’t say anything to him, but tell them to keep their mitts off you.”
“Yes, ma’am.”
I followed her out and hung close as she wound her way to the stage. A dozen breathless leggy girls in rustling tinsel clattered past us. One of them gave out with a wolf whistle and the others laughed. Bobbi looked at me with mock jealousy.
“They must have noticed the tie,” I whispered. “Real silk.” I waved the end at her like Oliver Hardy and she playfully swatted it down.
The band started another fanfare. She pecked my cheek and made a smooth entrance to welcoming applause. The lights went out except for a single spot centered on her. It sparked off her gown and turned her hair into a molten blond jewel. My heart ached, she was so beautiful. I forgot about looking for McAlister, hiding from the management, and any other complications the world had to offer. Bobbi was singing and that was all the world I needed or wanted.
After the show, behind the locked door of her dressing room, Bobbi peeled out of the clingy gown. “I love having a live audience, but it’s so hot under that light. Radio work is much more comfortable.”
I reclined on an old chaise lounge that was jammed up against the wall, admiring the view. Bobbi rarely used underwear with her working wardrobe, maintaining that it spoiled the lines. All she had on now were her stockings, knee garters, and heels. All I could think was, Wow.
She hung up the gown, turned on a little fan, and stood in front of it with her arms raised, which did interesting things to her breasts.
“Maybe I should go outdoors for a minute, that would cool me off,” she mused.
“Or heat up half the city.”
“Is it warm in here to you?”
“Yeah, you could say that I’m feeling a little hot and bothered.”
“I can open the door to create a draft. …”
“Don’t you dare.”
She dropped her arms and sauntered over to sit next to me on the lounge. “It’s not fair, I’ve got my clothes off and you—”
“My hat’s on the rack,” I defended. “The way I’m set up now, I don’t have to take ’em off.”
“But what if I want to touch your skin, too?” One of her hands wormed under my coat and started plucking at my shirttail.
“Uh …” Now I really was too distracted to answer. She got under the shirt and ran her nails up my back, which made me squirm. I caught her arm and did a thing or two to return the favor. We had to keep the laughter down; the walls weren’t that thick. Her other hand successfully unbuttoned my coat as she began crawling all over me.
It was absolutely wonderful.
Bobbi craned her neck in the mirror to get a look at her throat. “Good thing I’m wearing a high collar tonight,” she said, her finger lightly touching the small red marks there.
“Is it bad?”
“It’s never bad with you.”
“I mean, are you hurt?” Since our method of reaching a climax required my breaking her skin in a very vulnerable area, her comfort was of serious concern to me.
“What we do never hurts, you know that. I was talking about the hickey around it. It’ll fade in an hour or so, but not before the next show starts.”
“Next time I’ll show a little more restraint.”
“Uh-uh. I like things just as they are. Besides, it gives me an excuse to buy more stuff like this.” She shook out a red satin gown and let it slither down over her body. Watching Bobbi get dressed was as absorbing an activity as watching her strip. There aren’t many girls around with that kind of talent.
Someone knocked at the door. “One minute, Bobbi.”
“Gonna stick around for the rest of the evening?” she asked, touching up the powder on her nose.
“I’m supposed to be here to look for McAlister. Maybe I can slip out front, do a quick gander, and come back.”
“What if you find him?”
“The one weak point in all my plans,” I confessed with mock drama.
“Thar and getting spotted by my boss. He’ll know all about the lounge ruckus and he in a wonderful mood. You stay back here and I’ll ask around for you. Someone’s bound to know this fella. Clubs like this thrive on b
ooze and gossip.”
“Well, I …”
But she only smiled and winked and flashed out the door, locking it behind her. She wasn’t trying to keep me prisoner, only make sure no one else got in. That mirror over her table reflected nearly the whole room, and neither of us wanted to borrow trouble.
The band already had the next fanfare going and Bobbi made her cue just in time. I relaxed back on the lounge and listened to her distant voice through the intervening walls. Throughout her set, I pleasantly speculated over how many other couples had used the same lounge for their own romantic interludes. I had plenty of time to think about it, but when Bobbi finally came back she had news.
“I talked with Gloria—”
“The hat-check girl?”
“I was hoping you hadn’t noticed her.”
“What’d she say?”
“McAlister was here for a while and then left.”
“What time?”
“I’m getting to that. He was here when you arrived and didn’t leave until after the ruckus. Looks like little Marian was trying to keep you two apart.”
“Why do you think that?”
“Marian came back after you lost her in the parking lot and made a beeline to McAlister’s table off the dance floor. Tina was running the drinks in that section, but neither of them wanted anything. They had their heads together for a bit, and the next time she looked he was gone. Gloria said he got his coat, stiffed her on the tip, and took off. She saw Marian walk past a minute or so later.”
“Charles ought to have you as a partner instead of me. McAlister’s probably halfway to China by now.”
“Maybe, but chances are, he’ll stop to pack first. Where does he live?”
“He’s got a flop in a hotel …” I fumbled out my notebook, where I’d scribbled the address. It wasn’t far; if I hurried I might get there in time to watch his dust settle. “Gotta go, sweetheart. If I’m not back by closing, get a ride with one of the girls.”
She laughed when I kissed her and wished me luck.