Chapter 8
The man in gray answered the phone. Gooch looked at Frenchy. Lew looked apprehensively at Sammy. Sammy looked at the man in gray as he put the phone down.
They hadn't been treated badly, but they kept wondering what they were doing there because no one had gotten around to talking to them. They felt there was a purpose in it, but the man in gray had only one comment when any of them risked a timid question.
"Shaddup."
At intervals he had been replaced by a second man in gray, but he proved to even less communicative than his companion. He didn't even tell them to shut up. He sat down with his holster cleared and read a magazine. He obviously read very slowly because in three days he'd only gotten ten pages into it.
This confused the four a great deal because when they got a look at the magazine it turned out to have no printing at all except captions. It was filled with pictures of naked girls.
And now, wonder of wonders, the man who always said shut up had a new comment. He buttoned his coat and opened the door and said, "Beat it."
Gooch answered him. "Huh?"
"I said beat it. What's wrong? You got wax in your ears?"
"Where do you want us to go?"
"Who the hell cares? Get lost. Drop dead on the sidewalk. Jump in the river. Tie a rock to your neck and sink."
They were confused and bewildered, but they got the idea. They trooped out past him, Gooch, at the end of the line, pressing forward a little as though he was afraid the man might take a notion to boot him over the heads of the others.
The door slammed.
They trooped down the stairs and into the street. "Damn!" Lew said, for no particular reason. "You ain't kidding," Sammy assured him. "The louse didn't even give us carfare," Lew growled.
"You want to go back and ask him for it?" Frenchy asked. He was scowling at a finger. He'd bumped it against a chair arm and lost the whole nail. "A crummy joint," he complained. "A real crummy joint."
"We might as well head south." They started to walk. After a while, Lew said, "Why the hell do you suppose they took us there."
"Who knows?" Frenchy said. "They weren't cops." Sammy said. "Why? Cause they didn't beat the devil out of you?" Gooch sneered.
"Hell, when a cop takes you they got to book you."
"Maybe they forgot to bring the book," Frenchy said.
"Well, we didn't get beat up," Lew said with satisfaction.
"You know something. It's a good thing they let us out when they did. Ten minutes later, they'd have been in big trouble." Gooch spoke the words ominously.
"How so?" Frenchy asked.
"I was just getting ready to take that goon."
"Yeah?"
"I'd been watching him straight through. He had a gun. That was what made it tough. It's rough taking a guy with a gun. You have to watch him a long time to spot his habits and his weakness. But I had that guy measured, and I was just ready to take him when he chickened out and let us go."
"You know," Lew said. "I guess you didn't notice it, you guys, but those creeps were scared stiff all the time. They tried to cover it up but-"
"Uh-huh," Sammy cut in. "I saw that too. I tried to signal you how scared they were."
"Matter of fact," Frenchy said to Gooch. "If you'd jumped the guy you'd have found me right with you. I'd have been ready because I was watching him too."
"Uh-huh." Gooch rubbed his hands together. "Ya know, I kind of wish they'd find they made a mistake."
"What do you mean?" Lew asked.
"That they shouldn't of let us go. And they had to chase after us and try to pick us up again."
Sammy grinned and slammed a fist into his open palm. "Oh, man! Wham! Just like that. I'm an easygoing guy but I can be pushed around just so much. If they tried something like that they'd wake up wondering what the hell happened to them."
A car rounded a corner ahead of them; a black, unmarked sedan. It cruised past. Then, halfway down the block, its driver hit the brakes and made them squeal. He made a quick U-turn and gunned the car back. He pulled up just ahead of where the four, still far from home, were plodding stolidly alone.
The man beside the driver jumped out. He cleared his holster and yelled. "You guys! Over against that wall. Come on come on snap it up."
The driver was out and around the back of the car and approaching from another angle. The two men merged and began hustling the four against a nearby brick wall.
"Come on hands against the wall feet out ... out farther hands high." That's it. Now stand there."
"What is this?" Sammy whined. "Shut up."
It was a word he understood. He'd been in quite a few rehearsals with that word lately. When they said shut up you didn't say anything back. That was what they meant by it.
One of the men looked at the other. "What do you think?"
"It's them. The one on the end's Perry. I saw him in the station."
The man who asked had been expertly frisking. "They're clean."
"I'll call," the other one said.
He went to the car and came back and said, "Thirty-seventh."
The other grunted. "It figures. Come on you guys into the back."
The two cops pushed their prizes into the black, unmarked car and then both climbed into the front seat.
They showed their contempt by not even bothering to look around as they moved south toward the 37th Precinct Police Station.
The four sat silent. Then there was a sound, when Gooch gulped noisily. He was almost in tears.
"Gees," he muttered. "Why do they have to keep picking on us? Why can't they leave a guy alone?
The police announced the capture of the four rapists in time to catch the evening papers. But all they caught in the Dispatch was two inches on page six. The reason was a story that spread all over page one. A story Barney Williams had spent quite a few hours arranging. It started for Barney the night he bought Flame a drink, but the heavy work began the next day...
. . . "My name is Flame," the beautiful brunette had said, but in the hotel room far uptown that Barney had procured for her, he tested his ballpoint on a piece of hotel stationary, and prepared to go on from there.
"This isn't going to be easy," he told her. "It will be the roughest thing you've ever faced. I'll be frank with you in saying I personally wouldn't want to go through it. And if you want to back out, it will be all right with me."
"Rough?" Flame asked as she noticed the way his hair dipped down in a widow's peak.
"The worst. You're going before the public into court, where hostile men will ask you cruel, personal questions. They will try to destroy you on the witness stand before an audience, and they'll have that audience behind them. They'll strip and abuse you verbally worse than you've ever been stripped and abused in-in other ways."
"That bad?"
"Yes. And they'll be clever enough to destroy you if you aren't on your toes every minute."
Flame was frightened, but she stubbornly refused to let it show. She sat silent, wondering why she was doing this; why she had allowed herself to be talked into it?
Was she in love with Barney Williams? She didn't know. Love, to Flame, was like a threadbare garment she'd been taking off and putting on all her life. She'd murmured, "T love you," to men she'd known only an hour and had never seen again. So how could she know about what they termed true love? She thought Barney Williams had a beautiful face. But she had lain naked with men she'd known not at all and told them they had beautiful bodies.
So what was it all about?
Flame didn't know. She was confused and bewildered, frightened. But above all, she was twenty-six years old and very, very tired.
Why had she decided to go through with this thing? She didn't know. She only knew she was going through with it and that with the decision made, she would not flinch nor turn back.
"It's all right," she said. "I'll do whatever I have to. Say whatever you tell me to."
He sighed, his expression revealing his unhappiness at having started this thing.
"We've got to talk rehearse," he said. "You've got to get used to being asked personal questions. Also, you're lawyer will have to know everything about you that it is possible to find out, because you can be sure that Ringler's lawyers will make a point of finding out about you."
"Who will my lawyer be?"
"A man named Carter Gantry. One of the best. If the case comes to trial--. "
"You mean it might not?"
"That's possible. There will be a hearing first. Because of the nature of the case, it may go before the grand jury. You may be a witness against Ringler. If this happens, and it's what I'm trying to bring about, it will be just as rough on you as though you were on trial. Because that's what it will amount to."
"All right," Flame said simply.
"So be it," Barney Williams replied, the muscles of his jaws stiffening slightly. "I'm going to ask you a lot of questions. I'll take them down in shorthand along with your answers, and then we'll turn them over to Gantry." He paused. "Unless you'd rather start directly with Gantry?"
"No. I'd rather do it this way."
"Okay what is your name?"
"Leona Brown."
"How old are you?"
"Twenty-six."
"Where were you born?"
"Gravesend, Iowa."
'"How old were you when you left Gravesend?"
"I was sixteen?"
"Under what circumstances did you leave."
"I left with a salesman a traveler I met in a bar."
"Were you married to him?"
"No. He left me in Detroit three months later."
The questions went on, some of them obviously inept because Harney Williams was embarrassed, disgusted with himself perhaps, and kept dodging the vital issue. Finally, he got to it.
"At what age did you lose your virginity?"
"At fourteen. One of my cousins raped me."
"Did you invite it?"
"I don't know what you mean?" Flame answered. "I always thought rape meant rape."
"Ringler's lawyers will try to establish a picture of complete wantonness. They'll try to make you appear as a cynical temptress of men. That way, Ringler will appear blameless."
Flame's eyes looked empty and old. Then they hardened.
"I see. The details are quite simple. I was in bed at the time. My parents were both gone. This cousin his name was Frank Bing came to the house and into my bedroom. He sat down on the edge of the bed. I told him to leave but he wouldn't. He tried to kiss me. I fought him. I was scared. During the fight, he got my nightgown up over my head. The nightgown was tight around the middle and it was kind of a bag after he tied my ankles to the bed posts with two of my father's neckties. Then he raped me. He didn't untie me afterward. My parents were gone all day both of them working so he left me there. He came back a little while later and raped me again. He did it four times in all.
Then he untied me and told me he'd find me and beat me up if I told on him. He left about four o'clock in the afternoon. Does that sound as though I encouraged him?"
"No. It doesn't." Barney stopped. "Flame, would you prefer that we end this thing?"
Her look was one of faint contempt. "What's the matter? Are you getting cold feet?"
"I was thinking about your sensibilities."
"Don't let them worry you..."
"When did you arrive here?"
This question came after Barney had traced Flame's movements from Detroit to Chicago to Kansas City to Cleveland and eastward.
"Six months ago," Flame said. "I can give you the exact date if you'll give me a moment."
"It's not important now "How did you support yourself?"
"I had a little money. When it ran out I began soliciting men around the airport."
"You mean contacting men and offering yourself?"
Flame smiled fleetingly. "That was the general idea."
"When they agreed, where did you take them?"
"I was staying at the Clermont Hotel. I talked to the night clerk there and made a deal with him. I gave him five dollars for every man I brought in."
"Was this recorded as room rent?"
"I don't think so. There were always a few rooms available, and I'm sure the clerk put the money in his pocket. When I got a man to stay all night he had to register us in as man and wife and pay for the room. When we stayed all night I gave the clerk ten dollars."
"How long did that arrangement go on?"
"Until I was picked up."
"How did that happen."
"I took a man to a room and then he flashed a badge and told me I was under arrest."
"Where did the policeman take you?"
"I didn't say he was a policeman. He wasn't. T thought he was until he got me to a place on the lower east side just an ordinary brownstone. He took me inside, and there I met another man who said I'd work for him or he'd see that I went to jail."
"So you agreed to work for him?"
"No."
"What was his name?"
"I didn't know at the time. Later, I found out his name was Bates."
"Any first name or initials?"
"No. Just Bates. He was a little man, always as cold as ice. He looked like he should have been a bookkeeper or something like that. He didn't look the part at all."
"But you refused to work for him."
"Yes.. I told him I'd rather go to jail."
"Was that true?"
"Yes. A jail sentence would have been maybe six months, and then I could have moved on to another town. Throwing in with that guy, anything could have happened as I saw it. I might have landed in some crib in South America."
"Did he make good his threat."
"No. When I refused, he locked me in another room. Then, after while, he came back with three hoods-three tough young men. He said, 'Okay, make this chippy see it our way.'"
Barney stopped asking questions. He got up and walked to the window. Flame sat silently until he turned and said, "I think we've got him."
"Ringler."
"Yes."
"How so?"
"I'm not sure whether I'm right or not, but I think I am. Anyhow, what happened in that room may be very important. Try hard to remember and make it exact."
"I remember very well," Flame said bitterly. "They stripped me and took me real good."
"Could you identify them if you saw them again."
"I'll never forget them."
"When you say they took you, what exactly do you mean?"
"First, they knocked me around. One of them would knock me down and another would pick me up.
Then the first one would knock me down again."
"How long did that go on?"
"Quite a while. I was terror stricken. They hadn't locked the door and I got out once, but they chased me and carried me back in again."
"Then they raped you?"
"Yes. They were inventive very inventive. They thought of things to make me do. Real cute tricks. Twice I couldn't go on."
"From being beaten up."
"From that and other things. After one of their tricks I crawled into the bathroom; they followed me and watched, laughing at me. Then they waltzed me around some more."
"We'll need details on all that later," Barney said. "What happened after that incident was over?"
Flame's smile was bitter. "That's how you see it, isn't it? Just an incident."
"No. Of course not. I'm sorry. Would you like to take a break?"
"No. There in that room, they made me say uncle all right. Mr. Bates came back and was quite happy with the results. I think his goons probably got a bonus. I appeared a week later in one of Bates' circuses." Flame smiled again with the same bleak bitterness. "I had to wait a week for the bruises to heal."
She swiftly lit a cigarette and blew out a cloud of smoke before going on. "I wasn't really broken though, I guess, because I caused Bates' and his stooges a lot of trouble. I always howled for more money than he wanted to give me, but I guess I was a pretty valuable property because he always paid it."
"There were other stags and circuses?"
"Uh-huh. I could have worked every night if I'd wanted to. Then I gradually became my own boss I guess because Bates couldn't take the hard time I kept giving him. Anyhow, I got to be a kind of free agent. I could work when and how I wanted to and argue about money as long as I stayed in Bates' stable.
"That was a Bates stag where we met?"
"Yes. And that brings us up to date."
"Do you think Bates will be hunting you?"
"I don't know."
"It really won't matter. I'm going to have him arrested. You're going to charge him, and we're going to have him thrown in jail. He'll be out of course, and nine chances out of ten he'll go before the grand jury. Then who knows?"
Flame passed a tired hand over her eyes.
"If you don't mind, Mr. Williams, I'd like you to leave. I'm very tired. I want to go to sleep."
"Of course. I'll arrange to have you meet Carter Gantry, your attorney, tomorrow. I'll call you."
"Do that," Flame said.
She let him out and then went to bed where she cried for half an hour before she went to sleep...
When Barney Williams left, he told himself he was not going to see or call Barbara that night. This resolution came spontaneously without thought, but it was clear and definite; it was right and sensible.
Then it occurred to him that perhaps a telephone call would be all right.
So he phoned her, and the gladness and the welcome in her voice made him feel like a heel She invited him up for a few minutes and he could hardly refuse. But that was what it would be; a brief call; with perhaps a cup of coffee or a drink.
And that was how he went from taking notes on Flame's life to lying naked beside Barbara in less than half an hour. Lying there now, her body close to his, her most intimate charms revealed to him given to him as his possessions he wondered about her first experience with a man. What had it been like for her? Had she been scared? Had the man meant anything to her? Had he been a considerate, decent individual?
He thought of Flame's defloration; the brutality of the man who had taken her virginity away from her. And he wondered if Barbara could also be hiding a traumatic shock of that sort deep in her being.
He was sure that this was not true.
In comparing the two women, he visualized Flame, naked and beautiful, performing in one of Ringler's stag shows. He visualized the despicable things they would have forced her to do. He saw the avid eyes of men turn into animals gloating at the spectacle.
Then he tried the other and failed. He could not visualize Barbara in a position such as that. It was utterly impossible. He tried to do it and was able to force her body into the image, but where her face belonged, there was only a blank.
Only a blank...
"Are you asleep?"
"Now just relaxing." Barbara smiled lazily.
He kept his eyes closed and felt her lips brush his body. It was like a faint touch of gentle lightning, gone so quickly it was immediately a memory, and the thought came to him that even Flame could have been no more uninhibited.
He leaned to toy with her nipples.
She laughed softly. "I'll give them to you if yoa want."
"Are they detachable?"
"I don't know. We could find out."
"No. You keep them for me. Just have them both ready whenever I want them.
"It's a great responsibility."
"They're so small. I might lose them."
He felt a sharp quick bite. "Well I like that, Mr. Williams. Talk about insults!"
"It's all comparative. Pinned on my lapel they would look like little brown roses."
He felt her quick kiss. "You're forgiven."
His hand wandered, and he felt her body quiver as she said, "Shame on you!"
"Uh-huh."
"Am I keeping you awake, Mr. Williams."
"As a matter-of-fact, you are."
"I'm glad."
Her belly jerked and he heard the quick intake of her breath.
"Something new?" She asked the question with a quick, inward gasp.
"I don't know-is it?"
"I I'm afraid so."
"Do you want me to stop?"
"No-no-don't stop?"
"Didn't a man ever do that to you before?"
He regretted the question instantly and would not have blamed her for anger. She had every right to tell him to mind his own business. But she didn't. She hesitated while her thighs began tightening and her body jerked again.
Then she said, "Yes but I was always afraid before afraid somehow."
"You're not afraid now?"
"No oh, no but gently at first oh, gently-"
"Yes, my darling," he whispered.
Then he was surprised. Barbara said, "You're not doing it right."
He knew what she meant, but he did nothing about it. Until she moved quickly and with resolution, her body twisting and turning and readjusting itself in juxtaposition with his.
When the change had been made he again heard her voice. But a new kind of passion had dulled his receptivity; filled his ears with a ringing sound, and he heard her from a long distance away, it seemed farther than she had actually. gone.
He knew her face was partially buried in a pillow as he answered a completely artificial chuckle in his voice; as he tried, for no reason he could think of, to keep it light.
"All right. But I refuse all responsibility."
Her whole body quivered from anticipation now. There was silence except for the little cat-whimpers that came from the pillow.
"Oh, God!"
Her first clear cut reaction, and he remembered her plea: gently gently.
But the time for gentleness had past. He was unable to be other than demanding; and he knew she was giving something she had never given before.
Perhaps that was why he had to take it from her violently.
And his violence brought quick reaction. She was blindly pushing him away.
But he had passed a point of no return. It had to be finished even if it cost him his immortal soul.
"No! No! Oh, God! I can't stand it!"
She could stand it. She was a woman. She had been born to stand it. She would have to learn.
He clung to her; held her; demanded of her.
Finally, her body came up in a high rigid arc as she stuffed the material of the pillow into her mouth and screamed. She threshed violently so that it was hard for him to follow the movements of her body, but he pursued her relentlessly.
Then it was over. She collapsed and lay trembling from the after-effect, curled pathetically into a protective ball; like a child whose feelings had been hurt.
He waited; saying nothing; doing nothing.
Then she moved, and he wondered. Would she get up and go away? Was her judgment of this new thing one of disgust and revulsion.
He lay still as she moved.
As she came into his arms and cuddled there with her face against his chest. Again like a child who, after being punished, came back to ask forgiveness for the transgression that had brought on the punishment.
Still, he waited. Would she accuse him?
She giggled, the sound faintly hysterical. "I'm warm."
"It's a hot day," he said.
Again the giggle. "This room is air-conditioned."
"So it is."
"Maybe the air conditioner broke down."
"Shall we check?"
"No. I'm too relaxed. Too comfortable. She sighed. Her tongue darted out and was drawn back. "You're salty."
"I'm warm too."
"You're I don't know. You're just you."
It was her final summing up lor the moment as she cuddled closer to him and sighed and went to sleep. After a while he released himself gently and started to draw away.
She whimpered in her sleep and reached for him. He paused and then came clear and stood looking down at her as she slept naked, glorious her effect on him beyond clear towards.
He only knew that he wanted to take her. He wanted to lunge down at her like a bull and rip satisfaction from her body.
But instead, he dressed, wrote a short note that he left on the bed.
Then he quietly let himself out of the apartment ...