Chapter 4
THE first shot of Scotch went down like water, and the rotund, beet-faced Matty obeyed Steve's hand-command for an immediate refill.
On the second one, he got more for his money as the amber fluid slushed his throat, warming his in-sides and tightening his face.
"Whatsa matter?" Matty started, barmopping the area about Steve. "You look like you've seen a ghost."
"Two of them," Steve deadpanned.
Matty shrugged quizzically, let it go at that. He placed the familiar cigar butt between his thick lips, rolled it about, gnawing his teeth unmercifully into it. "You just missed the boys," Matty informed Steve as though it would surely be heartbreaking news. "Artie, Danny, Pete . . . you know. They wuz asking about you."
Steve tightened, certain that Matty pulled the "inside-clicky" bit on all Polar Bear employees. "Hit me again, Matty."
"Shall I mix it, Steve? A nice, tall highball?" Matty suggested in his father-like manner. The proprietor, easily twice Steve's age, was famous for his bigrooster-like concern over his Polar Bear brood.
"Yeah," Steve gave in. "Mix me a tall one."
While Matty poured, still chomping the unlighted cigar, Steve pulled up a stool, perched himself comfortably for what might be a long siege. Only three men were at the other end of the bar—outsiders. Steve gave the dimly-lighted table area a quick once over. Mostly couples, here and there a circle of giddy, chattering females.
"Gladys," the sex-mechanism of his brain cried out. "Why not?"
He peered more intently through the low-keyed lighting, the hazy smoke-cloud making his search more difficult.
No Gladys, he shrugged.
"This'll relax you," Matty announced, thumping the glass down on the bar near Steve's tense hands.
"Thanks," Steve replied, pushing the bills and change—the ten dollar bill he had broken into—toward Matty. He'd burn up the ten-spot, he decided, then go to his apartment and sleep it off. Alone, he added after another thorough table-search failed to bring Gladys into focus. He took a gulp of the high-ball, thinking.
Another conquest? He debated the question.
Too much effort; he shrugged. That same old routine: plying his prey loose from her girlfriends, all that nothing-talk, the hard pull convincing her to go to his apartment. It takes a lot of doing, and a guy has to be primed—really up to it—for the long haul. And then, the odds might be against you. You don't win them all. Then you're really in bad shape.
"No," he told himself. "No Gladys—no nothing." At least with Gladys, he had established the beach-head.
Downing more of the highball, he thought of those uncomplicated characters—the men who could solve the sex-problem so neatly by purchasing the necessary female partner for a stated price, like you would a loaf of bread, a pair of shoes.
Steve raised the glass to his lips, stopped short, suddenly aware of the clock behind the bar. Seven-thirty.
Adele Crandon's cocktail party would be in full swing at this moment, he thought. Most likely a jam-packed, wild free-for-all; mostly phonies sopping up the booze. But sooner or later they'd pay for Adele Crandon's liquor. He seriously doubted that she'd give away so much as the time of day without expecting something in return.
Seven-thirty-one.
He finished his drink. "Matty, do it again."
Steve drummed his fingers on the bar, recalling her suggestive words: "I always manage to get rid of the last of my cocktail guests by eight o'clock. That might be as good a time as any to find out for your-self."
"Find out what?" he asked himself. "How she would dangle that luscious frame of hers about, until he'd be spinning from want? And then, frustratingly close to the prize, she'd hand him his hat and coat? To be continued . . . next episode . . . tune in tomorrow?"
Steve tightened a sweaty palm around the high-ball Matty placed before him. He'd have to drink much faster to be out of circulation by eight o'clock, to be home in bed, sleeping it off. He downed a heavy slug, smirking as he held onto the glass.
Adele Crandon would be waiting a helluva long time for his arrival. He could imagine how furious she'd be at ten o'clock or so.
Steve's smug train of thought was interrupted by the tall, extremely young, auburn-haired girl entering the restaurant. She stopped short, only feet away from Steve; scanned the tables thoroughly, most likely searching for her girlfriends.
Steve had seen her around the office. She was either in accounting or advertising. Anyway, she was new with the company. Most likely her first job out of high school, Steve thought. She didn't appear to be older than eighteen—nineteen at the most.
"Too young," he muttered, crossing her off the potential" list. He was about to resume his all-important drinking when the girl half-turned in his direction, her opened car-coat offering him a pleasant view. She had a long, lovely leg line, slenderized by the subdued shade of her hosiery. The black skirt clung tightly to satin-sleek thighs, accentuating the snakelike slimness of her hips. And the black sweater brought prominence to the lush mounds.
Steve swallowed hard, wondering why he hadn't really noticed her before. He concentrated pleasurably. The flaming hair . . . lively face . . . the lithe, easy flowing body. He bit hard on his lower lip. This girl was a younger version of Mildred Whitney.
He looked again, his eyes were not playing tricks on him.
"Hi ya, Dolly," Matty called out to the girl. "You just missed your girlfriends." From his side of the bar, Matty spread his arms out to the girl in a gesture of welcome. "I missed you, sweetheart. I wuz askin' Janet and Betty—where's that nice, new girl?"
Steve almost gagged on his drink. When Matty shoveled, he really shoveled.
"Darn it . . ." the girl pouted. "I told them to wait for me."
"C'mere," Matty beamed, arms still spread out widely. "What's the rush?"
The girl, obviously flattered by the proprietor's attention, crossed over to the bar, placed her hands in his.
"So how's the Polar Bear Company treating you?" Matty asked, gently massaging her fingertips. Maybe Matty was twice Steve's age, but the manner in which his eyes focused on the youthfully plump breasts wasn't exactly fatherly. "You're in the accounting department, aren't you?"
The girl nodded. "It's a swell company," she sighed, managing to ease her hands out of Manny's.
"Hey, you two know each other?" Matty asked, switching glances steadily from Steve to the girl.
"Aren't you a salesman?" the girl asked Steve. "I've seen you around," she went on, not waiting for an answer. "I work in accounting—on the files."
Matty had to get into the act. "Hey, what is this? You two work for the same company and you don't even know each other." He hammed up the introduction with broad, hand gestures. "Dolly Conway, Steve Turko."
"Pleased to meetcha," Dolly beamed while Steve barely managed a smile. "Gee, I wish I worked on the main floor instead of up in that stuffy old ac-counting department. It's so dead up there."
"How about a drink, Dolly?" Steve put in quickly, fearful that she'd rattle on.
"Oh, no—-"
"Steve's a real swell guy, Dolly," Matty assured her. Then he turned to Steve, confidentially. "A couple of the older boys—married men—tried to get cute with Dolly a while back. I set them straight."
"So what's one drink among fellow employees?" Steve asked Dolly, brushing dangerously close to her huge breasts. "You are old enough—"
"She's eighteen," Matty cut in. "I saw her birth certificate. She's of legal age."
"So have a drink with me," Steve urged, suddenly remembering to stand up and offer her the stool, managing to brush the full of her thigh during the move.
"I really shouldn't—" Dolly started, not backing from Steve's daring closeness.
"Dolly likes a grasshopper," Matty informed Steve.
Standing close to the teen-ager with the ripe body and poise of a mature woman; something stirred within Steve, the challenge was there.
"I'll have a drink with you on one condition," Dolly seriously intoned.
Steve couldn't resist the opening. "That I marry you. It's a deal!"
"Silly . . ." Dolly flushed. "Now you'll really think I'm an idiot."
"Name it, Dolly."
"I'll have a drink if you'll sit at a table with me. I know it sounds dreadfully old-fashioned, but I promised my mother I wouldn't drink at a bar. She's real icky about things like that—you know what I mean?"
"And you're mother's 100 per cent right," Steve stressed, not too certain of the exact meaning of "icky." For a moment, he could see the writing on the wall. A mother's warnings before sending her daughter out on her first job. He had little doubt that Mom was also "icky" about little Dolly entering a man's apartment.
Can't win them all, Steve silently reminded himself. Anyway, Dolly was turning out to be quite a welcome diversion, a pleasant escape from all his problems—well worth the price of even a dozen grasshoppers.
Steve scooped up the bills and change off the bar. "Matty, make the young lady a terrific grasshopper, scotch and soda for me. And have the waitress bring it over to the table."
Matty nodded his willingness and Steve moved be-hind Dolly, placed his hands on the lapels of her coat.She turned her face over and up to Steve, suspiciously.
"Your coat—" Steve explained.
"Oh-hh," the girl sighed and let Steve help her with the coat.
He ushered Dolly away from the bar and toward a table. And when she started to walk ahead of him, he was glad that he'd had the foresight to remove her coat. She had that innocently sexual slide to her body movements. The spiked heels gave her buttocks an exceptionally high rise, and they seemed to be performing apart from the rest of her anatomy. Gyrating with one step, grinding with the other. Steve's fingers tingled with a new sweat.
He wanted to see more of that long-limbed movement . . . up three flights of stairs . . . down to the end of the corridor . . . through the apartment door marked 3-C.