Chapter 11

MY first assignment for the syndicate, which had been presented to me following a night in bed with Eudora Channing, was to furnish a relaxed young lady for the forthcoming week-end rumpus. Or, if I could, two young ladies. The lady or ladies, were to be provided through my Allentown connections and, she had cautioned me, were to be the type who enjoyed parties. Wild parties. I had committed myself to bringing at least one girl. Just where she was coming from I didn't have the vaguest idea. I had already wasted one day and night running around the city and I had been pitched out of two questionable establishments for attempting to make off with some of their personnel.

On Thursday, as I rode a cab uptown to see Jack Helms in his office in the Empire building, I felt about as low as a thermometer dead center in the Arctic Circle. I had built up a good front, I'd put myself across with Eudora Channing-but now that I had to deliver I couldn't seem to come up with an angle.

I had to find a girl! Somebody. Somewhere. Somehow.

"This isn't an outside party," Eudora Channing had told me. "I mean, it's just for us in the business who like to have a little private fun."

She hadn't told me very much about the operation but enough so that I had a fairly good idea how it worked. A girl, if she weren't a professional when she got caught in the toils of the ring, became one in very short order. Some of the girls worked in apartments scattered throughout the city while a few with more expensive merchandise delivered their wares on a call-girl basis. Not all of the girls specialized in assorted blackmail and shake-down rackets but many who were fortunate enough to contact wealthy or influential customers had no compunctions about driving the knife in to the hilt. In addition to this steady and lucrative revenue from commercialized vice, many of the girls were used in the filming of movies and still shots. A steady stream of new feminine faces was required for this phase of the business.

Eudora, who had explained much of this while she lay in my arms, had not mentioned specific names, though she had assured me that I would meet most of the members of the syndicate when I attended the party.

"You can't be part of a business like this and not have some of it rub off on you," she had explained. "You see so much of the things that seem uncommon to most people that they become commonplace with you. It's just the way it is, Bill, and you can't do anything about it-She had told me that about forty people usually attended the parties which were generally held in the basement of her home.

"We don't have any near neighbors," she had told me."

"And sometimes we get a girl who screams."

The rich prize, I had learned during my conversation with her, was the appearance and the eventual conquest of a young girl without much experience. While she had not told me this in so many words, she had indicated it strongly.

"In a way," she had confided, "it's a little bit like taking dope. At the start, a small amount is enough but as time goes on you have to have more and more."

I had asked her, pointedly, if that's the way it was with her.

"I'm fortunate," she'd said, kissing me on the mouth.

"All I need is a normal man to give me satisfaction. A man like you, Bill."

Upon my return to my room the next day I had discarded my clothes and scrubbed thoroughly in the shower. I had washed my body until it had turned red, trying to rub off the filth and let it slip quietly down the drain. But I had given up finally, knowing that the dirt was deep inside, rather than on the surface.

Sex for the sake of money and sex for the sake of sex; one even more horrible than the other. I wondered, without trying to guess the answer, what Sandy would think of me if she knew what I was facing.

I found Jack Helms in his office, smoking one of his huge cigars. He looked away from the window, nodding, as I came in.

"Got any more deals for me, Morgan?"

I told him I hadn't and I wanted to know what he had uncovered.

"You could have told me about that Miller," he complained. "He's a cop. And I seldom bother around with the law."

"Don't annoy me with your troubles," I said, impatiently. "Just tell me what you know."

"Here," he said, handing me some papers. "Read about it." He sighed heavily and stared out of the window again. "It's going to make a very interesting article, if you use those characters. I think you wasted your money."

He was wrong. I hadn't. But, of course, Jack didn't know what I was looking for.

Miller was married, the father of a girl who was nineteen, and he had been on the city police force for four and one-half years.

"HelL" I said. "You don't get promoted that fast in grade school. Four and a half years and he's been a detective most of that time. How does a man rise so fast?"

"Read on."

Miller, the account stated, had been born in Wilmington, Delaware, and he was forty-seven years old. He had served with the Wilmington police department until April 12, 1941, when he had been drafted into the Army. He had not seen service outside the continental United States. In October, 1945, he had been honorably discharged and in November of that year he had joined the Baltimore, Maryland, police department as a patrolman. Two years later, because of his work in breaking up a white slave ring, he had been promoted to the morals squad with the rank of detective. His work, the history continued, had been outstanding in every respect until, without apparent reason, he resigned to accept another position here in the city. I noted, with interest, that his starting salary had been four hundred dollars per year less than he had been receiving in Baltimore.

Helms had uncovered very little about Miller's wife and daughter. The wife, whose name was Dorothy, had been born in the District of Columbia and, as far as anybody knew, led an uneventful life. The daughter, Lucy, had been graduated from public high school, was now employed as a secretary by Federson and Federson, an advertising agency, and for several weeks during the previous year had attended a well-known modeling school in the city.

"I don't know what you're looking for," Helms said. "But the cop's finances are clean. The only things maybe unusual are the place where he lives and that big car he drives. That don't mean that he's off, though. A lot of people, including cops, live it up over their heads."

There wasn't much on Gladys Lord, either. She had been born in Biloxi, Mississippi, thirty-nine years before.

Once, at the age of eighteen, she had appeared in police court, charged with committing an act of prostitution in a hotel in Evansville, Illinois. She had been released when her companion failed to appear. Nothing further was known about her until she had appeared in the city, five years previously, and had set herself up in the model agency business. Her credit rating vouched for the fact that she had been successful-no one had any outstanding bills against her. Her association with Andy Willis who, by the way, was from Billings, Montana, had been a routine thing. Helms had been unable to unearth anything about Willis.

Diana Sanderson seemed to be just about what she had claimed, an innocent country kid lost in a great big city. She lived in a walk-up apartment on Jackson Street, which she shared with another girl, and she paid her bills promptly. I remember, with a sense of regret, that I had forgotten to give Helms Diana's actual last name.

Elsa Lang's life appeared to be typical of that of an ambitious young girl on her way up. Her list of creditors was a yard wide and it extended all the way from the city to New Rockford where, the information stated, she had been in and out of trouble ever since the age of fourteen. Nothing serious, and there hadn't been any convictions, but it was obvious she had been a problem child. Remembering her mother and the neighborhood where she had been brought up, I was able to forgive her at least a fair share of her misadventures.

Helms removed the cigar from his mouth.

I asked him if I owed anything further and he said, no, everything was fine and he wished all of his clients paid as well for his work. I departed, hoping that those who hired his talents were luckier than I had been.

Back on the street I stood near the corner and watched the late afternoon shoppers and workers claw and shove their way toward the bus stops. The wind from the bay was raw and cold and a lot of the men had their coat collars turned up. The women, however, seemed unaware of the frigid weather as they moved along the street, their stockinged legs sleek and exciting, and even their heavy coats seemed unable to hide the jounce of breasts or buttocks. I found myself staring at each one individually, meditating about whether this one would or this one wouldn't go to that party with me if I just had the guts to offer enough money. In disgust with myself I quit the corner and walked down to a parked cab.

"You slip me a five and you don't wanta go no place?" the driver inquired incredulously. "What kind of a pitch is this, anyway?"

I told him again, as I handed him the key, what I wanted him to do.

"I have to meet a friend here for dinner," I explained. "And I have to have my mail. Just go down to the address I gave you, get my mail out of the box and come back. There's another five in it for you after you do it."

He was suspicious, but after I had showed him my driver's license, registration card and social security ticket he seemed to be convinced.

"Bring the mail to that restaurant down there," I told him, pointing to a sea-food house a few doors away. "I'll be in there at one of the tables."

"Well, I guess it's all right," he said, and started the motor.

As soon as the driver had gone I went into a cigar store, purchased an envelope and a stamp and addressed the envelope to myself. I put the driver's license, registration and social security card inside, sealed it, and dropped it into a mailbox.

When I got to the restaurant I ordered clams on the half shell and a double rye with soda. But I was worried. I should have gotten rid of that stuff in my wallet long before; if anyone at the brownstone, or Eudora Channing, had gone through my personal papers I might just as well call it quits right then and there.

I had finished two drinks and I was on a third when the driver returned.

"Have a drink," I said.

He sat down and when the waiter came over he ordered" a bourbon with water. Hastily, I read my mail.

There was a check from Car Skill for two hundred dollars and a note from Sam Terry saying that he hoped the letter would be forwarded to me in Florida. Another letter, this one from Dr. Call, contained a check for a hundred and fifty dollars and a warning that no further funds would be forthcoming unless I was able to show some definite signs of progress. As usual, the Reverend inquired about his daughter, begged me to do something, and I felt pretty certain that he had choked on helpless tears as he'd written the final lines.

"You want something to eat?" I asked the (Jriver.

"I'll have another drink."

We talked a little about the weather and he said it was terrible, the way prices were, and with Christmas coming on. He lived in the outskirts, in a new housing development, and he said it was rough with three kids who wanted everything under the sun.

"I should run up against more guys like you," he said as I slid the five across the table toward him. "Believe me.

His name was Joe Nelson and I guessed him to be in his early forties. He was a pleasant little guy, in the first stages of baldness, and he drove his own cab. He seemed the type a man could trust and depend upon.

"You're going to think I'm nuts," I told him as he rose to go. "But I've got quite a night ahead of me and you can make yourself some good money if you're interested."

He sat down again.

"Nothing illegal?"

"No. It's legitimate. Strange, maybe, but legitimate."

It was rather difficult to break through the barrier with Nelson. I mean, you take a family man, a fellow who regards his wife and kids seriously, and it isn't easy to come right out and ask if he knows any girls who might like to talk a little business. At least, that's the way he struck me and I went into it slowly, telling him I was a writer-this impressed him because he took a couple of the hot-rod magazines-and that I was in the market for some off-beat material.

"You know," I said, "the city after dark, or something of that sort. Lights. Music. The way people play."

He smiled at me across his drink. It was his fourth one.

"And girls?"

"Friendly girls," I advised him.

He thought that one over for a long time. In fact, it was only after I had ordered his sixth bourbon and we had discussed the advantages of dual carburetion over the highly touted new four-barrels that he returned to the subject again.

"You wouldn't use the girl's name?"

"Oh, hell, no. That would come under the law covering the invasion of privacy."

"All you want is the background material-right? How a girl gets into something like that and that kind of thing?"

"Yes. One girl's story. I can dress it up wherever it needs it."

The liquor had had its effect and he became quite confidential. The cab business, he confided, had been slow and occasionally it was necessary to supplement his income from other sources.

"You do a lot of things because of your kids," he informed me. "Things you wouldn't otherwise dp."

The girl, he said, lived alone in a hotel and she accepted just enough customers so that she could earn a hundred and fifty or two hundred dollars a week. She was young, only twenty-three, and. she was very pretty.

"A blonde," he described the girl. "Gorgeous. To look at her you'd wonder why she ever did things like that. A nice kid. Sometimes I meet a guy, a louse, and I wouldn't think of steering him to her."

"She works alone?"

He assured me that she did, stating that the only ones she shared her income with was himself and one of the bellhops at the hotel. Sometimes, if she had more than one in a night, she used the back of his cab.

"We drive out to the country, or up to the park," he said. "And then I take a walk. That part's all right when the weather's warm but it's hell, now during the winter. You can't imagine how cold you can get."

We had another drink and I asked him if I would be able to see the girl that night. He said he didn't know, that he'd have to call her. When he returned from the phone he said it was all right, that he had told her about me and that I could go up in about an hour.

Forty-five minutes later we left the restaurant and went outside. I was surprised to find that it was snowing, that the streets and the sidewalks were a blanket of clean, virgin white.

We rode uptown and Nelson got back on the topic of dual carbs again. He did most of the talking.