Chapter 4
A gray Bentley parked in front of the building told Brick he was in for trouble. The building itself was a frame structure that sprawled over a half block. The remaining part of the block was occupied by an asphalt playground with a high wire fence about it. The place shocked him with its dilapidation.
Under the streetlights huge scabrous sections of paint were peeling from the siding. The sign over the double doors-Justus J. Peabody Settlement House-hung awry. Even the gymnasium windows, covered with heavy wire grille, had been smashed. Many of the shingles from the roof had disappeared. All four basketball hoops on the playground had been stripped of their netting.
The building sat near the end of Hamilton Street like an old man beset with ills and awaiting death. A crowd of urchins crawled over the empty Bentley at the curb. Brick shooed them away. Calling obscene epithets that surprised even hardened Brick-the oldest of the kids might have been seven-they melted into the night.
Brick stared grimly at the drawn shade of the office window. Yellow light shone mutedly inside that room. Well, he thought, I'll have to face her one time or another, so why not now?
He was in the mood for a depressing interview anyway. He climbed the rickety steps. The steps needed painting, as well as new risers. He made a mental note.
The front door was unlocked. Brick stepped into the darkened hall. It reeked of old gym clothes. Brick wondered what else could happen tonight. The Lazar kid. Kreeg. Now she was here.
Why the hell couldn't he have arrived in daylight?
The other times he'd seen Peabody House, the sun had been out. The place had never struck him as so hopelessly decayed. It was as though the people on Hell's Half Mile were trying to help the building die. The thought depressed him.
Even before Brick Fontaine opened the office door, he smelled her perfume.
The perfume wasn't cheap. It had cost fifty dollars for a four-ounce flacon. Brick knew the price well. He'd bought the flacon last Christmas, after the Stags cinched the conference title.
Brick's hand hesitated on the knob. Couldn't he back away quietly? Walk out, perhaps roam the street until the Bentley drove off? Doing so, he would avoid one more complication in a situation that was complicated enough already.
But being all man, Brick remembered a little about the woman waiting for him. How the hell could I forget? he thought.
With a sharp twist of the ancient knob, he opened the door.
The gray, sad furnishings of the settlement house office absorbed an electric brightness from the shining girl.
Brick put his suitcase down, flung his coat onto a fusty maroon leather couch. The girl perched on one corner of the desk, watching him. Brick knew remorse. To give up this golden creature-.
Even seated, the girl gave an appearance of tallness. Her clothes were chic. She wore a modishly-tailored gray suit and a tiny pillbox hat atop her lustrous yellow hair. The hat's veil was thrown back, a smoky mist. Draped over a battered swivel chair was a coil of fabulous silver fox.
The girl's face was well-modelled, aloof and pale, with deep greenish eyes that regarded Brick with a mixture of amusement and tolerance. All her features combined to say a single word: aristocrat.
A tasteful diamond bracelet gleamed on her wrist as she stubbed her cigarette in a tin tray. She drew her hand back and rested the long scarlet nails on her thigh.
"Hello, Brick. I thought you needed a welcoming committee this first night of the great crusade."
Brick kicked the door shut with his heel, aware of the provocative scent of her perfume.
"Elaine, why the hell did you come here?"
One patrician shoulder lifted in a shrug.
"The Olsens don't quit easily."
"We discussed all that ... We decided it was only sensible to break it off."
"I thought perhaps you'd reconsidered." Elaine Olsen spoke slowly, savoring the spectacle of his embarrassment. "After all, we said goodbye a whole week ago."
Brick lit a cigarette, savagely.
"Damn it Elaine, you're not the only broad in the world. You think you're so damn special. Such a marvelous prize."
Elaine stood up, eyes afire.
"I should slap you for being an utter fool."
With a weary sigh Brick responded. "Elaine, we finished it. Let's not start again. We had enough quarreling when I decided to take this job."
"Are you quite positive you want to end it?" Elaine asked.
With deliberate provocation she unbuttoned the top button of her suit.
All the mental reserve Brick Fontaine had been building crumbled a moment after the stunning blonde girl completed that one simple gesture of unbuttoning. Brick brought his eyes to her lips, then to what lay below. Her body, even though he was thoroughly familiar with it, stirred new interest, with its very concealment in the proper suit.
Elaine smiled, knowing he was powerless to keep from feasting his eyes on the flesh he hadn't touched in quite awhile. She placed her laced fingers in her lap as she sat again on the desk's edge.
Brick studied her a moment. The tallness of her. The impossible ripeness of her full breasts bulging beneath the suit, each one separate and high and full-fleshed.
The suit fabric drew in sharply beneath the curving undersurfaces of the breasts, hugging her trim belly down to where her hips flared out in maddening allure. As she sat with the corner of the desk thrusting like a spear into the latex-tight surface of her right buttock, Brick was able to make out details of her underthings beneath the clinging woolen suit: the exciting ridge of her girdle around her thighs; the tautness of her garters stretching to her nylon-tops. Beneath the hem of her skirt a fluffy froth of petticoat showed. Her nylon-clad calves above the needle-sharp heels had a downy-gold roundness whose embrace Brick knew all too well.
He fumbled awkwardly for words. What a laugh! Brick Fontaine was never at a loss for an off-the-cuff talk at a press luncheon. Still no amount of bitterness or iron will could dampen his ardor for this girl.
She saw it too. She rubbed lightly on her upper right thigh, teasing with insinuating motions. She shifted slightly on the desk. Her calves were wider apart. The hem of her skirt was in view all of the way around, giving a glimpse of white lace that vanished upward to murky shadow.
Laughing at him, yet carrying an emotion in her green eyes that surpassed mere sophisticated cruelty, Elaine undid another button. The graceful gold column of her throat became exposed.
Brick found himself wishing she'd unfasten all-.
"Elaine, don't try that."
"Try what?" she responded coolly. "This wretched little place is stuffy. I'm not one to stand on ceremony. You know that, Brick darling. Miss Elaine Olsen confounds press and public with her shockingly amoral behavior. At least I used to."
She stood up, moved toward him. He wanted to reach out, touch and fondle her gray-hugged breasts. He shoved his cigarette back between his lips instead.
Elaine met his nervous gaze with a merry laugh.
"What? Is this the fabulous Fontaine? The Stags' own thirty-thousand-a-year back? The successful insurance executive who has so many clients he can hardly find a spare moment to write million dollar policies? You're acting like a child, Brick dear. Maybe it's because you know this is stupid." Her red-nailed hand swept the frowzy office. "A waste. A horrid waste."
Brick shook his head. "Hamilton Street needs Pea-body House."
"Then why have the last three men who tried to run it failed?"
"Because they came down here with a lot of damn notions about social uplift! A lot of psychiatric stuff about group dynamics and adjustment and social integration. The kids in this sewer of a neighborhood just need sombeody who gives a damn for them the way they are. Kids interested in basketball and athletics because they've been taught to hate school, hate brains. The directors your father's trustees sent down here were too damned brainy and too damned soft. If I can get one potential teenage killer to develop a liking for sports instead of stealing hubcaps, that'll be accomplishment enough. You wouldn't understand such simple approaches, would you, Elaine?"
A long moment passed. Almost sadly she told him:
"I find your tone offensive, Brick. Especially since we were once planning to be married."
He raked a hand through his hair.
"Yeah, sure. But charity cotillions and running a settlement house don't mix. You told me to choose. I did. So why are you here?"
"I thought that perhaps when you finally came down to Hamilton Street-quit the team, quit the insurance business-and saw how futile it all was-Oh, Brick! Don't think I'm heartless. I know these people need help. It's just that-"
She moved still closer, placing a hand on his shoulder.
"I love you, Brick. Why I should fall in love with a silly football player out of the middle-class suburbs of Pittsburgh, I'll never know. But it happened. And you were making such a go of it in the business you started for the off-season. You threw it all away!"
Brick's face was white with anger.
"Did you forget Chip?"
"No, of course I didn't. But-"
"My own brother! A nice kid from a nice family. Lying dead on a morgue slab after a game of chicken and a smashup. Elaine, the kids he was running with were decent kids, from good homes. And they were just as wild as the ones roaming Hamilton Street. So money isn't the only answer. I can't go back to being fat and happy and the occupant of a very comfortable mink-lined rut. Not until I try this for awhile. Maybe I can never go back, I don't know. But what happened to Chip is happening to these kids, too. When I heard of this opening-"
"Do you realize," Elaine blazed, "that my father and the trustees have nearly abandoned Peabody House? This year's budget appropriation squeaked through by the narrowest of margins. A few more incidents of vandalism down here and the trustees may give up the project completely."
"Meaning you might apply a little pressure?"
"I'm only trying to get you to face facts!" Her lips hovered near, breast-tips almost touching his shirt. "Don't you love me?"
"Elaine, I'd love you even if-hell, that's beside the point."
One red-nailed hand hesitated at the next button.
"That's why I came here, Brick. To make sure, in spite of all the words. There's only one way I know of to make you realize what you're giving up."
Slowly she began to unbutton the next button.
"The Olsens believe in fighting for what they want, Brick. And you're mine. I don't really think you can walk away from me. Or this."
With a twist she opened her jacket and laid bare her slip-clad breasts.
Memories of the passionate fury they'd shared for three years tormented Brick as he stared down at those incredibly ripe mounds, quivering faintly in the cloth-hugging bonds of the delicate bra and lacy slip. Elaine took hold of his hand, guided it to her left breast. She worked his fingers back and forth. He could feel the nub begin to lift, grow firm with passion.
She shifted her stance slightly, bringing her belly against his.
"Let me show you, Brick. Let me show you what you're giving up."
He wanted to run as she dropped the suit jacket from her shoulders and slowly pushed the skirt down over her hips. Yet he loved her-he couldn't dodge the truth of that. Her body was like a shrine, a golden shrine he couldn't draw his gaze away from.
Smiling faintly, Elaine bent down. Her slip hugged her buttocks like a tight skin of rubber. Catching the hem, she pulled the slip over her head and flung it on the floor.
"Can you honestly say you don't want to see more, Brick?"
Her voice was soft, yet firm-edged. She was waging fierce war for what she wanted. Color flushed her cheek. She cupped her palms beneath each breast.
"Brick, I'll use every low trick I know to get you back. If you'll come back I'll never let you regret it. You know how good I am. A marve, you said once. You called me a horizontal Olympic star. Don't you remember that? Or do you need to be reminded?"
Brick's hands knotted in fists.
"Elaine, ow cruel can you be?"
"But I'm not cruel!" she shot back. "I love you. And I want you to love me. Just once more. There."
A finger indicated the leather couch.
"I came here to test you, darling. I know we could be wonderfully happy together. I'm going to undress, Brick. I'm going to undress for you and make you have me on that couch. Then you'll see that this idealism of yours is foolish."
Elaine took hold of the upper edges of her pink girdle, slowly working it down over her hips. Brick was sweating, agonized. God, she was beautiful, the gold-gleaming calves so muscular and soft in nylon, the belly so cool but so capable of fiery fever. She posed before him in her bra and girdle and nylons. Slowly, temptingly, she began to roll down the upper edge of her girdle.
Then her belly was completely nude.
In another moment-
The mere thought started furious drummings in Brick's temples.
Red lips parted slightly; Elaine breathed rapidly; her aroused breast-ends pierced hard against the bra fabric. She hesitated before rolling her girdle further, giving him just a tantalizing glimpse of ivory-and-gilt splendor.
"Tell me, Brick," she said huskily. "Tell me you don't want to see more."
"Elaine, you're cold, merciless-"
"Another inch, perhaps, Brick? If you saw another inch, then could you decide?"
She rolled the girdle still lower.
"Get your clothes on-" he began feebly.
"Would you rather see everything before you decide?"
In one sudden gesture the girdle was around her knees.
Elaine leaped against him. Brick tried to fend her off, his hands on her cool-fleshed shoulders. Then, hating himself, he found his mouth seeking the perfection of hers. His whole body desired her as their mouths met.
She kissed superbly, her tiny pink tongue an instrument of her desire, quaking between his lips as his hands came up to unhook her bra so that he might caress her golden breasts.
Elaine fumbled at his shirt. A moment later the muscular hardness of his chest contacted her nude breasts.
The heat and whisper of her thighs trembled close.
She wriggled her belly, slid it back and forth.
The scent of her hair was in his nostrils as she nuzzled his neck, bit playfully.
The room reeled, swam around Brick. He pushed her to the couch and dropped beside her.
His hands roamed her body, her belly, her buttocks, her breasts, feeling the warming of her flesh as she began to breathe stridently.
"Brick, do you love me? Brick, you must when you do that-"
"God help me, I do love you."
"Then do that again. Do that-oh Brick!"
He bruised her with kisses. Her lips slid over his face with wild ardor.
"Hurt me, Brick! Yes, hurt me like that! My whole body wants to be hurt-"
Disarmed, he felt his own passions responding to the love-play. Suddenly they were both naked on the leather couch, locked, clasped so tightly he thought he'd break her back.
"Brick darling, don't keep me waiting. Come to me!"
"Why did you have to be so damned beautiful? Why?"
"Am I beautiful, Brick, am I? Do I feel beautiful all over?"
"You're-honey and fire. You're beautiful all over." She raked his shoulders with her nails. "Brick-"
"Damn you, Elaine, damn you, damn you!"
"Oh, lover, my sweet Brick, let's go, let's go!"
"Elaine-Elaine-Elaineelajneelaine."
"Oh, Brick, I love you. I love you!...."
Their bodies blended in hurtling fury that drove Brick to violence, made her howl for fulfillment.
In a frenzy they fell from the couch with a jolting crash that coincided with explosion, holocaust, madness, spasm-
Afterward, when Elaine had dressed, she asked simply:
"Brick? Coming?"
Staring at her, loving her totally, he still shook his head.
"I can't."
About to speak, Elaine thought better of it. Deep in her greenish eyes Brick thought he saw anger, a determination that made him apprehensive. She draped the silver fox about her shoulders aloofly, then opened the door. Brick had a last tempting view of those perfect thighs moving rhythmically off into the dark.
He closed the door. Shaken, he sat at the desk, head in his hands. After a moment he lit a cigarette.
He wondered whether the rest of the world would label him insane for throwing over a girl like Elaine in order to bury himself in the slums and try to redeem some of these kids.
But there was Chip, so bright and young-and mangled and dead on a morgue slab.
Brick realized he had no choice. He got up. He saw a white glove on the floor. One of Elaine's, forgotten. He started for the street just as he heard the big Bentley purring away. Too late.
Brick laid the glove on the desk and stared at it a long time. He'd never be able to forget Elaine completely. But perhaps in time he could achieve partial forgetfulness.
The glove on the desk mocked him, told him it wasn't so.
Brick picked up the glove and threw it violently into a corner. Out of despair and a sense of frustration, he dumped his suitcase on the couch. The leather was still warm, burnished to renewed life by the caress of Elaine's nude buttocks. From the depths of the bag he extracted a pint of bourbon.
The bourbon had been brought for those weeks in the future when he would have worked a long, hard day. But tonight it tasted very, very good.
He drank nearly half the pint in great tormented gulps.