Chapter 7
THE APARTMENT was at a good address. The building was small, quiet and had no doorman. Jay had subleased the apartment furnished, at a high rental, through a proxy-a lawyer friend. He had taken this precaution, he explained to Janice, because he was unsure of his wife's intentions. He was less worried about himself than about scandal's touching Janice. Other tenants in the building consisted mostly of professional people who minded their own business.
Janice was glad he was careful. She still felt uncommitted. She had no idea of what she would do, how she would feel, if Al came back. It was easy to hate him while he stayed away.
Both she and Jay had a key to the apartment. They met there three times the first week and four the second. Jay's social and civic engagements took up his other evenings-but his infatuation with Janice seemed to increase each time they met. And Janice felt reassured when she was with him. The apartment she had shared with Al seemed to grow more hostile every day she did not hear from him.
She had left Jay and come home on Monday night of the third week of her new arrangement with Jay. She opened the door, heard the television set blaring away inside-and knew that Al had come back. Her heart lurched with an excitement she was unable to define.
She found Al sprawled in his favorite chair with a can of beer-looking as if he had never been away.
"Hello, Al," she said, striving for calm.
"Hi, baby." Al grinned at her. "Long time no see."
She crossed the room, turned off the television.
"A long time is right," she said, staring down at him. He looked at home-but in a sense he was an intruder. "That wasn't my doing."
He continued to grin, smug of manner. "I could argue that in court. By the way-how has it been?" he asked, his tone mocking.
"How has what been?"
"Your life with Bolton. What else?"
She felt a little thrust of alarm. "So you've been spying on me."
"Did you think I wouldn't, baby?" Then, in a brusque tone: "When I didn't hear from you, I began to get ideas. That dame could be pulling a double-cross, I thought-planning to keep all the loot for herself. So I made like a pee-eye. I know about the apartment where you two shack up, sweetheart. Did you get a decent job out of him? Or are you just taking cash?"
Janice said, "Al, you really are a bastard."
"But a practical one," he said, getting up from his chair and setting the beer can on the coffee table. "You did figure on not cutting me in, didn't you, you bitch?"
"You listen to me, Al Kirby." Her voice was loud and off key. "There's nothing to cut you in on. I've never taken a thing from him-"
"I know one thing you've been taking from him." His voice was vicious. "Damn if I know how you can be so stupid. You've got what it takes to set us up for life but you won't cash in on it. I ought to walk out on you for good."
"Go right ahead."
"I should let you go on seeing him for kicks, eh?"
"You're not letting me do one damned thing."
Janice found herself yelling, "Get out-get' out-get out!"
"I'll go when I'm good and ready." He let his gaze run over her. "You're a stupid broad-but a dish. I think I'll stay tonight."
"Not in my bed."
"Your bed? It's as much mine as yours."
"Sleep in it, then. I'll sleep here on the couch."
Al's face hardened. His manner was menacing. She moved back as he came toward her. He sprang at her and caught her before she could elude him.
"You're my wife, and you'll sleep where I say," he told her. "Now come down off your high horse before I bust you one."
"You want me, knowing I've just come from another man?"
"What's wrong with that?" His grin was savage. "Knowing you've had another guy'll give me kicks-I'll be able to tell which of us is more man-Bolton or me. Quit stalling and come to poppa." He jerked her off balance, caught her in his arms. "I'll show you what it's like to have a real man again."
She broke away as he tried to kiss her. He reached, got a hold on the neck of her dress. The dress ripped down to the waist. He roared with delight. Again she tried to get away.
This time he got an arm about her. He broke the hooks of her bra with his free hand. He pulled off the bra, laughed and picked her up. Carrying her to the couch, he dumped her on it and then, before she could stop him, tore the ruined dress completely off her. She hit at him, bit, kicked and scratched-but she could not stop him. He stripped her fully.
He said, "A hell of a note-a man having to rape Iris own wife."
"That's what this is-rape!" she screamed, close to hysteria.
Al's laughter mocked her. He did not remove his clothes, simply opened them and forced himself upon her. He invaded her so roughly that she cried out with pain. The act itself was brutal and quick. He removed himself from her as soon as he had finished.
She felt abused-humiliated. She had hated him earlier-now she despised him. She closed her eyes tightly, not wanting to look at him. He rearranged his clothing, slipped on his jacket.
"I'll keep in touch," he said. "And next time I see you-you'd better have Bolton paying off."
She made no reply.
He laid a hand on her stomach. His touch made her flesh crawl.
"See you, baby," he said. With that he left her.
Al Kirby had never figured himself for a fool. He had the sweet smell of big money in his nostrils. He meant to keep on the scent until the payoff. He had not told Janice all his plans. She did not figure in all of them.
Ed O'Connor, a reporter on the Evening Standard, figured in some. Al had thrown in a hundred dollars extra on a trade-in on Ed's old car than the heap had been worth, in exchange for some information on Jay Bolton's wife.
"It's her private life that's really interesting," Ed O'Connor had told Al. "If our rag printed that side of her life, she could hit us with a libel suit that would break us. And she'd have some big backing."
"That's the side of her I want to know about, Ed-not what appears on the society pages."
"Okay. She's lived apart from Jay Bolton for some time. During this period-and earlier-she's jetted to a half-dozen places, including Paris and Honolulu, for quickie vacations. Usually with a man or to see a man, according to the gossip around town. Whatever takes her away doesn't seem to have as strong a hold on her as her social life here at home. She's here more than she's away. She does the night spots with a variety of people-and I mean variety. All ages, all types. But the real scoop, Al-boy, is her friendship with Mike and Greta Ransome. You know Mike-Ransome's Studio?"
"I don't know him," Al had replied. "But I've heard of the studio. Class portrait photographers."
Ed had grinned. "Pretty exclusive, too. The inner circle. Life for art's sake. That means few or no clothes-and no permanent sex partners. Divorces are messy, public and expensive-so why bother? Why not just swap partners, stay healthy in the wallet and reputation-and remain friends besides? Some of our best people are involved. Alice Bolton is real buddy with the set. Her husband isn't-but she's got enough guys on the string not to need him."
Al decided the time was ripe to move in on Mrs. Bolton. Janice, obviously, was not going to play ball.
He telephoned Alice Bolton from a pay booth. Her voice, he thought, was sexy as she identified herself on the phone. Probably hearing any man's voice made her sound so.
He grinned, introduced himself. "We haven't met as yet, Mrs. Bolton-I happen to be the husband of a very good friend of your husband."
Sometimes a hard line made the best sales approach. It got the customer's attention. He had Alice Bolton's.
"Really?" She seemed genuinely surprised. "Is Jay Bolton involved with your wife?"
"Very much so, Mrs. Bolton."
She laughed throatily. "I don't believe you. Do you have proof?"
"Yes."
"Oh? And why are you relaying this information to me, Mr. Kirby?"
"I thought we might get together and discuss our problem."
"You may have a problem, Mr. Kirby. I do not. If it's true that my husband has come alive at last, more power to him. I'm all for it."
Al was salesman enough to realize he was losing his prospect.
"I called you, Mrs. Bolton, because I thought turnabout is fair play," he said. "I don't want to sell you any information-but I would like to talk certain aspects of this situation over with you. I'd like to buy you a drink some time when you've nothing better to do-just to get acquainted."
"Really, Mr. Kirby, I always have something better to do."
"I come highly recommended-as a companion."
She laughed. "By anyone I know?"
"I can produce credentials from someone who knows a great deal about you-and how photogenic you are." He waited through a long pause. Then: "Could you make it this evening?"
"You are persuasive, aren't you?" she said. "Very well, you've sold me. I'll drop in at the Flamingo Room about ten o'clock. If you don't know me by sight, just ask a bartender or a waitress to point me out. All right?"
Al promised to meet her.
He put down the phone. He found himself eager to discover what Alice Bolton was like. He might be able to promote something more than money from her. He grinned in anticipation.