by Orrie Hitt
“Would you care for another drink?”
I told her I would, observing her as she moved over to the tiny bar. She had a compact, fluent body and when she returned, leaning forward to hand me the glass, I arrived at the conclusion that she did not wear a brassiere beneath the sweater.
“Would they pose for nudes, Mr. Gordon? You know, art studies?”
I shrugged and pretended to deliberate the matter. “One of them did that type of work,” I said. “She didn’t seem to mind. I don’t know about the others, though. You know how it is with that sort of work, Miss Channing. If a girl is overly modest she can’t be of much assistance to the artist.”
“Yes,” she said, thoughtfully. “You’re quite right.”
“It’s funny,” I remarked casually. “But I came in here to sell you a car and now we’re talking about models. Do you, by any chance, know of anyone who might be interested in my other venture?”
“It’s quite possible, Mr. Gordon.”
“I’d like to see the girls get ahead. And that’s a fact. It’s pretty tough for them to make a dent into the business by themselves.”
Eudora Channing agreed that this was so and she said she would be happy to discuss my problem with one of her friends. I inquired about when she would be able to do this, since my girls were getting impatient, and she assured me that she would go into the matter that very evening.
“You could stop around tomorrow,” she said. “I could tell you more about it then.”
I asked her the name of her friend, if she thought it was better that I looked into it myself, but she was quite evasive.
“There may be nothing to it,” she said. “I’ll have to let you know.”
I had pushed my luck about as far as it would go for one day and I decided to leave. She walked with me to the door and, to make the whole thing seem more natural, I put in another plug for the Mercedes.
“Perhaps when you come back tomorrow we can take a ride in it,” she said. She swung the door back and forth, kid style, and smiled prettily. “But I’m not making you any promises, Mr. Gordon.”
I told her that was okay, that I’d be happier if she could do something for at least one of my girls. She said that she would do her level best and she held out her hand. I grasped it briefly and found it warm and soft. She stood in the open door, watching me, until I reached the car. I turned and lifted my hand. She waved once and closed the door.
I did not immediately return to the city. Instead, I drove up the road a short distance, turned around and came back, running with the lights out. About three hundred feet above the Channing house I pulled off the road and parked the car deep in the shadows of an overhanging maple tree.
During the next hour several cars came up the road but none stopped at the white colonial house on the hill. Suffering from cold and boredom I was ready to abandon the project when, about seven-thirty, a car slid over to the curb and extinguished its lights.
The driver reappeared about forty-five minutes later and, after two attempts, managed to turn around in the shaled driveway. I started the Mercedes and followed the car down off the mountain. It was not, I discovered when we reached the intersection, the Caddy convertible.
We made two stops upon reaching the city, one at a fashionable brownstone on Tenth Street and the last at an exclusive apartment building not far from Pershing Hill. I assumed that this was where the driver lived since he exercised great care in locking the car, a late model Packard, before hurrying up the steps.
I waited five minutes and then entered the apartment building. A tired-looking woman pulled her dust mop out of the way as I came in.
“Aw, I missed him,” I said to noone in particular. “Wouldn’t you know it?”
“Missed who?” the woman wanted to know.
“That man who just walked in. He damned near hit me with his car, down at the corner.”
“Who? Mr. Miller?” The woman shook her head.
“It’s your own business, mister, but I wouldn’t bother him about it. Not if you’re not hurt, I wouldn’t. He’s a detective in the police department.”
I didn’t have to feign surprise at this revelation. It was genuine.
“You’ve got a point there,” I admitted. “I guess I’ll forget about it.”
As I drove to the brownstone on Tenth Street I tried to evaluate the full meaning of a detective assigned to the city police department paying a call upon Eudora Channing. It could not, I felt sure, have any relation to official business since the Channing woman lived outside the jurisdiction of the city. And, I felt equally certain, it could have no possible connection with me; or, at least, no association with Bill Morgan, hot-rod article writer and dabbler in affairs which did not directly concern him. But, in spite of all of these assurances which I was able to give myself, I was disturbed. I had expected, if anyone came to the Channing house, the man in the Caddy convertible. I had, instead, drawn a detective. It was not, as far as I was concerned, a healthy compromise.
Lights burned brightly in several of the windows in the brownstone on Tenth Street. I thought, once, of simply ringing the bell and asking for Detective Miller but quickly discarded this as being both too risky and amateurish. I settled, eventually, for a quiet drink in a tiny bar at the end of the block.
There were only four people in the place, all of these seated at a booth in the rear, and the bartender, an elderly man with a limp, seemed to be talkative and friendly.
“Hell of a place for a stranger,” he said, agreeing with my previous observation about the city. “Nothing to do and a million and one possible holes where you could do it.”
I told him, while he poured the second rye and soda, that I had spent some time in the city during the war, on a ten-day pass, and that I had known a fellow who had lived in the neighborhood.
“It was a pretty casual thing,” I explained. “Hell, I don’t even remember his name. He was a writer, or something. Tall, lean-looking. It seems to me that he lived in that big brownstone, the one with the old geranium pots in front.”
The bartender smiled and accepted my offer of a drink. He said that he had ulcers and only took ginger ale but that he appreciated the gesture, anyway.
“Won’t find many men in there these days,” he informed me. “Not for long. They just come and go. Know what I mean?”
“I don’t think I do.”
“Everybody says it’s a — a — oh, you know….” The old man finished the ginger ale, rinsed out his glass and placed it carefully beneath the bar. “But I don’t know anything about it, not for sure. A few of the girls come in here once in a while. Not often and not enough to get to know them. They change around a lot.”
I pushed my glass across the bar and ordered another drink. I began to feel better. I was, I felt, heading in the right direction at last.
“You wonder how they must feel,” I said, trying to draw him out. “Doing things like that.”
“Most likely you won’t believe me when I tell you this, but some of them enjoy it. They even make jokes about it, comparing the men, and sometimes I hear them talking about it when they’re in here. There’s one girl, a pretty redhead, and I heard her saying … well, it’s disgusting.”
“I think if I had a daughter like that I’d kill her,” I said. “I really do.”
“No, you wouldn’t, either,” the bartender insisted. “These girls — most of them, I mean — are driven into it, or they fall into it because everything is all tangled up in their homes, get me? Why, just last week — I think it was Tuesday night — there was three of the girls in here, sitting right where you’re sitting at the bar, and one of them said her old man was a minister. Can you imagine a minister’s daughter becoming a — a — ” He choked on his own indignation.
I closed my eyes. Excitement was pounding at me.
“Was she — pretty?”
“Well, yes, pretty. Not beautiful. Just pretty. And dark-haired, cut short. Just a kid. I hadn’t seen her before.”
A few min
utes later I told the old man goodnight and left the bar. It was cold outside and tiny flakes of snow filled the shadows of the night. I walked slowly up the block, past the brownstone with the lights in the windows, and wearily got into the car.
There was nothing I could do for Judith Call — not at the moment anyway. She’d made a terrible mistake coming to the city and she would have to pay for her lack of judgment by selling her flesh to all those who might be willing to buy it. I was only one man and, it was evident, it would be useless for me to turn to the police for help. I had started out to do the job alone and I would have to continue to work that way. Judith’s future, as well as the futures of countless other girls, could very well depend on how swiftly I could accomplish a task which, at the moment, seemed almost impossible.
I couldn’t resist wondering, as I drove away from the curb and past the lighted brownstone, if any of the girls would really care.
9
IT was apparent, from the moment that she got into the car, that Eudora Channing wasn’t at all interested in the Mercedes.
“You drive,” she said. “It’s too slippery for me.”
The snow of the night before had caked the country roads with a fine covering of ice. While the sand trucks had been active, especially on the hills, it was necessary to proceed with some degree of caution.
“My, but it’s low,” she exclaimed. “And it sits something like a Jag, with your legs straight out in front.”
The silken legs beside me were long and smooth and nicely formed. I hadn’t been able to see anything of them the previous night, due to the slacks, but that afternoon she wore a bright green dress under her fur coat and this gave me a good opportunity to observe. What I saw was worth looking at more than once, especially after the coat separated in the middle and she left it that way.
“I can’t give you much of a demonstration,” I told her. “If I let this thing out we’ll both wind up in the hospital.”
I had driven out into the country, perhaps five miles, and the roads were even more hazardous there. I had to keep the car under forty and, even at that, we went into a couple of minor skids on one of the curves.
“It’s all right,” she stated, yawning. “I’m not going to buy the car, anyway, Mr. Gordon.”
I almost told her that it wasn’t important, that it didn’t matter much one way or the other, when I remembered that I was supposed to be a car salesman and, this being the case, I should act like one. So, when I got to the next driveway, I pulled the Mercedes off the road, came to a jolting stop, and then backed out into the macadam again.
“Hell,” I said. “You could have told me that before I ran up any more miles on Hymie’s car. He’s going to be sore at me for this.”
“I’m sorry, Mr. Gordon.”
“Well, okay.”
We rode another mile or so in silence. Once, I offered her a cigarette and she took it without saying a word. While I held the lighter for her I got a chance to look her over quite carefully. The coat was open, all the way to the top, and I could see her breasts rising up underneath the dress, high and full and proud. She had used just the right amount of scent powder on her face and her choice of lipstick shade, an off-color pink, went very well with her lustrous black hair. She was, in all respects, a mighty attractive woman.
“Aw, look,” I said, after another quarter of a mile. “I’m sorry, Miss Channing. I shouldn’t get myself upset or say things like that to you. If you don’t want the car, you don’t want it.”
“You could call me Eudora.”
“Well, then, Eudora.”
“That’s better, Bill.”
Neither one of us had mentioned the subject of my girls back in Allentown but a couple of things, especially the way she’d glanced at me once or twice, sort of parting her lips in a contented smile, had given me the impression that she had been giving the matter some consideration. Of course, I could have come right out and asked her about it myself but, from the way I looked at it, I had given her the bait and if she didn’t take it and run with it, it wouldn’t bring any results. I had to make her want something from me before I could consider that I had made any real progress.
“You’re from Allentown, Bill?”
It was the only weak link in my story. No one in Allentown knew me. If either she, or her detective friend, decided to look into that there would be no point of me continuing with my deception.
“I was only there a few weeks,” I said. “Just long enough to get in and out of business.”
“But it isn’t your home?”
“No. I haven’t any real home. My folks are dead.”
“No girl friend, either?”
I turned and smiled at her as I cut off the main highway and swung onto Westminister Drive.
“I did have. But she’s dead. She got killed in a skiing accident.”
I guess Eudora Channing didn’t think I felt badly about it because she didn’t say she was sorry or anything like that. She merely yawned again, stretching out on the seat beside me this time. Her breasts seemed to swell beneath the dress, trying to fight their way out into the open.
“What about the girls you had in your agency? Were they from good families?”
I parked the car in front of the house, at the curb, and then I gave her the hook. I didn’t want to do it, because the people out there in Allentown had been pretty nice to me, but I had no other choice.
“You show me a good girl from a family of coal pickers,” I said, “and I’ll show you a diamond in every snowball you can roll in your front yard.”
“Really?”
“What’s the use of lying about it?” I spread my hands wide and brought them together with a thud. “I didn’t close up because I wasn’t doing any business. I got out of there simply because the girls were doing too much of the wrong business in the wrong places. If you know what I mean.”
“I think I do, Bill.”
I could smell her perfume all around me, sticking in my nostrils like fragrant glue. We were very close in the small car and I could hear her breath going in and out like a tiny, delicate bellows. I sensed that I had hit the angle right, on the proper plane, but I knew that I had to make all of it sound credible. I let out a long sigh and plunged into it, hoping that I could nail it down before the moment escaped me.
“I have to tell you this,” I said, “because of what you suggested last night. After I left, I got to thinking what a lousy shame it was that I could go ahead and let you put in a good word for me with some of your friends. I’m sure, no matter who they are, that they wouldn’t have any interest in either me or the girls I used to have in my agency.”
Warm fingers reached over and touched my hand on the steering wheel. I tried to act perplexed as I looked deep into her eyes. She smiled and gave my hand a tiny squeeze.
“You can tell me, Bill,” she suggested quietly. “If you want to.”
My story was good and I managed to work a ring of truth into it. I called upon the things which I had learned while going with Sandy to make the background sound authentic. I spoke of the young girls who aspired to become models, of the heartaches they experienced as they went from place to place and found that nobody wanted to listen to them. Then I talked about men and of what some of them expected from a pretty girl and of how a lot of girls became so desperate that they couldn’t say no. And I pointed out how easy it was, for both men and women, to sink into the lower echelons of vice, without even knowing it or ever planning that it should happen.
“So that’s the way it went,” I concluded. “I got jobs for the girls but some of those who hired them wanted more than a pretty figure or a smiling face. Eventually, the girls gave in and we began to make money like crazy. Before I knew what was going on I was into it over my head. Allentown was too small a place for that sort of thing. I had to get out and get out fast.”
The early dusk of a new evening tumbled down out of the sky. A few flakes of snow floated against the windshield and, moments later, tu
rned into tiny goblets of water.
“What about the girls?”
“For all I know, they’re still in Allentown.”
“Could you get them to come to the city?”
This, of course, presented a problem but it was something that I would have to work out as I went along.
“I suppose so. I don’t know. At least one. Maybe two. Maybe more. I don’t know.” I lifted her hand from the steering wheel and placed it in her lap. I hung onto it for a moment, feeling the warmth of her body seep through the dress, and I smiled. “But it’s just the way I told you, Eudora. If any of them got near some of your friends you’d never hear the last of it. Why — ”
“Bill,” she said suddenly, pushing the door open. “Come on into the house. It’s getting too cold out here.”
We went in and the first thing she did, after we’d hung up our coats, was to fix two high, very strong drinks. She asked me to throw a couple of logs on the dying fire and, as soon as I had done this, we sat down on the davenport. The wood in the fireplace snapped and crackled and the shooting flames filled the room with a rose colored glow. She looked exceptionally pretty sitting there beside me, her head back against the cushion and the smooth stockings on her legs reflecting the light from the fire.
“Bill,” she said. “Be honest with me. What is it you really want? To make some real money or to fool around with those stupid cars?”
“I told you it was an angle that I just picked up. There isn’t any money in it and I know that. But it’s better than nothing and it’ll have to do until something else comes along.”
She swung around on the davenport, facing me, and she smiled. Her knees, as she curled her legs beneath her, appeared round and smooth.
“Something else has come along,” she told me. “If you’re interested.”
“Tell me more.”
Her eyes were frank, intense.
“I like you, Bill.”
“The feeling is quite mutual,” I asserted sociably. “In fact, if you want to know the truth, the moment you opened the door yesterday I sort of forgot about selling that car.”