Chapter 9
And then Susannah had met a man named Arnie Hubble who came from the worst section of town and had no visible means of support. He lived much as Ken Fee lived, but on a higher level. That meant he lost more, and at the time when Susannah met him, he was a very worried man. He owed five thousand dollars to Deacon and Deacon was a friend of Max Arnold, and Hubble knew that it was unwise to have those men dislike him.
Susannah met him on one of her slumming evenings. He was at a cheap bar when she came in. She looked around and decided that he was the best of the lot and took a stool next to him.
At first Hubble was too preoccupied with his own troubles to notice her.
She ordered a martini and paid with a twenty dollar bill and left the change on the bar along with her cigarette case and gold lighter.
And Hubble noticed that....
Perhaps, he thought, just perhaps, this might be the solution to his problems.
He might have been thinking about robbing her at first.
It was later that he formed the plan that they had finally carried out.
"Hi," Susannah said to him.
Hubble grinned.
"I'm bored," she said.
He just kept grinning. She was the most beautiful woman that he had ever seen (except for films, of course, he liked the Italian stars) and she was obviously wealthy and Hubble had no idea what to do or what to say.
"What's the matter? Are you too shy to talk to a lonely girl?"
"I'm not shy," he gulped.
"Oh? Is it me then? Don't you like me?"
"Sure," he said.
"I'm glad. I thought you found me unattractive."
"You're very beautiful."
She smiled sweetly.
"That's better," she said. "For that nice compliment I'll buy you a drink."
Hubble gulped again. He had always known that he was handsome, charming, and quite irresistible to women, but the women had never seemed to know it. Like Fee, he had blamed his financial state. But now he saw that rich women could appreciate him for himself and not worry about his money. This had never occurred to him before. Visions of a long succession of wealthy lovelies flashed through his mind.
"I'll have a beer," he said.
She bought it. The bartender took the change from the stack in front of her. That was how they met.
She bought him a few beers and had a few martinis herself. Hubble began to feel more confident as the alcohol went to work oh his doubts. He began to tell her about himself, talking too fast and drooling a little, but she didn't seem to mind. She just kept looking into his eyes and acting very interested. She might have looked rather amused, too, but Hubble was too enthusiastic to notice this.
"You're very handsome," she said.
"Yeah, that's what they say."
She arched her brows over her glass.
"You're probably the most handsome maa that I've known in a long time. You're much more handsome than my husband. He's not handsome at all but he's rich. That's the only reason I married him."
She paused to sip her drink. "And he's not good in bed, either," she said. "A man would have to be crazy not to be good in bed with a girl like you," he said. "Would you be good?"
"I sure would," Hubble told her. "All the girls tell me how great I am, and with you I'd be even better because you're so beautiful."
"I might take you up on that," she said.
And, for the first time in three beers, he gulped. He began to sweat. The bartender looked at them and shook his head sadly because he had a fat wife and had never been picked up by a rich nymphomaniac.
"Do you have an apartment?" she asked.
"Well...." he hesitated. He did have a place but it was very grubby and not at all suitable for seducing or being seduced by rich and beautiful women.
"I have my car outside," she said.
He seized on that. "That would be better," he said. "I have a place, see but there are always lots of girls stopping around to ask me if I will go to bed with them and they might interrupt us!"
"Shall we take a ride then?"
"Yeah" he said.
He downed his beer. A trickle ran down his chin and he wiped it from his skirt with a dirty handkerchief. Susannah got off the stool. She left a nearly full martini and Hubble hated to see it go to waste and was tempted to gulp it down, but he fought against the urge. He didn't want her to get the idea that he was uncouth, or worried about money and wasted drinks.
They went out.
Susannah walked slightly ahead of him and swung her hips a little. The bartender shook his sad head and poured himself a shot a bourbon. He thought that Hubbel was a very lucky man and he resented it.
He resented it for ten minutes.
That was when Moose came in and asked him if he had seen Arnie Hubble, and the bartender said that Hubble had just left and Moose went out and after that the bartender no longer thought that Hubble was lucky at all, and even figured that Hubble deserved to have the beautiful rich tramp because it might well be the last woman that he ever had. Or the last anything, for that matter. Everyone knew who Moose worked for.
Susannah was driving a brand new Pontiac and she gave the keys to Hubble. That thrilled him. He sat behind the wheel and leaned his shoulders toward the door and tried to look as though it was his car.
She got in the other side. She had already closed the door before he remembered that he should have opened it for her. But she didn't seem to mind.
"Where shall we go?" he asked.
"Anywhere. Some place nice and lonely where we can be all by ourselves," she said.
Hubble started the car and drove. He had even forgotten that he owed money and should be a very worried man.
Susannah sat close to him on the wide seat. After a moment she put her hand on his leg. Her touch was like an electric jolt and Hubble nearly ran into a telephone pole She smiled as the car swerved. She liked to see these obvious reactions when she touched a man. She slid her hand along looking for reaction Hubble drove to a spot he Knew It was an empty lot between an empty and condemned building and a building which should have been empty and condemned. An old car rusted helplessly in the shadows. He pulled into the lot and heard broken glass crunch under the tires. He pulled up in the shade of the vacant building. A broken window with a few boards nailed over it was beside the car. He turned the key off and left it in the ignition. It was dark in the car but the wall of the other building was bright with moonlight. It was a romantic place, or something like that.
"This all right?"
"Wonderful."
"It's pretty quiet here."
"I like you so much it doesn't matter if we did it right on the barroom floor."
"I like you, too," he said. "Show me," she said.
Her hand caressed him and he slid across the seat and moved into her arms. She was damp and warm and smelled of exciting perfume.
They kissed. When they parted they were both panting very hard. Her hand was still on him.
"Do you want me enough to do what I ask?"
"Sure," he said. He nodded to make it more emphatic. She smiled.
She reached down and took the hem of her dress and pulled it to the waist. He stared. Her panties were silk. She took the elastic in her fingers and pulled them down, raising from the seat so that they could slide under her. She took them off and dropped them to the floor. She raised one knee and put her foot on the seat. The other leg stretched out.
Hubble moaned from just looking at her.
He touched her.
"Wait," she said.
He moved his hand.
She touched herself. She moved her fingers over herself while he watched. He saw her body change beneath her own hand, saw her grow ready. He opened his clothes, fingers fumbling with the buttons.
She continued for what seemed a long time. Once he reached out but she shook her head and he just watched.
Then she picked her panties up from the floor and held them out to him. "Take them," she said. He took them. "Feel them."
He crumbled the smooth silk in both hands. "Kiss them," she said.
He brought them to his lips and kissed them.
She watched for a while.
"You know what I want?" she asked.
"I ... think so...."
"Do you want to do that for me?"
He didn't answer. Instead he dropped the panties and moved onto the floor. The steering wheel pressed into his back but he didn't notice. He was only aware of her body, so close to him.
She placed her hands on either side of his face and gently pulled him to her. He went willingly. She was as smooth as the silk of her panties, rubbing along his face. He kept his eyes open. Her eyes were open, too, watching him.
She moaned. "More," she said.
His lips parted, caressed her. His hands moved beneath her to dig into her smooth buttocks.
Sweat glistened on her. She started to move, pushing against him. All the while he raised her higher.
She was moaning without pause now, a long, low, extended moan.
Hubble was disappointed when she put her panties back on. He was ready for a pleasure of his own. Susannah knew that, and she took pleasure in leaving a man that way. She had had her thrill. What did she care for his needs? She liked to see him squirm.
"Can't I ... aren't we going to do anything else?"
"I have to go now."
"But I ... "
"You were very nice to me. Would you like to see me again, Arnie? Would you like to see me tomorrow?"
He nodded.
"All right," he said.
"Tomorrow we'll have time for other things."
"Be patient. Save that for me. It'll be better if you wait."
Glumly he nodded.
Susannah drove him back to the bar. She let him kiss her and then she made him get out and she drove home to her husband, feeling very smug and contented. She felt so good that she thought she actually might go back and see him again sometime, and that she might make him do the same thing for her and leave him frustrated and in agony again. That was fun. It was nice to be beautiful and desirable and to be able to force men to do whatever she wanted and then to watch them suffer.
Yes, I just might see him again, she thought.
She felt so good that she told her husband all about it, just to see him squirm.
Hubble stopped for a beer and to look smug in the bar but the bartender avoided his eyes.
Hubble thought that this was because the bartender was jealous of him.
But the bartender felt sorry for him.
After that Hubble went home. He was still frustrated but he had high hopes for the next day. He could tell that she had really liked him.
He went into his apartment and snapped on the light.
And Moose hit him with a right hand in the stomach and a left hand behind the ear.
Hubble went down. He didn't even try to get up. Moose kicked him in the side of the head and after that he couldn't have gotten up anyhow.
Moose kicked him a few more times and then picked him up. He slapped him until Hubble's eyes opened. One eye was swollen from a kick and could not open much but the other eye spread wide with fear.
"You're going for a ride," Moose said.
"No!" Hubble pleaded. He meant to sound pleading, anybody, but Moose took it as a refusal and hit him in the other eye. Moose had to carry him down the stairs.
"Well?" Max Arnold asked.
Hubble stood before his desk. Deacon was sitting in the corner looking disinterested. Moose was standing behind Hubble, twisting his arm.
"I don't have any money," Hubble said.
Moose twisted the arm a little higher.
"I'll give you until Friday," Max said.
"Might as well kill him now," Moose said. "This punk won't get any money."
"Can you get any? You don't have any friends that will buy your life?"
And Hubble thought of Susannah. But he knew that he could not very well expect her to give him five thousand dollars. And Moose twisted his arm a little more and that was when the idea of kidnapping her came to him. He blurted it out right then and there. At first Max did not seem interested. He didn't want to get involved in a snatch. If Hubble could do it on his own, fine. But Hubble, talking to save his life, made it sound easy and simple. Deacon, who wanted his money, considered it.
"We could get more than five," Deacon said. "Ask for ten and get interest on our money."
"As long as it couldn't be pinned on me," Max said.
"It would be easy," Hubble said.
"All right," Max said.
Moose twisted Hubble's arm a little more just for the fun of it, and then they made the plans.
Susannah was late and Arnie waited in the bar with a very white face except for the bruises. Both eyes were closed and he could hardly see. The bartender wouldn't look at him. Arnie didn't think that she was going to show up, and he was very, very frightened. He gulped his beer and his head swam with fright.
And then she came.
"What happened to you?" she asked.
"A couple of guys jumped me last night," he said. "I guess they wanted to rob me but I managed to fight them off."
"How brave and strong you are," she told him, and he didn't see the sarcasm because he couldn't see much of anything with his busted eyes.
"You deserve a reward for that," she said. "Shall we go for a ride?"
He nodded.
It might be fun to have his battered face down there, she thought. It will make him look more help less. And she laughed and walked out of the bar with Hubble following and she swung her hips a bit more than the night before because she knew that everyone was watching her and she supposed, and hoped, that Hubble had told them all about what it was that she had made him do for her in the vacant lot. She liked to have men know about the things that she liked.
She drove. She remembered the way. She pulled into the same place and turned the motor off. Hubble was sifting on the far side of the seat.
"What's the matter?" she asked.
He mumbled.
She touched him. He was no excited.
"Don't you want me tonight?" she asked.
"Sure," he said. He looked out the window. She moved closer to him.
"Let's do what we did last night," she said. She expected him to protest, but he said nothing. She frowned. Something was definitely wrong.
And then Moose opened the door on her side and Spiro opened the door on the other side and she looked from one to the other. She was frightened. She was only a little surprised. They're going to rape me, she thought.
And she liked the thought.
And she was disappointed when they didn't. Moose grabbed her and tied her hands behind her back while Spiro kept a hand over her mouth. Then they taped her mouth. Hubble sat very quietly all the while. He didn't say a word and she didn't move. Spiro had to reach across him to grab Susannah. When she was tied Moose dragged Hubble from the car.
"Got to make this look good. To protect you," he told Hubble. Hubble cringed.
Moose hit him very hard on the jaw. Hubble would have fallen but Moose held him up with his left hand and hit him again and again with the right. He felt the jawbone give and after that when he hit Hubble the man's jaw wobbled without resistance. His face changed shape.
But it was for his own protection.
They left Hubble in a pool of blood beside the Pontiac and carried the girl to their own car. They threw her in the back seat and drove off. They went a few blocks and stopped and Moose put a blindfold over her eyes. She noticed how big and strong his hands were.
She wasn't the least bit frightened.
They drove her to the cabin and Spiro went in with her and Moose drove back to report to Arnold. He had followed orders because he always followed orders without protest, but he was disappointed that he had not been allowed to have some fun with the girl, and he was jealous that Spiro was going to be left alone with her. Max had him make the telephone call to her husband and tell him where and how to leave the money. And then they had only to wait, and to find a chump to collect the money just in case the husband notified the police instead of following their instructions.
And so Moose was very glad when the ransom was not paid and he was given, chance to show the girl that they meant business. Very glad.