Chapter 7
"Any minute now," Miss Purlett said. She handed Kay a business card. "Here's my number. I've got to get back to my own place and start some wheels turning. Meanwhile, don't let anyone in here. Not even Randy, if he's stupid enough to come within a mile of this place. If someone calls and offers a deal, stall them. Say you have to talk it over with your friend or something. Don't mention me by name. In a town as small as this it's a faint chance ... but there always is a chance ... our camera-carrying friend doesn't know me."
"Maybe he doesn't know me either," Kay said hopefully.
Miss Purlett thought for a moment. "You may be right," she said.
"What can I do?" Kay asked eagerly.
Miss Purlett thought for a moment. "If you were out of town, it'd cut in half the danger of being recognized. The trouble is, my shop's right around the corner. Sooner or later whoever took the picture is going to see me. But with you gone, at least there isn't the seducing-a-minor angle ... Hmmm? Is there anywhere else you could go?"
Kay thought a moment. "The convent in Seattle," she answered hopefully. "I can't afford to live there any more, but maybe they could help me find a job."
Miss Purlett tapped at her teeth with an elegantly enameled fingernail. "You're Randy's client," she mused. "All correct and proper for you to visit him at his office tomorrow. Have him put you on the plane to Seattle. Meanwhile, stay out of sight. Don't leave this apartment for any reason. Call a cab and wait till you see it in the street. If anybody tries to talk to you or detain you, scream 'police' as loud as you can."
"But what if the police come?" Kay asked.
"Tell them some masher was bothering you. I doubt if your cameraman friend'll stick around to argue the point."
Kay memorized the instructions, making sure she got them straight. "What is Mrs. Veely calls?" she asked.
"Say hello," Miss Purlett said, then she stepped out the door.
Kay locked and chained it behind her. She went about the apartment, picking up glasses, emptying ash trays, and straightening up. Finally the place seemed civilized again. She went back into the bathroom and, after double-checking the small window, took another shower.
It was no use. No matter how she scrubbed herself Kay felt soiled and shabby. She felt used. She felt dirty. Quite apart from her hopelessly ruined reputation and apart from the very real danger of spending the next few years in some kind of correctional institution, Kay carried another burden.
She could argue it all night long. People like Miss Purlett who were clever with words might demolish her arguments and make her look silly, but they could not wash away the slimy feel of sin. Kay's soul was lost. She was in mortal sin, and she knew it.
There was only one way to absolve herself. Dangerous or not, Kay wanted to see a priest. She wanted to go to Confession. Miss Purlett had warned her not to leave the apartment, but the burden of her guilt outweighed all consideration for her reputation. She was in enough trouble now. Kay combed her hair again and began dressing for the street. She was almost ready to go when she heard a knock on the door.
Kay froze. Only three people knew she was here. Miss Purlett had just gone. If Mr. Veely knew what was good for him he wouldn't be coming around. It could only be one other person.
Kay held her breath. The door was locked and chained. This time nobody was putting a key in the lock. She wondered if the light in the room was cast into the darkened hall beneath the door.
Just as she was beginning to think the stranger had given up and gone, there was another knock. Kay breathed quietly, wondering if the intruder could hear her breathing. She had been sitting rigidly on the edge of the sofa for hours, it seemed. With her coat and sweater on she was becoming hot and stuffy.
Slowly, she began removing her coat and sweater. There could be no hope of going to Confession as long as the nameless menace lurked in the neighborhood. She looked at the wall clock and realized incredulously that less than two minutes had passed.
Silently, she put her coat and sweater on the floor and stretched out, trying to get comfortable on the sofa without making any noise. Finally the silence lasted so long that she was sure the man outside had given up and gone away. Then, just as she was beginning to breathe normally, she saw an envelope sliding under the door.
It was a large manila envelope, and Kay suddenly understood how diabolically cunning her assailant was. The large envelope was almost through the doorway, but one corner was still visible outside in the hallway. If she picked it up, Kay knew she might as well shout or paint a sign that she was in here.
She lay on the couch, staring at the envelope. Loud footsteps clumped down the hall, and she could hear them going downstairs. Kay knew better than to be fooled by such a ruse. She lay silent, looking at the envelope so tantalizingly within reach. She wanted to go to bed and leave it lay until morning. Then she thought, what if some curious neighbor, some newsboy picks it up. If somebody saw that picture and recognized her when she left the building tomorrow, Kay knew she would die.
She watched the clock for a half hour, and there was no sound outside. Finally Kay slipped noiselessly from the couch and picked up the manila envelope. She heard a faint chuckle outside. Then footsteps ran down the hall.
Kay cried. She couldn't help it. The tension had been too much and too long. By the time she opened the envelope, Kay had cried herself dry, and she could only look at the photos with numb despair.
The two pictures were even worse than she had imagined. She and Miss Purlett were entwined like amorous snakes. Kay's crotch gaped open, her pink oval outlined by her wispy dark-brown hairs. Her startled face peered at the camera over Miss Purlett's widespread legs. It was awful. Kay got up and went to the bathroom. Maybe if a man had lived here there would be some razor blades....
Then she realized that was a worse sin. She had sinned and now she was paying for it-paying far sooner than she had expected. Kay picked up the pictures again and forced herself to look at them. They were practically the same picture. In each of them she looked wide-eyed at the camera over the golden fuzz of Miss Purlett's well-furred crotch, and in each picture the elegant saleslady's blonde head was lifted just enough to expose every tissue of Kay's....
She laughed loudly and bitterly in the empty apartment, laughing at the realization that she was actually still a virgin. Studying her gaping pink slash and comparing it with Miss Purlett's her hymen membrane was clearly visible. Kay was showing her maidenhead to the world!
Abruptly her laughter became sobs again. Even with the evidence in plain sight for all the world to see, who would believe she was a virgin? She didn't even believe it herself!
Then, apathetic again, Kay picked up the pictures and studied them. Whoever had taken them was an expert photographer. Focus and color were professionally sharp. Every tiny mussed hair in the back of Miss Purlett's elegant coiffure was clearly visible. The phone rang.
Startled, Kay let it ring several times. Then she realized it might be Miss Purlett.
"Hello?" she asked.
"Hello." It was a man's voice.
"Who is it?"
"Are you the one facing the camera or the blonde with her back turned?"
Suddenly Kay realized something else. Only Kay was identifiable in the pictures. Once Miss Purlett saw these pictures she would know she was off the hook. Kay would be left to face the problem all alone. She was going to hang up the French phone when the man's voice came rasping across the footwide gap to her ear. "Are you the blonde or the brunette?" he asked.
Kay gulped. "I'm the brunette," she whispered.
"Louder, damn it! I haven't got all night."
"I'm the brunette," Kay screamed.
"All right. Now do we do business, or do I sell the negatives elsewhere?"
"You'll sell the negatives to me?" Kay was incredulous. To her surprise Kay realized she hadn't prayed at all. She had been too sunken in her own despair and self-pity to do any of the things the sisters had taught her to do. Why, she hadn't even done an Act of Contrition!
"Yes," the voice rasped. "I won't sell them. I doubt if you've got enough money to buy them. But I'll trade them for something you do have."
"What?" Kay asked. Then she remembered Miss Purlett saying this man was probably a detective gathering divorce evidence for Mrs. Veely.
"I don't know if I have what you want," she quavered, "You've got it all right. Now, do we do business or don't we?"
"I guess so." Kay knew this was against Miss Purlett's instructions, but she also knew Miss Purlett's face was not exposed in living color for all the world to laugh and point at.
"Good," the man said. "I'll be there in about an hour and a half-say one o'clock. I'll knock once, and then I'll knock twice. This time you better let me in."
"I will," Kay promised. As she said it, Kay almost changed her mind when she remembered how Miss Purlett had said, "Don't mention my name. There's a chance he might not know me." Once the elegant blonde saleslady found out her own reputation was not in danger, Kay would be strictly on her own. She hoped she could find whatever it was that the photographer wanted.
She sat looking at the clock, thinking ruefully of how soon four years of convent training had gone down the spout. Then suddenly she remembered what she had been about to do before the photographs were shoved under the door. The man would be here to sell the negatives at one o'clock. It was only eleven-thirty. She knew that if she hurried and if she was lucky maybe she could find a church and confess. Maybe a priest could advise her if she was doing the right thing. Maybe he would tell her to give herself up and take her punishment! Kay hoped not.
Kay put on her coat and sweater again. She opened the door and locked it behind her, then she stepped out on the street to look for a church.
There was no church in sight. She walked hurriedly to the end of the block. Walking past the alley, she glanced quickly down its empty length. The ladder Miss Purlett had pushed over was gone.
She walked another block, and a group of fishermen in front of a tavern noisily invited her to join them in a drink. Kay turned her face the other way and walked on. She wondered what they would have said if they had seen the pictures she had just seen and then a moment later seen her come walking down the street in living natural color, showing every most secret and intimate part of her body to the world?
Her eyes misted with tears, and she angrily brushed them away. Two blocks farther and still no sign of a church.
Suddenly Kay realized she was almost lost. She turned and studied the streets behind her until she was sure of her bearings. Even though it was June, it was still cold and a raw wind was blowing. A block ahead was an all-night drugstore. Kay walked in.
"Yes, can I help you, Miss?" He was a nice-looking young man. Looking at him, Kay realized that decent young men and a decent life were all behind her now. What could she ever say if a nice young man found her picture-that awful sinful picture in a girlie magazine some day and brought it home and showed it to her?
Kay gulped and forced herself to speak. "Could you direct me to a Catholic church?" she asked.
"Why yes, St. Jude's is three blocks down and one to the left," he said.
"Thank you," Kay said. She left the store. She felt the young man's admiring eyes on her back. What would he say, how would he look at me if he knew?
The streets were almost deserted. Anchorage, she knew, was a rough town in summer. Drifters of every kind came in from working in the logging, the mining, the fishing-with two things on their minds: whiskey and women.
A half-dozen staggering men came toward her, singing and arguing incoherently. Kay detoured a block and almost lost her way to the church. Soon she was walking in a part of town she had heard about and imagined, but had never thought she would see.
From second-story windows painted girls in abbreviated dresses whistled and winked and waved at each man who staggered down the street.
"Hey, Flo, look at the amateur!" a brassy redhead called and pointed. Incredulously, Kay realized the women were pointing at her.
Amateur! How long will it be before I'm a professional? Kay hurried around the block and walked down the main street toward the church. Somewhere a clock struck twelve. A half hour gone already! Kay saw the steeple in the distance and began walking faster.
She thought about the photographs. They showed her face and the other secret part of her. Hardly anything else of her body was visible apart from a stray hand or foot. But the elegant blonde, Miss Purlett's exquisitely perfect body, was displayed from end to end as if she had spent hours searching out her most graceful position. Every curve and highlight of her superbly formed seductiveness was there for the world to see-except her face!
It was ironic. Kay was a virgin, and Miss Purlett the wanton woman. The steeple was closer now. She turned the corner and saw a ragged wild-haired Indian wobbling toward her.
Kay looked around. The church was so close and yet a drunk was in the way. There was no telling how much time she could lose trying to avoid him. A quick look told her she was on her own. She reluctantly decided to turn around and walk an extra block so that she could reach the church without incident.
While she was pondering the situation, the Indian looked up. He was younger than she had thought. Some solitary fisherman off on a drunk, she decided. He saw her and began walking faster toward her. Kay spun around and began walking rapidly in the opposite direction.
"Kay!" the Indian yelled, "Is it you?"
Kay turned around and looked. He was closer now, and in the dim midnight light Kay recognized him. It was Tommy Taskoosh.
"Kay!" he yelled, "Wait!"
"Go away!" she shrieked. "You killed old Sam; do you have to kill me too?" She began running.
At the corner she glanced back. Tommy wasn't running after her. He wasn't running at all. The whiskey must've caught up with him, she guessed.
Tommy was leaning drunkenly against a fence.
Somewhere a clock bonged once. Kay knew there was no time to circle around and find a priest at this late hour.