Chapter 9
IT was apparent, from the moment that she got into the car, that Eudora Channing wasn't at all interested in the Mercedes.
"You drive," she said. "It's too slippery for me." The snow of the night before had caked the country roads with a fine covering of ice. While the sand trucks hdd been active, especially on the hills, it was necessary to proceed with some degree of caution.
"My, but it's low," she exclaimed. "And it sits something like a Jag, with your legs straight out in front."
The silken legs beside me were long and smooth and nicely formed. I hadn't been able to see anything of them the previous night, due to the slacks, but that afternoon she wore a bright green dress under her fur coat and this gave me a good opportunity to observe. What I saw was worth looking at more than once, especially after the coat separated in the middle and she left it that way.
"I can't give you much of a demonstration," I told her. "If I let this thing out we'll both wind up in the hospital."
I had driven out into the country, perhaps five miles, and the roads were even more hazardous there. I had to keep the car under forty and, even at that, we went into a couple of minor skids on one of the curves.
"It's all right," she stated, yawning. "I'm not going to buy the car, anyway, Mr. Gordon."
I almost told her that it wasn't important, that it didn't matter much one way or the other, when I remembered that I was supposed to be a car salesman and, this being the case, I should act like one. So, when I got to the next driveway, I pulled the Mercedes off the road, came to a jolting stop, and then backed out into the macadam again.
"Hell," I said. "You could have told me that before I ran up any more miles on Hymie's car. He's going to be sore at me for this."
"I'm sorry, Mr. Gordon."
"Well, okay."
We rode another mile or so in silence. Once, I offered her a cigarette and she took it without saying a word. While I held the lighter for her I got a chance to look her over quite carefully. The coat was open, all the way to the top, and I could see her breasts rising up underneath the dress, high and full and proud. She had used just the right amount of scent powder on her face and her choice of lipstick shade, an off-color pink, went very well with her lustrous black hair. She was, in all respects, a mighty attractive woman.
"Aw, look," I said, after another quarter of a mile. "I'm sorry, Miss Channing. I shouldn't get myself upset or say things like that to you. If you don't want the car, you don't want it."
"You could call me Eudora."
"Well, then, Eudora."
"That's better, Bill."
Neither one of us had mentioned the subject of my girls back in Allentown but a couple of things, especially the way she'd glanced at me once or twice, sort of parting her lips in a contented smile, had given me the impression that she had been giving the matter some consideration. Of course, I could have come right out and asked her about it myself but, from the way I looked at it, I had given her the bait and if she didn't take it and run with it, it wouldn't bring any results. I had to make her want something from me before I could consider that I had made any real progress.
"You're from Allentown, Bill?"
It was the only weak link in my story. No one in Allentown knew me. If either she, or her detective friend, decided to look into that there would be no point of me continuing with my deception.
"I was only there a few weeks," I said. "Just long enough to get in and out of business."
"But it isn't your home?"
"No. I haven't any real home. My folks are dead."
"No girl friend, either?"
I turned and smiled at her as I cut off the main highway and swung onto Westminister Drive.
"I did have. But she's dead. She got killed in a skiing accident."
I guess Eudora Channing didn't think I felt badly about it because she didn't say she was sorry or anything like that. She merely yawned again, stretching out on the seat beside me this time. Her breasts seemed to swell beneath the dress, trying to fight their way out into the open.
"What about the girls you had in your agency? Were they from good families?"
I parked the car in front of the house, at the curb, and then I gave her the hook. I didn't want to do it, because the people out there in Allentown had been pretty nice to me, but I had no other choice.
"You show me a good girl from a family of coal pickers," I said, "and I'll show you a diamond in every snowball you can roll in your front yard."
"Really?"
"What's the use of lying about it?" I spread my hands wide and brought them together with a thjud. "I didn't close up because I wasn't doing any business. I got out of there simply because the girls were doing too much of the wrong business in the wrong places. If you know what I mean."
"I think I do, Bill."
I could smell her perfume all around me, sticking in my nostrils like fragrant glue. We were very close in the small car and I could hear her breath going in and out like a tiny, delicate bellows. I sensed that I had hit the angle right, on the proper plane, but I knew that I had to make all of it sound credible. I let out a long sigh and plunged into it, hoping that I could nail it down before the moment escaped me.
"I have to tell you this," I said, "because of what you suggested last night. After I left, I got to thinking what a lousy shame it was that I could go ahead and let you put in a good word for me with some of your friends. I'm sure, no matter who they are, that they wouldn't have any interest in either me or the girls I used to have in my agency."
Warm fingers reached over and touched my hand on the steering wheel. I tried to act perplexed as I looked deep into her eyes. She smiled and gave my hand a tiny squeeze.
"You can tell me, Bill," she suggested quietly. "If you want to."
My story was good and I managed to work a ring of truth into it. I called upon the things which I had learned while going with Sandy to make the background sound authentic. I spoke of the young girls who aspired to become models, of the heartaches they experienced as they went from place to place and found that nobody wanted to listen to them. Then I talked about men and of what some of them expected from a pretty girl and of how a lot of girls became so desperate that they couldn't say no. And I pointed out how easy it was, for both men and women, to sink into the lower echelons of vice, without even knowing it or ever planning that it should happen.
"So that's the way it went," I concluded. "I got jobs for the girls but some of those who hired them wanted more than a pretty figure or a smiling face. Eventually, the girls gave in and we began to make money like crazy. Before I knew what was going on I was into it over my head. Allentown was too small a place for that sort of thing. I had to get out and get out fast."
The early dusk of a new evening tumbled down out of the sky. A few flakes of snow floated against the windshield and, moments later, turned into tiny goblets of water.
"What about the girls?"
"For all I know, they're still in Allentown."
"Could you get them to come to the city?" This, of course, presented a problem but it was something that I would have to work out as I went along.
"I suppose so. I don't know. At least one. Maybe two. Maybe more. I don't know." I lifted her hand from the steering wheel and placed it in her lap. I hung onto it for a moment, feeling the warmth of her body seep through the dress, and I smiled. "But it's just the way I told you, Eudora. If any of them got near some of your friends you'd never hear the last of it. Why-"
"Bill," she said suddenly, pushing the door open. "Come on into the house. It's getting too cold out here."
We went in and the first thing she did, after we'd hung up our coats, was to fix two high, very strong drinks. She asked me to throw a couple of logs on the dying fire and, as soon as I had done this, we sat down on the davenport. The wood in the fireplace snapped and crackled and the shooting flames filled the room with a rose colored glow. She looked exceptionally pretty sitting there beside me, her head back against the cushion and the smooth stockings on her legs reflecting the light from the fire.
"Bill," she said. "Be honest with me. What is it you really want? To make some real money or to fool around with those stupid cars?"
"I told you it was an angle that I just picked up. There isn't any money in it and I know that. But it's better than nothing and it'll have to do until something else comes along."
She swung around on the davenport, facing me, and she smiled. Her knees, as she curled her legs beneath her, appeared round and smooth.
"Something else has come along," she told me. "If you're interested."
"Tell me more."
Her eyes were frank, intense.
"I like you, Bill."
"The feeling is quite mutual," I-asserted sociably. "In fact, if you want to know the truth, the moment you opened the door yesterday I sort of forgot about selling that car." .
"Did you, Bill? Really?"
"I lost interest in the car," I said. I favored her with a long, suggestive glance and grinned. "Even those foreign jobs aren't as attractive as a pretty girl," I added. "Anybody will tell you that."
"But how did you happen to come here, Bill?"
"It was an accident. I was riding around in that car and I just stopped in at the gas stations and asked if they knew anybody who had a yen for sports cars. Somebody mentioned that you used to drive a Sunbeam and a Jag, so I decided to run up and talk to you. That's how it came about. Funny, isn't it?"
We finished our drinks and she asked if I cared for more.
"You make them this time," she told me, laughingly.
When I returned from the bar I noticed that she had moved over to the center of the davenport and when I sat down I was right next to her.
"Like my house, Bill?" She wanted to know.
"It's beautiful. And expensive."
"I make a lot of money."
"You must."
"Some of it could be yours, Bill." Her eyes, intense in the wavering light from the fire, regarded me with candid doubt. "If I could trust you. That's the big question. I have to be able to trust you. And I don't know how I can be sure."
Her attitude was not totally unexpected. It was too much to believe that I could walk into her home, give her a pitch about the car and my hazy past, and have her invite me into the fold. If she was involved in the sex syndicate in any way-and everything I had learned indicated that she was-she would be much too smart for that.
"Well, the hell with it," I said, acting hurt and placing my glass on the floor. I stood up, pushing her hand away. "I haven't got any quarrel with you and I don't see any reason to hang around and let you insult me. We've had a couple of friendly talks, a few drinks, so why don't we let it go at that?"
I started for the hall, hoping that she wouldn't let me get into my coat and walk out of the door.
"Bill!"
I stopped beneath the archway, slowly swinging around. "What?"
"Don't be mad at me, Bill." She had risen from the davenport and now she came toward me. The smooth material of the dress caressed every curve of her body. "You don't understand. You don't know what this is all about."
"I know you don't trust me." I went out into the hall. "I don't need a bigger hint."
"I was only questioning you, Bill. I had a right to do that."
"Well, okay." I jerked my coat from the hanger and put it on. "So you questioned me. So what? So let's forget it, why don't we?"
I started for the door. I wasn't kidding myself. Her concern, if any, wouldn't be for Rill Morgan or Rill Gordon. It would be for those girls I had mentioned and the possibilities which they represented. If I had put the thing across she wouldn't let me go even if she had to knock me down. Rut if I had failed to impress or convince her I didn't have a chance.
"Please, Bill." She wasn't going to let me go. "Let me tell you a few things."
I stood with my hand on the door knob, waiting.
"You can make an awful lot of money, if you'll only be reasonable. But not selling cars. You'll never make a dime that way. I can show you how, Bill. Honestly I can."
"I'm listening." I took my hand away from the door and smiled. I had pushed the gimmick to the limit; now I had to slow it down. "I'm the last guy in the world to argue with success."
I began to take off my coat but she told me not to do that. She said she was expecting somebody in a few minutes and she didn't want us to meet until after everything was arranged.
"You must do exactly as I tell you to do, Bill. You have to do that before I can go into the details further. There just isn't any other way." She grabbed the lapels of my coat and pulled my head down, brushing my mouth with her lips. "I wish there was, Bill. Believe me. But there isn t.
The taste of her lips tarried on my mouth and I could smell her breath, fresh and clean. I wondered, absently, about the kind of a woman Eudora Channing really was. Some day, perhaps, I would find out.
"Just tell me," I said. "And I'll do it."
Her eyes, gazing up at me, seemed to be worried and considerate. This time, when she brought my head down, she. held it there. Her lips moved against my mouth.
"I don't want you to hate me, Bill."
"Nothing could make me hate you."
"But you have to do it if you're going to work with us. There are certain rules and everybody has to live up to them."
I kissed her, holding the embrace until her arms crept up around my neck. 'TTl do it," I said.
"You'll never be sorry, Bill." She trembled and clung to me. "I promise you, you'll never be sorry."
She gave me the address of the brownstone on Tenth Street and she told me to be there at five-thirty that afternoon.
"You'll be met by an elderly man who wears glasses, something like the ones you're wearing. Don't ask him his name and don't tell him yours. Just do everything he tells you to do. And-Bill-when it's all through, when you're all finished, you come back here."
"No matter what time it is?"
She sealed my lips with a fierce kiss.
"No matter what time it is," she told me, kissing me again. "I'll be waiting for you, Bill."
When I went outside, into the cold air, I felt myself tremble. But it wasn't due to the cold. It was caused by something inside, something deep and angry, that revolted against whatever it was that I would be forced to do. I didn't stop shaking until I reached the Twin Cities Bridge.
The first thing I did, upon reaching the city, was to return the car to Hymie. He was plainly unhappy about my absence of luck but he sympathized with me about having wasted so much of my time.
"Maybe you should try a Ford agency," he suggested.
"They go pretty good."
I told him that I'd think about it, that I might be back, and departed.
I had slightly more than three hundred dollars in my wallet-I had returned the fifty to Elsa by mail, though I hadn't called her since that time-so I took the subway to Seventy-fourth Street and left a hundred with the undertaker. Every time I went there the little marble-faced man behind the desk beamed brightly as he recovered the bill from a creaking, wooden file.
"Only two hundred and fifty left, Mr. Morgan," he announced, writing out a receipt. "You're doing fine."
"Don't be so optimistic," I cautioned him. "You might have a job for me pretty soon and I doubt if there will be a dollar in it."
After I left the undertaker, I caught a cab and told the driver to take me to Thirty-third and Wyandot. I reflected, as we rode downtown, that I really ought to do something about my GI insurance. I had, more than a year before, named Sandy as my beneficiary but now, since she was dead, there wasn't anyone. And there still wasn't anyone, except an aunt, and I didn't know where she lived. It gave me a hell of a funny sensation to realize that there wasn't a single person who gave much of a damn whether I lived or died. And I could die long before the mortality tables claimed I should. I was living, as they say, dangerously.
I got off at the corner of Thirty-third and walked down to the Empire Building. I found Jack Helms in his office, smoking a long black cigar and staring moodily out of the window.
"You back in the insurance business, Morgan?" He'd asked me the same thing when I'd dropped in to see him about running an inspection report on Eudora Channing. "How'd you ever happen to quit the racket, anyway? You were doing all right, weren't you?"
I told him, yes, I'd sold a few policies here and there but that I hadn't liked the collecting part. I said I was doing a little writing and that I had a hot lead from one of the blabber magazines. I needed, I explained, a careful report on a fellow by the name of Frank Miller-I'd gotten his first name from the telephone book-who lived at Pershing Square. I didn't tell Helms that Miller was a cop.
"And get me a report on his family, too," I continued, laying a twenty on the desk. "His daughter, his wife-anybody close."
Jack lifted the twenty to his big nose and smelled of it. He smiled and put the bill in his pocket.
"Can do. Anything else?"
"Yes." This time I gave him a ten. "There are three others."
"Whyn't you just have me investigate the whole damned city?"
He wrote down the names I gave him. Andy Willis and Gladys Lord, both of the Montana Model Agency. And Diana Sanderson, who was employed by the agency.
"You can travel light on the girl," I informed him. "She isn't too important." I halted at the door. "Oh, say, and another one. An Elsa Lang. She also works at the agency. Give her a quick look-see, will you?"
"It'll take a week," he said.
"Make it three days."
"I'll try."
It was still early in the afternoon so I took the subway down to the George Street terminal and walked the six blocks crosstown to my room on the South Side. Slush covered the streets and the sidewalks. The air that blew in from the bay was heavy with chill. It was a dismal day and I failed to appreciate the colorful holiday lights which burned in many home and store windows.
When I reached my room I set the alarm for five o'clock and stretched out on the iron frame bed. I felt, in every sense of the word, most miserable.
I had no way of knowing, of course, what would be required of me when I went to the brownstone on Tenth Street. But I suspected that it would be something so degrading that even a writer's fluid imagination would be unable to visualize it. Something so degenerate in character that I would be bound to Eudora Channing for a long time to come.
To be frank with you, I felt like quitting. I twisted and turned on the bed and I thought how easy it would be to walk out of that door and return to the almost normal life which I had been leading. It was, without exaggerating, a great temptation. But I couldn't do it. I would never be able to turn my back upon the job which I had promised to do. Not only would it be unfair to Reverend Call and the business people who were supporting the venture, but it would be unfair to his daughter, Judith, and all of the other Judiths throughout the city. And it would be an injustice to me, Bill Morgan, as an individual. I might lose some of my self-respect by doing the things that would be required of me but, surely, I would lose all of it if I lacked the courage to do what had to be done.
A man, in my opinion, who loses all self-respect ceases to live. I did not want that to happen to me.