Chapter 9
Jeanni didn't go home. When she got into her car, she thought it was to drive home, and when she turned the car off on the road out of town, she told herself that she was taking a drive. To cool off, to catch the evening air, to think. She told herself all of these things and more. But after an hour on the road, she forced herself to admit the truth. She was running, running as fast as she could. To Chicago.
"I'll tell Mike I'm clearing out. There's a lot to do. I can give up the apartment and sell my furniture and get my money out of the bank and still be back before Boy-O is up and around."
That was comforting. She could drive to Chicago in peace with that thought in her mind. She let herself daydream as she steered the car onto the highway and followed the white lines.
Id her fantasy she again was Boy-O's wife and they had a sweet little farm, all checkerboard crops and flowers, and they had kids too. And she loved them and she loved the life. She wove a lovely little fairy tale and wrapped it around the truth.
The truth was that she was going back to Chicago.
Halfway there, she stopped off and called home. She didn't want to worry her parents. They pretended to believe that she'd be back the next day, or the one after, or at the very latest, the one after that. But they didn't believe her. Jeanni could tell they thought she was leaving because of the scandal of her staying out all night with Boy-O Carter and then picking him up off the sidewalk in broad daylight. Well, let them think what they wanted to think.
It didn't matter to her.
She was on the road to Chicago, and back to the Jeanni she knew. The Jeanni who was good at her job and success and never confused.
Love confused her. What happened to her when he touched her confused her. Boy-O Carter, a two-bit hitchhiking gigolo, was like a thousand other young men who came around asking Manelli for work in the big time. Manelli hated them and he'd taught Jeanni to hate them for their grasping, two-bit ways. "They're not natural. They're not meant to stay in the big time." He had told her a thousand times. "Cause they've got hash-house tastes and all of them are too busy fighting their own bogymen to think about the customers."
Women are the only ones who can make out in the business she was in, Mike had taught her. Because men get their bodies mixed up with their self-respect and their hearts. Women can separate the two a lot better in the long run. Studs only lasted at Club Hades for six months. Jeanni had watched them fade away, disappear, get married. Only the women stayed. Because they didn't have to give all of themselves to satisfy their clients, and that was the female code of honor, in her racket.
What had it been about Boy-O then that had thrown her off the deep end? What did he have that the hundreds of others like him that she'd met didn't have? A cocky smile? A tiny scar over one eye that made his eyes seem even bluer than they were? Black hair and a thin body? None of these things were so unusual. She'd met men more handsome-a thousand time more handsome.
What had happened to her then? There had to be a reason. It couldn't have anything to do with Boy-O's personality-too much in that was false, too much guarded and what showed was too often unpleasant.
Funny, she thought, here I am, head over heels crazy about someone and the more I think about it, the more I think it had nothing to do with him. It must be because I was in Swanik's Landing, and because I felt so guilty about what I have become. I must have been looking for an out all the time and love and marriage is it.
Did that matter in her love?
She objectively conjured him up. He stood in front of her car on the highway. Boy-O, with his shoulders hunched and his thumbs jammed in his hip pockets. Boy-O. with his crooked wise-guy smile and his ice-blue eyes. Boy-O.
It made no difference. She loved him. She admitted it.
"I'm in love, Mike," she said, as she walked into his office.
"You look like hell. Been driving all night?" He poured a stiff double of his most expensive Scotch into a crystal tumbler and, adding ice, passed it to Jeanni.
"It isn't morning yet. It's only about four. Work has hardly begun.
He laughed and kissed her on the forehead. "Drink up. You look like you need it. What was it? One oi the local objects?"
Jeanni laughed. "No, hon. Worse than that. His name is Boy-O Carter."
Manelli burst into laughter. He walked over to Jeanni and caught her in his arms and held her there while he roared. Then he drew away and, wiping his eyes, said, "Say no more. That name takes the end of the story and prints it first. Boy-O. Jeanni, you're the greatest. There are three types of girls in this business First, there are the cheap ones-they go for doctors and lawyers or types with credentials. They make the worst hustlers because they're husband hunting. If they're lucky, you don't have them for long and if they're unlucky they turn into bitter chicks that go for a damned ten dollar quickie. But, like they're depressing, and the higher types won't throw out the cash for them. Then, second there are the perverts. They don't mind the work, because they've got other interests. So sure, there are guys, who come running when you raise the girlie flag md even so, you can turn them into chic chicks. But, in the long run, no. They just haven't got the heart. They don't hit the top rung of the ladder, even if they stay in the business for the rest of their lives."
"Which one am I?"
"Hold on. I'm getting to you. You're three. You're the best kind of hustler going. You're the kind that will bring in the big money for a long time."
"And my fatal flaw?"
"Boy-O's, baby. You dig the bad guys. I tell the truth. The first day you walked into my office, I figured you for type number two. And I was even sort of sorry for you, because I knew then that with your looks you could be top and tops around here."
"If you thought that, why did you wait so long before giving me my first female customer?"
"Well, you know," Mike bit off the end of a Havana cigar that he'd smuggled into the country and concentrated on lighting it. He walked around the desk and finally settled into his chair. His feet went on the desk.
Jeanni smiled. Whenever Mike said something he thought was not the wisest thing to tell someone, he always looked casual.
"You were such a kid," he went on. "I was afraid I would drive you off the deep end. You know, it's not unusual for those Lesbian chicks to do themselves in when they find out what the merry-go-round is all about."
"So you gave me a car to soften the blow."
"Yeah. And I expected you to start giving yourself to Claudia What's-her-name for nothing." He threw his hands into the air and smiled. "That's how wrong I can be. That Claudia chick is so wild about you, she wouldn't settle for nobody else while you were gone. It looks like this is the time to jack up your fee. You know, when they're that eager for you, they'll pay what ever you want to ask."
Jeanni smiled. "Sorry, Mike dear. But I'm getting out."
"That's right. I almost forgot. You're in love."
"In love. One hundred per cent in love." Jeanni slugged down the rest of her drink. "You think I'm crazy and I'm not sure I don't agree with you. It may be a cancerous romance but I'm wild about him. Forgive me, Mr. Manelli but you dig, I have to see this through to the end."
"You have."
Jeanni looked at him after he answered her that way. And the silence ate into her.
"I'm waiting for you to explain that," she said quietly. The tears were forming in her frightened eyes.
"Don't look so scared. I'm not going to have you slashed. Where's the boy friend, kid? Downstairs having a drink?"
Jeanni shook her head slowly. She was beginning to suspect what he was going to say.
"Where is he?"
She took a long time answering. "He's at home. He's, well, I guess you might say he's laid up at the moment. I thought I'd come and break off with Hades and get back before he got out of bed."
"Is that what you thought, or is that what you told yourself you thought?"
The tears that had been waiting spilled over on her cheeks and down her face. Mike walked over to her and handed her his linen handkerchief.
"Yeah, you're type number three all right. Where were you going to live, lovey? On a farm?"
She nodded and snuffled into the handkerchief.
"So you ran away from him, without even knowing it. And you came home, you see that don't you? This is your home now."
She nodded. Jeanni forced herself to stop crying. It was true. It was all true.
"When do you want me to start work again?"
"Like you said, the evening's young."
"I'll have to go home and change first."
"No. There's a job scheduled for five A.M. You can take that and work here."
Jeanni shrugged. It was all the same to her. "Anybody I know?"
"I don't think so. You ever meet a guy named Hanson, here?"
"If I did, I don't remember."
"If you did, you'd remember. There's an extra hundred for this one." Mike refilled her drink and Jeanni emptied it in one gulp. "Room two thirty-two. Borrow a negligee from one of the girls." Jeanni nodded and, picking up her bag, started for the door. "Cheer up baby, everything will be all right, you'll see."
She saluted him and walked out.
Jeanni stood for a moment at the top of his staircase and looked down at the dining room of the Hades. It was almost empty now. The members who had come for the evening were either in the amphitheater or the gambling room or one of the private salons upstairs. The bar was filled with the drunks who weren't interested in women and with the girls who were on their coffee breaks. She drew a deep breath and started downstairs.
Hermie Huston was at the bar. "Hi, Jeanni. Hey, kid, do me a favor?"
"What do you want, Hermie?"
"See when my wife's going to be free and ask her to come out and say hello, will you?"
"Sure." She patted him on the shoulder and began to walk away but he haunted her side.
"Jeanni!"
"Yeah."
"Don't go yet. I didn't ask you the real favor." She turned to face him. Boredom and intolerance were written all over her face. "Listen. Ask Mike to let me back in the gambling room, will you? He'll listen to you."
"Nope. Your wife hasn't even worked off half of what you owe the house, Hermie. Mike won't listen to me, especially about you. He knows I can't stand you, Hermie."
"Well, ask him if he has any openings. I'll go out on the streets and find him some new girls. I got good taste. I found you, didn't I?"
"Ask him yourself."
"You know he can't stand me."
"Who can, Hermie?" She walked away, waved to two of the waiters and passed through the curtained doorway that led to the more lucrative parts of Hades.
She took the elevator all the way to the floor marked "Penthouse." When the cage stopped, she extracted a key from her purse and unlocked the mechanism that had stopped it there. It started up again, went just one floor higher and then stopped again. Jeanni extracted her key and the doors opened. .
She was in a large room that was furnished like an expensive living room. Several doors led from it into cubicles where beds were made up, and several other doors led into fully equipped dressing rooms. This floor was given over to the girls exclusively. Even Mike Manelli never came up here. The floor was off limits for anyone but the working girls, who used it between dates for recuperating.
Jeanni had always kept herself somewhat aloof from her comrades. She didn't go in for coffee klatches that specialized in trading trade secrets; and then, too, she didn't want to be bothered by the house dykes. So she had a friendly but cool relationship with most of the six girls scattered around the room.
"Anybody off duty for the night?"
Heads were turned her way. She had been the target for a lot of professional envy. Jeanni was the most expensive girl in the house. She worked only one time a night and at the most twice, and her customers always lined up for a repeat performance. Not only that, but Manelli was always giving her presents, a mink coat one month, a Picasso the next.
"Why princess, need a chauffeur?"
"Nope. A negligee."
Now several girls were interested. Jeanni was usually set for the night by this time and rarely on the premises.
They waited for an explanation. Jeanni wasn't about to offer any. If she had to, she'd go to the room naked.
"Done something wrong, sweetheart? Thrown on the K.P. line?" It was Leslie who said that. She was tall and big bosomed, with a good face and flashing black hair. But she was a dyke, and that, Jeanni reminded herself, put her in the second class.
Jeanni smiled. She felt rather maternal toward Leslie. The girl was older than she, but she was only three months old at the game and still rather shaken about things. "In a way. Just came back from a vacation and Mike wants me to get back into shape." Jeanni twisted the knife a little in their jealous minds. She was the only one allowed to call Manelli by his first name.
"What room assignment?"
"Two thirty-two."
"Well, what do you know." Leslie smiled intimately. "We're doing a tandem. I've got that assignment, too. Hanson?"
Jeanni nodded. Mike wouldn't be trying to push her down a notch would he? He'd always played square with her before. Except for that time with Claudia Butch. Still, if she'd been the type to go Lesbo, she would have turned by now.
"That's different. You can use one of my spares, as long as that's all in the family. We're about the same size."
"Thanks." Jeanni allowed herself to be led to the locker room. Leslie had four extras on hand. Jeanni chose a lace floor-length number.
"I thought you'd choose that one," Leslie said. She slipped an arm around Jeanni.
Jeanni didn't move a muscle. "Have you ever been with Hanson before?" she asked.
Leslie smiled and nodded, "He's one of my regulars."
"What's his gig?"
"Didn't Mr. Manelli tell you?" Jeanni said nothing. Leslie tightened her arm around her waist. "Well then, why don't you wait and see?"
"That's all the same to me really. A customer's a customer. They're all the same and they all get the same treatment."
"Well, then, let's go and treat him."
They got into the elevator and operated it by key, which meant that it passed every floor until it reached the one they were going to. Manelli's system was infallible If there ever were a raid, the cops wouldn't find much.
Room 232 was like only one or two others in the place. It was designed for threesomes, which is to say, it had an exceptionally large bed, and a chair. The lighting instead of being lamps around the room, consisted of one spotlight in the ceiling above the bed.
"Ever worked a threesome before?" Leslie asked as they approached the room.
"Sure." Jeanni was lying and she knew the other girl knew that. She was a lousy liar. She waited for Leslie to expose her, but the girl kept quiet. Jeanni supposed Leslie thought she was going to have the last laugh.
"Manelli gives them to me all the time. I wonder how he decides who gets what?"
Hanson didn't look like the type who would want his medicine any other way than straight. He was an enormous broad-shouldered ape of a man, with a face that went with his bulk. He liked Jeanni. He smiled wolfishly when he saw her. "Hey, you're my type, sweetheart," were the only words he said to her.
"You see, you really are slumming tonight," Leslie whispered to her ear.
Jeanni smiled. She sidled over to Hanson and ran her arms around his neck. "Why haven't we met before, handsome?" He turned his lips' away from her kiss, and pulled her arms off him. Then he began to peel off his clothes, his beady eyes dancing over Jeanni's body like he was about to attack her.
"Did you tell her anything about me?"
Leslie smiled and strutted over to Handsome Hanson. She began to help him undress. "Of course not. You like them to be ignorant, don't you?"
"Yeah, but I never trust you sisters."
He sat down on the chair, lifting one foot off the ground. "Take off my shoes and socks, lover." He motioned to Jeanni. She did as she was told.
"I feel good tonight. I'm going to give you hell tonight. I know this is one of my good nights." It seemed to Jeanni he was going to go on repeating that theme for his entire time.
"Okay," , he said, flexing his muscles, and shifting his huge body on the chair. Jeanni glanced curiously at his body. She gasped in astonishment.
Hanson was the biggest man she had ever seen.
She looked at Leslie. A taunting smile played on Leslie's lips. Jeanni stood stunned as Leslie walked over to her and untied the collar of the negligee. Then she peeled that off Jeanni's body, and kindly led the naked girl to the bed.
Now Jeanni understood why Mike had sent her to this room, this assignment. He was punishing her and warning her all at the same time.
"Sit on the edge of the bed, honey, and face Mr. Hanson." Leslie spoke in a low voice and Jeanni obeyed.
She sat there while Leslie stripped, trying to make her body numb, afraid of what she was going to experience. Leslie sat behind Jeanni. She pressed her body against Jeanni's back. "Mmm, I'm going to enjoy work tonight. You're my type, baby." Leslie's cool hands ran up and down Jeanni's arms.
And Jeanni couldn't lock the feeling out.
"Lean your head back on my shoulder, lovely, and make noises. Mr. Hanson likes his girls noisy."
Jeanni threw her head back and now lips brushed her face.
And hands were running over her body. Jeanni made sounds and told herself that she was thinking of the customer. Her breathing accelerated and she told herself that she was putting on a show for the customer. She cried out and the sound was not pain, and she told herself, the customer, the customer.
Leslie cooed at her ear, cooed about the feeling of her breasts and pinched the ends and squeezed the flesh and let that pour through her fingers and Jeanni stopped thinking of the customer. Her mouth opened to gulp air and her lips moved against the air, caressing the air. She turned her head and her lips moved over Leslie's throat.
"That's my baby. Baby likes her Leslie."
Leslie moved back on the bed and Jeanni's body, leaning against hers, inclined on a lower angle. Her lips moved, against whatever part of Leslie's body brushed them, and her flesh crawled with the fire of Leslie's touch.
"Give that to her, give that to her," said the customer, and Jeanni felt her body struck by his glance and warmed by his breath.
Leslie's hands grappled with the flesh on Jeanni's lean hips. Jeanni felt her body begin working rhythmically of its own accord.
Move, move, in anticipation of a touch, of a kiss.
Leslie moved still further back on the bed until Jeanni was lying prone and then the girl moved to her and her lips were all over her and her hands and her mouth.
Jeanni muttered and growled low in her throat. Leslie laughed and moved away. Jeanni opened her eyes and saw Hanson. "No!" She screamed and tried to crawl up the bed away from his hairy, sweating body. He laughed. And fell at her.
"Ow!" She screamed with the pain, and then screamed against him. Her hands dug at the material on the bed and she flayed her legs, kicking to crawl up the bed away from the pain, away from the customer.
That wasn't over quickly.
Hanson got up when he'd finished and dressed quickly. He patted Leslie on her head on his way out of the room, and said, "I like her. Speak to the boss and get her again."
Jeanni lay motionless on the bed. Her hair was plastered to her forehead with perspiration and she ached horribly. Hanson wasn't' a client, he was a torture machine. She closed her eyes and let her breathing return to normal.
Leslie walked over and sat next to her on the bed.
"Want a cigarette?"
Jeanni nodded without opening her eyes.
"How do you feel, princess?"
"Like I just had an entire regiment." Jeanni sat up. She walked over to the telephone and picked up the receiver. "Manelli," she said.
There was a long wait before Manelli picked up the phone. She sat patiently waiting, smoking. An odd smiled smeared itself across her face.
"Mike? Mike, listen, I'm hurt, badly. Get a doctor will you? Where do you think I'm hurt? Well, Leslie is pretty worried. She's fainted. Okay, I'll wait. Mike, you sound worried ... oh, Mike ... I made Hanson happy."
She hung up her phone and in a flash was into her negligee. "C'mon honey," she said to Leslie. "Let's quick go upstairs before Mike gets here."
"You're in for it. Manelli will break you."
"Just a joke between friends, dear."
They raced to the elevator and by using the key, were able to make it back upstairs before Manelli hit the floor.
Jeanni took her time getting dressed. She showered and washed her hair. She took hours making up her face. The sun was up and half of Chicago at work before she was ready to go.
Most of the girls had waited for her. The air was thick with tension. Manelli had been phoning for her regularly. In fact, the phone rang again as she walked into the big room.
"How does it feel to be Marie Antoinette on her way to the party?" Leslie smiled at her. "It's too bad. I thought we were just beginning to be friends."
Jeanni shrugged and reached for the telephone. "Hi, Mike. Buying me breakfast?" She lit a cigarette and laughed into the phone. "Well, love, if you own something that's valuable, you don't treat that like junk ... Okay, meet you downstairs."
She put the phone down and her cigarette out and walked to the elevator without looking to either side. As she entered the cage, she turned around and smiled sweetly at the group of friends she'd left behind. "Sorry girls," she said. And smiled.
Jeanni didn't get home until eleven o'clock. It was eleven-thirty before she climbed between the sweetly scented satin sheets of her large and lonely bed. If she didn't fall soundly asleep immediately, that wasn't because she hadn't had enough exercise.
It might have been that she was thinking of Boy-O Carter and how far away from her Chicago life any feelings for him were. It was almost as if she had never met him at all.