by Orrie Hitt
He was suspicious, but after I had showed him my driver’s license, registration card and social security ticket he seemed to be convinced.
“Bring the mail to that restaurant down there,” I told him, pointing to a sea-food house a few doors away. “I’ll be in there at one of the tables.”
“Well, I guess it’s all right,” he said, and started the motor.
As soon as the driver had gone I went into a cigar store, purchased an envelope and a stamp and addressed the envelope to myself. I put the driver’s license, registration and social security card inside, sealed it, and dropped it into a mailbox.
When I got to the restaurant I ordered clams on the half shell and a double rye with soda. But I was worried. I should have gotten rid of that stuff in my wallet long before; if anyone at the brownstone, or Eudora Channing, had gone through my personal papers I might just as well call it quits right then and there.
I had finished two drinks and I was on a third when the driver returned.
“Have a drink,” I said.
He sat down and when the waiter came over he ordered a bourbon with water. Hastily, I read my mail.
There was a check from Car Skill for two hundred dollars and a note from Sam Terry saying that he hoped the letter would be forwarded to me in Florida. Another letter, this one from Dr. Call, contained a check for a hundred and fifty dollars and a warning that no further funds would be forthcoming unless I was able to show some definite signs of progress. As usual, the Reverend inquired about his daughter, begged me to do something, and I felt pretty certain that he had choked on helpless tears as he’d written the final lines.
“You want something to eat?” I asked the driver.
“I’ll have another drink.”
We talked a little about the weather and he said it was terrible, the way prices were, and with Christmas coming on. He lived in the outskirts, in a new housing development, and he said it was rough with three kids who wanted everything under the sun.
“I should run up against more guys like you,” he said as I slid the five across the table toward him. “Believe me.”
His name was Joe Nelson and I guessed him to be in his early forties. He was a pleasant little guy, in the first stages of baldness, and he drove his own cab. He seemed the type a man could trust and depend upon.
“You’re going to think I’m nuts,” I told him as he rose to go. “But I’ve got quite a night ahead of me and you can make yourself some good money if you’re interested.”
He sat down again.
“Nothing illegal?”
“No. It’s legitimate. Strange, maybe, but legitimate.”
It was rather difficult to break through the barrier with Nelson. I mean, you take a family man, a fellow who regards his wife and kids seriously, and it isn’t easy to come right out and ask if he knows any girls who might like to talk a little business. At least, that’s the way he struck me and I went into it slowly, telling him I was a writer — this impressed him because he took a couple of the hot-rod magazines — and that I was in the market for some off-beat material.
“You know,” I said, “the city after dark, or something of that sort. Lights. Music. The way people play.”
He smiled at me across his drink. It was his fourth one.
“And girls?”
“Friendly girls,” I advised him.
He thought that one over for a long time. In fact, it was only after I had ordered his sixth bourbon and we had discussed the advantages of dual carburetion over the highly touted new four-barrels that he returned to the subject again.
“You wouldn’t use the girl’s name?”
“Oh, hell, no. That would come under the law covering the invasion of privacy.”
“All you want is the background material — right? How a girl gets into something like that and that kind of thing?”
“Yes. One girl’s story. I can dress it up wherever it needs it.”
The liquor had had its effect and he became quite confidential. The cab business, he confided, had been slow and occasionally it was necessary to supplement his income from other sources.
“You do a lot of things because of your kids,” he informed me. “Things you wouldn’t otherwise do.”
The girl, he said, lived alone in a hotel and she accepted just enough customers so that she could earn a hundred and fifty or two hundred dollars a week. She was young, only twenty-three, and she was very pretty.
“A blonde,” he described the girl. “Gorgeous. To look at her you’d wonder why she ever did things like that. A nice kid. Sometimes I meet a guy, a louse, and I wouldn’t think of steering him to her.”
“She works alone?”
He assured me that she did, stating that the only ones she shared her income with was himself and one of the bellhops at the hotel. Sometimes, if she had more than one in a night, she used the back of his cab.
“We drive out to the country, or up to the park,” he said. “And then I take a walk. That part’s all right when the weather’s warm but it’s hell, now during the winter. You can’t imagine how cold you can get.”
We had another drink and I asked him if I would be able to see the girl that night. He said he didn’t know, that he’d have to call her. When he returned from the phone he said it was all right, that he had told her about me and that I could go up in about an hour.
Forty-five minutes later we left the restaurant and went outside. I was surprised to find that it was snowing, that the streets and the sidewalks were a blanket of clean, virgin white.
We rode uptown and Nelson got back on the topic of dual carbs again. He did most of the talking.
12
THE hotel was a small, unimportant structure in the North End. A scraggly looking Christmas wreath hung on the front door. The lights in the lobby glowed dim and unfriendly.
“You wait for me,” I told the cab driver. “We’ve got a great big night cut out for us.”
A few moments later I was climbing the stairs.
The girl, who lived in a second floor double-room suite, was very pretty.
“Nelson called,” she said as I entered. This, as far as she was concerned, seemed to explain everything. “Would you care for a drink first?”
“No, thanks.” The sitting room was small, intimate. There was only one light, this from a bridge lamp at one end of a short davenport. I sat down in a cheap overstuffed chair and squirmed around until I felt comfortable. “I don’t know if Mr. Nelson told you why I wanted to see you, miss, but I’m a magazine writer and I’m hunting material for a story.”
Apparently Nelson had neglected to tell her about this, because her light gray eyes, as they focused on my face, became slightly hard. She tossed her head once, fluffing out the curls in her long blonde hair, and walked slowly across the room. The tight blue wrapper hugged her body and I noticed that she boasted a surprising amount of interesting merchandise.
“My life story isn’t for sale,” she informed me crossly. “Nelson knows better than to send somebody up here for something like that.”
“Well, we can talk for a moment, can’t we?”
She paused at the window, turning slowly. “I’m listening, mister.”
I wondered, unhappily, if Nelson had given me a wrong lead on this girl. He had indicated that she was the sweet, demure type. At the moment she seemed cold and hard, an experienced professional who had no time to waste. But in many respects she was the sort of girl I had been seeking. The job I had in mind would not be likely to appeal to a girl relatively new in the business.
“Then here it is,” I said, pushing aside any fancy preliminaries I might have had in mind. “I’m looking for material that I can use in a real hot article on night life in the city. You can help me get it. I’ll pay you well, more than you usually make, if you’re willing to cooperate. If you’re not interested, there’s no sense wasting your time or my own. It comes down to this, lady. Either you want to make some money or you don’t. Which is it?”
“You know the answer to that, mister.” She found a cigarette and lit it.
I told her, briefly, about what she would have to do. There was a party, I said, scheduled for Saturday night. It was to be a mixed party, both men and women, and she wouldn’t be the only girl in the place who sold herself for money.
“I just want you to go to the party,” I continued. “I expect to be there, too. I want you to tell anybody who asks you that you’re from Allentown, Pennsylvania, and that I had you come down to the city for the fun. In fact, I’ll probably introduce you around as being ‘one of my girls.’ Do you understand that?”
She sat down on the davenport and stretched her legs. They were nice legs, well formed and milk white.
“I get it,” she said. “This is a behind-the-scenes story and you’ve got yourself an in. Is that right?”
“Something of the sort.”
She regarded me carefully, her face mildly amused. “And how much is it worth?”
“Three hundred dollars.”
“That means two-forty. Nelson brought you and he gets twenty percent.”
“I’ll take care of Nelson myself. It’s three hundred to you, clear, if you do the job right.”
“And if I don’t?”
“Let’s not discuss that.” I waited and then gave it to her straight. “If you cross me up, or make a mistake, both of us may find ourselves in trouble.”
I didn’t want her to believe that the night would be easy or that I wasn’t serious about what I wanted her to do. In her business she was accustomed to risks.
“All right,” she said. “Supposing I do it; how do I get paid?”
I told her I’d have Nelson pick her up in the cab early Saturday evening and that while we had dinner I’d go over the final details with her. I said I would give her a hundred and fifty dollars in advance and that I would leave the rest of the money with Nelson.
“He’ll bring you home from the party,” I stated. “And you’ll get the balance of it then.”
“Sounds fair enough.”
We discussed only minor details after that. I suggested that she dress conservatively so that she would not appear to be a member of the world’s oldest profession, and that she should be ready by six. I left, just as her phone began to ring, and she thanked me for coming.
I didn’t feel too badly about what might happen to this girl. She existed by selling thrills and I doubted if she would be asked to do anything that she hadn’t done before. And I felt that I could trust her. This was important.
I had to trust her, trust somebody, or I wouldn’t be able to continue the farce.
Nelson, when I found him in the diner, seemed surprised that I had returned so soon and that I still had another place I wanted to visit. “Sibyl’s,” I said.
“You make out okay?” he wanted to know as we started crosstown.
“Fine. We’ll pick her up at six, Saturday night.”
Sibyl’s Cafeteria, at the corner of Percy and Chain Streets, was deserted at this time of the night. Most of the men were busy in the warehouses, unloading tons of fruit from the southern markets. Two of the girls lounged behind the bar and the other two sat at a scarred table, drinking coffee. I approached the one who had come over to our table the first night I’d been in there.
“Rye,” I said. It occurred to me that Nelson must think I was nuts, hanging around in this neighborhood. “With a little soda.”
She brought the drink and I noticed a roach scurry for cover when she made change on the cash register. I left the four ones and the silver lying carelessly on the bar and the girl smiled at me. I asked her if she’d like something herself and the next time she poured a drink for me she made it a lot stronger.
“Slow,” I observed.
“It always is, just before Christmas. I don’t know why. Nobody around here buys anybody anything.”
“I was looking for someone,” I said. “Maybe you know him.” I described the man who had sat with me at the table. “He sells pictures,” I told her. “And I just picked up a load in Alabama I thought he could use.”
“Jeeze,” the girl said, staring at me. “You sure don’t look the type.”
“Does anybody?”
We had another drink together and she admitted that she knew the man. But she knew only his first name, not his last. Peter. “Peter, hey?”
“A friend of mine sells some of the books and pictures for him, around to the warehouses. I don’t see any sense to them. What do men find in that kind of stuff, do you know?”
“Here’s a five,” I said. I was spending money faster than a sailor on his first day in port. “Call up your friend and see if you can find out where I might get hold of Pete.”
I could have been a cop and the girl wouldn’t have cared. A five dollar bill would have purchased her loyalty any hour of the day or night.
“Sure,” she said, taking the money. “Give me a couple of minutes, will you?”
I sat at the bar and waited for her while she went to the phone. The two girls at the table giggled and stared at me. One of them got up, starting my way, when the girl returned from the phone booth.
“I had to do a little talking,” she said. “But here’s all you need.”
She had written the information on a napkin, with a lipstick. Peter Garroty, 34 Cole Avenue, Apartment 4-B. The telephone number was CE 4-4896.
“Thanks,” I said. “I’ll give him a call.”
The phone rang only twice before it was answered.
“Yeah?” a heavy voice wanted to know.
“Minnie,” I said. “Let me talk to Minnie.” Then, “Is this Ollie?”
“Minnie! Ollie!” The voice became sharp with anger. “Christ, you’ve got the wrong number.”
It wasn’t necessary to say I was sorry. He had hung up. I smiled and left the booth.
“Hey, mister,” the girl shouted from behind the bar. “You forgot your change.”
“Have a couple on me.”
Nelson sat huddled in the cab and he seemed glad to see me.
“Gosh, it’s cold,” he complained. The engine turned over slowly in thick oil and finally started. “Where next?”
I told him to take me to Cole Avenue, which was over on the South Side, and that I wouldn’t need him any more after that. On the way over I got his name, address and telephone number and I made arrangements to meet him on Saturday night, at six o’clock, in front of the hotel uptown. I gave him an extra ten for all his trouble and he began to whistle a Christmas carol.
“I’ll get that bike for Jerry tomorrow,” he said happily. “By golly, he’ll be surprised all right!”
I got off at the corner of Cole Avenue and Branford Street, waited until the cab had moved out of sight and then walked along the avenue, checking the house numbers. I had gotten off at the wrong end of the street and it took me at least fifteen minutes before I reached number 34. My face and hands were numb with the cold and after I went up the steps and entered the tiny vestibule I leaned against the small, hissing radiator trying to get warm.
As I climbed the narrow flight of stairs a few moments later I had a tired, empty feeling in my stomach. I was about to do something utterly necessary, but cruel. The feeling was still there as I turned down the dim hall, discovered the door of apartment 4-B, and knocked heavily.
The door opened and a man stood there looking out at me. It was the same man I had met in the cafeteria. I could tell, by the way he frowned, that recognition failed him.
“Who’re you looking for?”
I hit him solidly on the point of the chin before he could move. I hit him with my right, hooking it, and I threw every bit of my one hundred and ninety pounds behind the blow. He stumbled backwards into the room and I followed him quickly, closing the door behind me.
I didn’t have to strike him again because he was down on the floor, in a helpless heap, but I gave him two more just to be sure
. Both were judo chops, one across the side of his neck slightly below his left ear, and the other midway between the shoulder and elbow of his right arm. The slam on the neck would keep him out for quite a while but the one on his arm did the most damage. I heard his arm snap, sounding like a breaking stick in dry leaves, and his body jerked convulsively two or three times. Presently, he lay still and I bent to examine him. He was breathing normally and, except for the smashed arm, there would be no serious effects.
I locked the door, noted that the shade on the lone window had already been lowered, and began a careful inspection of his room. I turned the mattress over, looked under the bed and went through the dresser drawers. It wasn’t until I reached the closet and took down two hat boxes from the top shelf that I found what I was looking for.
There were a dozen or more two-reel movie films and while I didn’t have a projector it was easy to tell, by holding the negatives up to the light, that all of them were lewd. Cursing under my breath, I unwound several of the films and dropped them in a tangled pile on top of the man on the floor.
The series of pictures and books contained in the other hat box was equally disgusting. Some were of white men and white women while others featured colored men and white women. Still cursing, I dropped the stuff beside the unmoving Peter Garroty and hurried from the room.
Four blocks away, at an all-night drugstore, I called the office of the head of the vice squad in City Hall and told the officer who answered that I wished to pass along a tip about a smut merchant who had run into physical difficulties at apartment 4-B on 34 Cole Avenue. I must have sounded quite convincing — or had the address rung a bell? — because this sworn defender of public law and order grudgingly consented to investigate the report. Even though I refused to give my name.
I hung up, bought a package of cigarettes and went out into the street again. In the distance I heard the wail of a siren, drawing closer. The black car, its red lights flashing, passed me at the corner of Jefferson and, one block further on, turned right into Cole Avenue.