Chapter 7
The fact that I didn't spend all night with the girls from Keokuk was a commentary on the sad condition of my personal life at that time. I was bound hand and foot to Diana.
She had insisted that we live together and, in order to accomplish this without interference, she had picked out a new apartment and we had moved into it as man and wife. At the same time, and for the same reason, she gave up most of the social life she had known. I became everything to her, and I knew it would be only a matter of time until she would expect us to get married, even though the subject had never been discussed. I assumed she wanted to take her time about bringing it up because of the difference in our ages, but I had no doubt she would have accepted my proposal in a minute if I'd made one.
I began to feel trapped. And that's a nasty feeling for a guy like me to have. It's apt to lead to acts of desperation.
Diana was very possessive. I had to be with her every night, and to account for my activities during the day and evening. I could have put my foot down, of course, and declared my independence as far as our personal lives were concerned. The partnership agreement protected me in the business. But, still, I knew it would be difficult to go on if Diana and I were not on friendly terms.
The business continued to develop favorably, and that included Hugo Zimmer's part of it, as well. He put his brothels into operation and Sunnical set up its transport service to and from them. Zimmer showed no sign of wanting to meddle in any other aspect of our operations, and so we left his end of the deal strictly alone.
That is, we did until I met a girl by the name of Leona Temple.
She showed up one day at the office, having ridden in from the country on our sedan-bus. The driver-one of the new boys we'd hired to handle the Zimmer runs-had spotted her walking along the country road between the house and the main highway, and he'd stopped to give her a lift. The guy never should have done it, of course, but, as things turned out, I was glad that he had.
She looked for all the world like a waif, as she stood in our front doorway wearing a cheap, ill-fitting blouse and skirt, no make-up, and her yellow hair hanging straight as silken string at either side of her childish face.
It was no wonder our driver had failed to realize, when he'd picked her up, that she was one of Zimmer's girls. When she'd asked hirn to take her to his station, he had begun to suspect. But she'd refused to answer questions. The driver had decided it would be better to bring her in to us than to leave her out in the sticks where someone else would find her. His schedule had prevented him from taking her back to Zimmer's.
I had been sitting in the front office, since there was no trip to Orange County that day, and I'd been taking advantage of a lull in activities to get a little cozy with Eleanor. We were both looking forward to a noontime romp in her apartment.
I was mighty thankful for Ellie during this period of time. If she hadn't been around, I would have had no relief from the monotony of Diana. And monotony is exactly what it had become for me.
When the sedan-bus arrived, with its load of satisfied customers returned from Zimmer's, I had taken my hand out from under Ellie's dress, and she'd moved back to her desk just behind the counter.
Then the driver had appeared, offering his explanation, and following him had been Leona.
I took her into my private room, offered her a cigarette which she declined with a shake of her blonde head, and then I asked her to tell me what was on her mind.
She twisted her hands in her lap. "Are you in business with that man Zimmer?" she asked. Her blue eyes were afraid and distrustful.
I said, "In a way. Are you one of his girls?"
"No," she said firmly. "I mean, I was going to model for him. At least, I thought I was. But when I found out what kind of business he was really in, I wouldn't have anything to do with it. That was when he locked me up."
"Locked you up?" I stared at her.
"But I got away," she explained. "When your driver picked me up on the road, I thought that maybe you would help me if I told you all that had happened. I didn't know where else to turn. Will you help me?" She looked at me intently. "Or will you make me go back to Zimmer's prostitution place?"
"Suppose you tell me everything, and then we'll see. What was that stuff about modeling for Zimmer? What did you mean?"
"Well, that was how he got me to come out here-to California, that is. I'm from Helena, Montana. I lived there with my aunt. When I saw Mr. Zimmer's ad in the magazine...."
"Wait a minute," I said. "You'll probably think it's strange, but this is all new to me. I don't know a thing about any modeling, magazine ad, or any of the rest of it, so start at the beginning, will you?"
What follows is Leona's story-in her own words, as nearly as I can remember them:
Well ... you know my name. I'm eighteen years old, and I was living in Helena. My folks died when I was young, so my aunt was taking care of me.
I'd just graduated from high school last June, and I was thinking about leaving Montana and moving some place where a girl could have a better chance. For a career, I mean.
Maybe I don't seem like it now, mussed up the way I am and all, but I'm not bad-looking, and I'd sort of been dreaming about being a model-the way a lot of girls dream, I guess.
So, anyway, when I saw this ad in the movie magazine, I got real interested. It said that girls were needed in Hollywood to be models and to appear on TV, and it said to send a picture to a certain box number along with your name and address and that you would be considered.
Well, I did it.
And I got a letter back. It was signed by Mr. Zimmer, and he told me I was just the sort of girl they were looking for. To prove it, he offered to advance the cost of a bus ticket for me to come out here, and he told me to write him and let him know if I was interested and when I could leave.
I don't have to tell you, I guess, that I was real excited. I mean, it sounded like the chance of a lifetime. So I wrote him right back. I told him I could leave any time, and I said I'd be waiting to hear from him.
A few clays later, the ticket came by airmail. And, in his letter, Mr. Zimmer said he'd meet me at the Los Angeles bus station.
I told my aunt about it, of course.
She warned me that it might be some sort of trick, but I just thought she was jealous. Gee, how I wish I'd listened to her!
Well, I took the bus, and it was a wonderful adventure. I'd never been out of Montana before-at least, not since I was a baby.
When I arrived here in California, Mr. Zimmer met me just as he'd said he would do.
He seemed funny. I mean, he wasn't the sort of man I'd expected him to be. He was awful quiet, and he looked at me in kind of a creepy way. But he didn't act fresh or anything, so I guessed it was all right.
He took me to this place he had-kind of a studio in an old house near downtown. The name of the street made an impression on me because it was the name of an Indian tribe in my part of the country. It was Arapahoe.
Anyway, he had this room in the basement with a lot of lights and a camera on a tripod, and kind of a fancy couch with a red drape over it. He said he acted as an agent and that he wanted to have some pictures of me to send around to the people who hired models-photographers and TV producers and like that.
Then he asked me to take my clothes off.
Well, I said I wouldn't do it, of course. I wasn't interested in that kind of modeling, and his letters hadn't said anything about posing in the nude. If they had, I wouldn't ever have come out. But he told me that he had to have pictures of that kind in order to get jobs for me.
I asked him if I couldn't pose in a bathing suit maybe, but he said no, that I had to be completely undressed. He said that the people who hired the models had to know just what kind of figures they had. I told him he should have explained that I'd have to pose in the nude before he brought me out to California, and I asked him to give me the money to get back home. He said he wouldn't. So then I told him I had enough money to buy a bus ticket, arid I started to walk out.
That was when he called in this other man. An awful man he was, too. Mr. Zimmer called him George.
He was big and unshaved and as strong as a bull. He grabbed me and threw me down on the couch and started to pull at my clothes. I screamed, but Mr. Zimmer just stood there and watched, with a mean smile on his face and his eyes kind of glinting like he was crazy or something.
This man-this George-got me undressed. Most of my clothes got torn, even my underthings. He just tore them right off me. And then he pushed me down and started to kiss me all over.
It was terrible.
And, while he was doing that, Mr. Zimmer set up a camera and lights and started taking pictures of it.
Well, this George ... he ... made love to me. And Mr. Zimmer took pictures of that, too.
Afterward, George left.
I was almost out of my head by that time. You can imagine. I was naked and I'd been raped, and Zimmer had told me the door was locked and that I couldn't get away. He said he was going to develop the pictures he'd taken, and that if I didn't do everything he told me to do he'd send copies back to my aunt and to other people I knew at home. He'd gotten my address out of my purse.
Well, I couldn't let that happen. I mean, I'd told everybody that I was coming to California to be a model. And for them to see pictures of me like that ... well, they wouldn't have realized that I was being raped. Mr. Zimmer said he'd write the letter in such a way that they would think I'd taken part in some kind of wild show.
I told him that if he did that, my aunt would have the police come after him because she knew who he was and that he had got me to come to California. She'd seen a couple of his letters.
But he just laughed and said he'd tell the police he had nothing to do with it, that I hadn't even met him at the bus the way I was supposed to do, and that he didn't know where I was. He said there would be no evidence against him.
As far as I was concerned, he said I wouldn't be able to talk because he was going to hold me prisoner, anyway-whether I agreed to cooperate or not.
What could I do?
I. was alone in Los Angeles-I didn't know anybody-and he had taken my purse with my money. I didn't even have any clothes I could wear.
So I said I'd do what he wanted. That was when he gave me this blouse and skirt and took me out of the basement by a back door. His car was parked there and this big man, George, drove us to the place out in the country.
When we got there, Zimmer told me I was to go to bed with men who would come out. He said I'd get money for it and that, after I'd saved a certain amount, he would let me go. But he said he'd keep the pictures of me, just in case I decided to make trouble for him later.
Well, I refused to do it.
I wouldn't do that sort of thing, no matter how much money I was paid.
So he locked me up in a room there-to give me time to think things over, he said. It was on the second floor, but I broke a window and crawled out on the porch roof. I jumped from there to a tree limb and got away. I could have killed myself, I guess, but I made it. And your driver picked me up on the road.
Are you going to help me? I just don't know what else to do, Mr. Bartley. If I go to the police, Zimmer will send those awful pictures of me back to my home town. Anyway, I can't take the police to his house in the country, because I couldn't possibly remember how to get there. So what could I prove against him?
But maybe you can do something. I mean, does a girl have to do what Zimmer says, even if she doesn't want to? Do you back him up in that?
I'd hardly spoken a word as Leona told her story. What she'd said had shocked me, and it had started a crawling sensation on my spine. If Zimmer would go to the lengths she'd described in order to get prostitutes, then he might do most anything to protect himself from exposure.
The man must be out of his mind, I thought, to operate the way Leona had described.
And then the notion occurred to me that perhaps it was Leona, not Zimmer, who was crazy. Perhaps some peculiar mental q had caused her to make up the story she had just told.
I studied her. "Could you take me to the house on Arapahoe Street?" I asked. "Do you remember what the number was?"
She shook her head sadly. "There were a lot of old buildings along that street that looked just about alike. I couldn't pick out the right one. All I remember is that it wasn't too far from Wilshire Boulevard.. We crossed Wilshire when we were driving to the house, and that meant something to me because I'd heard the name. I mean, everybody's heard of Wilshire Boulevard-even in Montana."
"Yeah," I said, still trying to decide if I could believe the girl's story.
There was an Arapahoe Street, all right, and it crossed Wilshire. Also, it wasn't too far from Westlake Avenue, where Zimmer lived. Moreover, Diana had told me that Zimmer owned other rooming houses in the area. It seemed to add up, in a way. Still, that didn't prove that the rest of Leona Temple's story was the truth.
The thing that bothered me was that it seemed outlandish. I could hardly bring myself to believe that Hugo Zimmer would do what this girl had said he did.
Suddenly a thought occurred to me.
"You said Zimmer's ad appeared in a movie magazine," I reminded her. "Do you remember the name of it?"
"Sure," she said. "It's the one I always read Movie Fan's World."
I pressed a button on the side of my desk and picked up my telephone. Eleanor's sexy voice answered it in the outer office.
"This is going to sound funny," I told her, "but I'd like you to run up to the corner and buy something for me. I'd go myself, except that I want to stay here with Miss Temple. Do you understand?"
"Sure, Jack," she said. "What is it?"
"A copy of Movie Fan's World. It's a magazine."
"I know. I've seen it. But what do you want with that, for God's sake?"
"I told you it would sound funny," I said, "and I can't explain right now. But it's very important. Can you get away?"
"Yeah. Things are quiet. I'll open your door so you can see the counter, and you'll have to answer the phone. I'll hurry."
"Thanks a lot, El," I said, and hung up the phone.
"You don't believe what I told you?" Leona asked. She had been watching me closely through those large blue eyes of hers.
"I don't know what to believe," I said. "Zimmer doesn't seem like the sort of man who...."
I let the sentence peter out right there because, on second thought, Zimmer did seem like the sort who might do something pretty offbeat. But to pull a deal as wild as this....
"How many other girls are there at Zimmer's house-I mean, the one out in the country?" I asked.
"I don't know," Leona said. "I didn't meet any of them. Zimmer locked me up as soon as we got there. But I saw your busses bringing the men, and I heard girls' voices in the house."
"Did Zimmer say he got all his girls just the way he got you?"
"He didn't tell me anything-not any more than I've told you, that is. He was pretty close-mouthed. He's really a terrible man. I'm afraid of him."
We didn't talk any more until Elbe brought the magazine. Leona just sat in front of my desk and stared at me, apparently fearing that I would force her to go back to Zimmer's brothel, and not daring to turn anywhere else for help because of the pictures Zimmer had of her.
I felt sorry for the kid. And I was inclined more and more, as the minutes passed, to believe her story.
Shortly after Eleanor had dropped a copy of Movie Fan's World on my desk, practically all my doubt vanished. For there was the ad, on one of the back pages. It was just a small one-a column wide by an inch deep-but it packed a punch that must have been the same as dynamite to a lot of glamour-struck girls in the hinterland.
It read, in black letters across the top, Models Wanted. Underneath, it went on: Girls 18 to 25 are needed for photographic and TV modeling. Big opportunities now. No experience necessary if you qualify. Send snapshots with name and address. The ad bore a Hollywood box number but no name.
"Do you believe me now?" Leona asked, her eyes still very wide.
"I'm almost forced to."
"Wh-what are you going to do about it? Are you in favor of what Mr. Zimmer's been doing, or can you make him let me go and destroy those pictures?"
"I'm not in favor of it, Leona," I said. "As a matter-of-fact, what you've said upsets me a great deal."
"Then you'll help? I'll bet there are other girls out at his brothel that need help, too."
"I wouldn't be at all surprised," I told her.
I lifted my telephone and rang the buzzer in the other room again.
"Look, Ellie," I said, as soon as she had answered, "what we had in mind for this noon is of!"
"You meanie," she retorted. "Do you think the girl you have in there would be better? Is that it?"
"It's nothing like that, El. We've got a problem. I wonder if you'd take Leona home to your place right now and stay with her for a while."
"Well ... sure. I guess so. But who'll watch the office?"
"I'll have Diana come over," I said. "I've got some outside checking up to do."
"On what, if it's any of my business?"
"Our friend Zimmer. Leona will probably tell you about it. But you keep it quiet, do you understand? This is going to have to be handled carefully, or we're all liable to get in big trouble."
"Is it that sinful?"
"Just take care of Leona," I said. "And keep her with you all the time."
"Okay, Jack. Do you want me to come in and get her now?"
"Just stay there," I instructed. "We'll be out in a minute."
I hung up the phone.
"I was talking with my secretary," I said to Leona. "You heard what I told her. You don't have to be afraid to stay at her place. We won't tell Zimmer you're there. In the meantime, I'll check on this thing and, if I find you've told me the whole truth, I'll see that it's straightened out. Will you cooperate with me?"
She nodded, the tension on her face having eased noticeably.
"Come on, then," I said, and walked with her to the door of the office.