Chapter 1
To look at Jill, one would never know the harrowing life she had been through at the age of twenty. She still had a charming, innocent and sweet look about her that made any man who looked at her overwhelmed by her charm. This was precisely why Jill was able to get away with what she did. She was a thief.
To begin with, she was absolutely beautiful, with long blonde hair that fell below her shoulders. Her bright blue eyes shone like beacons, and her small, straight, slightly uptilted nose fitted perfectly into her oval face above an adorable heart-shaped mouth, a mouth that had kissed as often as it had lied. If Jill had anything to her credit, it was that somehow, through all the horror she had been through, she had retained her virginity.
Yet Jill had a body that was made for love, and she was determined not to surrender that body until she had found the one right man, (little did the poor girl know.)
Jill was superbly curvaceous, with full breasts that tilted upward just the slightest bit, a narrow waist a man was almost able to span with his two hands, broad hips tapering to full, slender thighs, which in turn led to full-blown calves and delicately trim ankles. All in all, she was a stunning eyeful.
Had it not been for her brother, Tom, Jill might well have been an entirely different person. She didn't enjoy stealing, lying, or cheating, but Tom had developed a drug habit. He had a two-hundred pound monkey on his back. In reality it was more like a horse in his body, the big Horse, Heroin. The brother and sister were lonely, and all they had was one another.
Tom was two years older than Jill, and he had cultivated the friendship of certain undesirable individuals, one of whom had turned him on to heroin. Jill didn't even know about her brother's habit until she had finished with high school. She had intended going to secretarial school, wanting to make something of herself, but it was at this time that Tom had revealed his three-hundred dollar a day habit to his sister.
So Jill didn't go to secretarial school. Nor did she go to modeling school. Instead, she joined a dating service. It was one of the lower class dating services, where the women were expected to do more than be a companion for the evening. Jill was aware of this, but she decided right from the start that she would know how to handle herself. She told Wanda, the one who took all the dating calls, to make sure she got the heavy drinkers. That was all Jill wanted. Wanda, for an extra fifty dollars a week from Jill, agreed.
It was a policy that all men dating girls from this service had to take the girls out to be seen in public so that there was no direct accusation of prostitution leveled against the dating service. It was at this time, when she was out with a customer, that Jill made sure the man had a lot to drink, and to help things along, she added chloral hydrate to the last drink. It took a little time to work, and usually, by the time they got to the customer's hotel room, he had just about enough strength to go to bed, where he passed out. At that time Jill would help herself to the contents of the man's wallet, leaving the sucker with just enough money for cabfare to the airport. Besides, if the man woke up and found some money in his wallet, he might believe that he had spent most of it.
This way, Jill was able to support her brother's habit. That is, she was able to support the habit until she ran into bad luck three nights in a row. The first night, the man had been a local rather than a transient or a tourist, and it turned out he had spent all but fifty dollars. The second night, the man had nothing but traveler's checques, and Jill wasn't able to use them.
The third night, the customer was neither too drunk, nor had he taken enough of the chloral hydrate to completely knock him out. As a result, he reported her to the service, and they had been obliged to fire her. So now Jill was without a job.
"I need a fix," her brother was gasping, rolling around on the lone bed in the corner of the fleabag hotel room the two of them shared just off Times Square. "Oh God! I need one. I need it bad, really bad." It was the afternoon after Jill had been fired.
"I don't have any money," Jill told him, herself wearing a cheap white blouse and blue skirt, not wanting to wear her good clothes for fear of ruining them and not being able to go out on a date, assuming she was able to get a job with another service.
At the moment, another job with a dating service was highly un-likely. The word always managed to get around, and Jill was considered poison.
"I need a fix!" her brother screamed at her. "I don't give a damn how you get it. Just get it."
"But they won't give me anything without money," she objected.
"So fuck for it!" her brother bellowed.
"Tom!" she gasped.
"Nan! I don't mean sell yourself. There're too many whores walking the streets now. But you're prime cunt, sis. You're that rarity, a twenty-year-old New York virgin. God! I'm going outta my mind, and you just stand here in this rat trap and want to protect that lousy cherry of yours. Jesus! If I had the fucking strength, I'd hump that goddamn cherry outta you.
This way there'd be no doubt about you being able to go out and fuck."
"You're sick," Jill gasped, backing against the dingy gray wall across the room, holding an arm up to her eyes, not even wanting to look at her brother in his present condition.
"Yeah, I'm sick. I need a fix to get well. Mac Zephry'll give you one, too. All you gotta do is ask him. Tell him I'll pay him. He knows I'm good for it."
Her heart began beating a little more quickly as she thought there might be a way out, after all. This Mac Zephyr, he just might be willing to give her brother a fix. In the meantime, she'd find some kind of customer, dope him, and get enough money to pay this Mac.
"I'll talk to him," Jill promised, grabbing her vinyl purse and edging toward the door. "I'll get it for you somehow, Tom."
"Yeah, yeah, you do that, Jilly-baby," Tom nodded. "You know, if things were reversed, I'd come through for you, too. You know that."
Once she would have agreed. Her brother used to be very protective of her when she had been younger. It was one of the reasons why she was still a virgin. No one touched Tom Caldwell's kid sister, no one. If anyone even managed to look cross-eyed at Jill, Tom would have blackened the guy's eyes.
Dope did strange things to men. It turned them from decent human beings into raving animals. The craving was so overpowering, people cheated, killed, maimed, did anything just for enough money to pay for a fix.
Seeing her brother becoming one of these raving animals made Jill sick.
Still, there was almost no cure for something like this. Only one percent of all dope addicts ever came back. The rest had to either feed the habit, subsist on methadone, or die.
Shuddering, Jill asked, "Where do I find this Mac?"
Her brother haltingly gave her directions, and when he was finished, Jill opened the door and hurried out of the hotel room. Soon she would need to pay the rent here, as well. If she didn't, both she and her brother would be tossed out into the street. God! How had they managed to sink this low?
Ten years earlier, they had been living with their parents in a small house in Queens. Then their parents had witnessed a gangland execution. In order to keep them quiet, the syndicate had quietly brought Mac Zephyr around to make friends with Tom. It was he who had freely introduced Tom to the wonders of heroin. Then the mob had told the Caldwell parents that if they testified, their son would receive no heroin from the mob. Caldwell immediately had his son brought to a clinic, swearing he would testify anyway. It took a staged auto accident to make sure both he and his wife died, leaving Tom and Jill without any means of support.
A relative had sold the house for them and had let them live with him while he freely spent the money he had received from the sale of the house. He gave Tom just enough to continue feeding his habit, since Tom had stopped going to the clinic. But two years earlier, the money had run out, and the relative had invited Tom and Jill to move. So they had come to this vile hotel in mid-town Manhattan, more of a flop house than anything else. Jill, finished with high school, had, for two years supported her brother's habit. But now she had no means of support. She had to see this Mac Zephyr, or Mac Zee as he was more popularly known. Maybe, just maybe, he'd give her brother some credit until she got another good-paying job. Maybe she'd be able to find some kind of sugar daddy. That would be the thing. She had the looks, she knew the moves, and she still had her hymen intact, which would be another plus for any rich old geezer who was looking for one last fling, provided he had enough money to spend on her.
Romeo's was a bar on Eighth Avenue that would never have remained in existence if it had to depend on selling liquor. The drinkers had more sense than to go there, since most of the liquor was watered. The bums who did go there had little-enough to spend.
Jill had to walk through sidewalks littered with both, garbage and human beings, some sitting on curbs, others simply lying about. Down here, the bag women lived, sleeping in buses when they got enough money, in alleyways when they didn't, living out of the bags they carried with them. Most of them never lasted more than a year or two, the winter usually seeing to it they died unmercifully.
Jill entered the dimly lit bar and waited until her eyes became accustomed to the smelly interior. To the left was the long bar, surprisingly sturdy considering it looked to be more than a hundred years old. Behind it was a burly bartender who made a point of not noticing her since she didn't walk up to the bar. He was leaning on the bar doing a cross-word puzzle while the large TV set in the corner was showing some kind of soap opera. The place smelled of the many people that had once frequented it, though at the moment there were only four people other than Jill and the bartender there. One of the people was sitting at a front table, nursing a bottle of beer. He had a heavy growth covering his face, and from the look of his clothing, he slept in them.
The other three were at the back of the room, talking in hushed tones, paying no attention to Jill. She walked over to the bartender and he looked up, asking, "What d'you drink?"
"I don't," she replied. "I'm looking for Mac Zee."
"That's him," the bartender pointed to the trio at the back of the room.
"Which one?" she asked.
"Hey Mac!" the bartender yelled out.
"Yo!" one of the men yelled, lifting his head.
"Him," the bartender said to Jill. Then to Mac, "Lady to see you, buddy."
Jill walked over to the large round table at the rear of the barroom. She saw two men slowly fade into the darkness as they moved toward the rear door. The one still sitting stared right back at her. He had brown hair that stuck out like porcupine quills. His eyes were small, dark, and beady, and below them was a long nose camouflaged to some extent by a gigantic mustache. It actually had handlebars at the end of it. He had round, boyish cheeks, but there was nothing boyish about the small, mean mouth below his mustache. He lid a weak chin covered with day-old stubble. At the moment, he was wearing a red-and-black striped polo shirt and blue denims. Considering the neighborhood, and the fact that it was early spring, he was appropriately attired.
He looked at the chair opposite him, as if to tell her to sit. Jill sat. She clasped her hands on the table as his eyes wandered over her. No, he wasn't undressing her. He wasn't the kind to waste time doing something like that with his eyes. If there was a way to get into her, he'd succeed. If not, he was better off not thinking about sex where she was concerned.
"Yeh!" was all he said.
"I'm Jill Caldwell," she told him. "You know my brother, Tom."
"You here to pick up his material?" Mac asked. "Yes," Jill nodded.
"Prove you're Jill Caldwell," he said to her.
"I have a chauffeur's license," she told him. "I needed it when I went to work for the dating service and I had to drive cars belonging to the service."
"Show me," he said.
She reached into her purse and took out the license, handing it to him. He looked at it, examined the picture, nodded, and passed it back to her, saying, "You're Jill Caldwell."
"I'd like my brother's...material."
"I'd like my money," Mac told her.
"I don't have any money at the moment," she told him.
"It figures," he nodded. "Otherwise Tom would've been here to pick up the crud himself. What are you supposed to do, con me out of the stuff?" This last was said with a wide smirk on his face.
"No," she replied. "You know Tom. He's always had the money."
"Yeah, I know you're the one who gives it to him. Everyone who knows Tom knows it."
"Well I'm out of work for the moment. As soon as I get a job.. . "
"No money, no stuff," he said, shrugging.
"Please," Jill begged putting a hand on his hairy arm.
He looked down at her hand, and she removed it. The man placed a Marlboro between his lips and lit it, saying, "This is a cash business, baby. You never know when some junkie is gonna cash in, so it doesn't pay to give credit."
"Please!" Jill begged.
"Too bad your brother doesn't have some security," he shrugged.
"He does," Jill told him. "He has me."
"What good are you?" he asked. "I can get all the two-bit whores I want. Shit! How do I know you don't have the clap?"
"I...uhhh...I'm a virgin!" she gasped.
"What? Who you kidding, honey? There isn't any such thing in New York today."
"I am," she insisted. "I've managed to keep my virginity."
"A virgin, eh?"
"A saleable commodity," she nodded.
"You're a saleable commodity as long as you don't have clap or any other kind of VD," he told her. "Hmm, maybe, just maybe."
"Maybe what?" she asked.
"Maybe I can use you for special occasions."
"I see," she nodded.
"Whatsamatter, don't like the idea of becoming just another twat?"
"No one does," she told him, shivering.
"Yeah, well maybe we can do something about it. A virgin, eh? Here," he told her, taking a glassine envelope as if from nowhere. It was the size of a postage stamp. "There's enough in there for one fix. You give it to your brother, then you come back to me."
"Yes, yes, of course," she nodded. "Thank you, thank you very much."
"Words," he muttered. "Words don't mean a damn thing. You can thank me in other ways, when you get back here."