Chapter 17
LUCY MILLER, when I met her at the bar on Friday night, was in a state of extreme excitement and she gratefully accepted my offer of a drink before we started out on our "assignment."
"I'm so thrilled!" she confided, smiling at me across the narrow booth. "I haven't been able to think of another thing the whole week long."
"I hope you don't get in any trouble with your mother and father over it."
She shook her head and the shine of her dark hair reflected the soft lights.
"I told them I was going shopping with a friend," she said. "And, after, to a show. They won't expect me until midnight and, even then, I don't think father will be home. He had to go somewhere on business."
Out to Eudora Channing's, I thought. That's where he'd be, at the huge colonial house on Westminister Drive. Waiting, as were the rest of them, for the appearance of the sacrificial virgin.
"I don't mean to be rude," I said to the girl. "But I do think you should give your face a once-over before we leave. While you're doing that, I'll order another drink." I smiled, meeting the look of understanding in her eyes. "Don't worry, I know how it is on your first job. Every girl is nervous."
"You're very kind, Mr. Gordon."
She wore a tan skirt, white blouse and short brown jacket. My glance followed her as she went back to the ladies' room. She had a nice young body, supple and alive, and she carried it well. I felt sorry for her.
The waiter brought us two more drinks and, while Lucy was busy repairing her face, I dumped the contents of one of the little yellow capsules into her martini. The listless attitude the powder would install in the girl would not, of course, solve everything but it would make it easier to handle her and, I hoped, it would help to eliminate some of the memories of what I must make her do.
I sat there, waiting for the return of the girl and thinking about the events of the week. Actually, it had been mostly a matter of sitting around and brooding over the situation. Elsa, following that night in my room, had returned to her apartment and Judith Call. The minister's daughter was still with her and Elsa had begged off from the model agency, saying that she was ill. From what I had been able to learn, the agency was in a bad way as a result of the fire and Elsa's employers had been more than willing to save the expenses of her services for one week.
Diana Sanderson was, as far as I knew, still at City Hospital and I had read nothing further about the incident in the newspapers. I had phoned Eudora Channing twice during the week, once on the previous morning when I had informed her that I was back in town, and again, just prior to meeting Lucy Miller, to arrange to pick up one of the capsules at the brownstone on Tenth Street. I had outlined my plans in detail, stating that I would give my girl the deadening treatment before our arrival and that I would make all of the arrangements to present her to the party.
"This is my first try at something like this," I had told her, "and I want it to go over with a bang."
She'd gotten a kick out of that, me talking that way, and she'd assured me that I could handle it any way I wanted to. She said that everybody would be there, almost fifty people, and that they were all looking forward to the affair.
On the way uptown I'd had Nelson stop at the offices of the Morning Star while I went in and talked to George Castle, the reporter who had worked on the sex stories earlier in the year. I explained a little bit of what I had done, told him that I had written the facts out in detail and that I had mailed them to him in care of the paper.
"Just in case something happens to me. It'll give you a lot of angles to work on. You'll get the letter in the morning."
He received my suggestion that he arrange to stop out at Eudora Channing's home later that night with only lukewarm interest. I had left his office, feeling that he regarded me as another crank and that nothing would come of it. This had been a disappointment. I was going into this alone, without any help, and I had felt that I could trust Castle. It had been necessary for me to confide in someone and I had selected him as being the best bet. But I was fairly certain that I had not succeeded in convincing him. I was still alone, with the exception of Nelson who had been furious about the treatment given Mary. But he seemed to be loyal to me, as well as greedy for money, and I was of the opinion that I could rely upon him. However, I reasoned, he was just a cab driver and could hardly be of much help.
Lucy Miller returned from the ladies' room, her face radiant and eyes sparkling.
"There," she said, sliding into the booth. "Am I pretty enough now?"
Her face was beautiful, the kind of strangely eager face that you see among children. I couldn't look at her as she lifted her glass and tasted the drink.
"We'd better hurry," I said.
She smiled and finished her martini.
"I hope I don't let you down," she said.
I choked against the burning sensation in my chest as I guided her to the door. In a few short hours she would be hurled into the slimy filth of the syndicate and the terrible realization that her father was a part of it would be with her for the rest of her life. But I had been unable to think of another way. There just wasn't any. Lucy Miller was the only card I could play.
"Good evening."
I nodded at Nelson as he opened the cab door. He was waiting for me, in accordance with my instructions.
I gave him the address on Westminister Drive. We sat back as the cab picked up speed and I watched dozens of gaily lighted store windows flash past.
I wondered if it were the martinis or the dope going to work on her so quickly and after we had traveled a couple of more blocks I put my arm around her. She didn't protest but just sighed a little and snuggled in close. I let my hand go inside of her coat, and she made no move to stop me. Shuddering, I took my hand away and let it rest on her shoulder. From this point on the future of this trusting girl at my side was in my hands. It was, I realized with a sense of shock, a tremendous responsibility.
When the cab reached the parkway it turned left instead of right. As I bent forward to speak to Nelson about it, a second figure appeared beside him and a gun pointed straight at my head.
"Sorry, Mr. Morgan, but your plans have been changed. Just rest easy, please."
"Elsa!"
"Surprised?"
I sat back, saying nothing. My hands felt sweaty and cold as I looked at the girl beside me. Her eyes were closed and there was a smile on her lips.
"We'll have a nice party," she said. "Judith and you and the kid here. Won't it be fun?"
I wet my lips with my tongue and managed a grin.
"Is there any other kind of fun?" I wanted to know.
She turned her head, briefly, and smiled at Nelson.
"He's real smart now," she said. Then, looking back at me, "You should have been smarter before, my darling Bill. Didn't you know that every call girl in this town-and every cab driver who works with them-are all tied up in one great big bundle?"
Nelson swung the cab left again and I knew that we were going over to the brownstone on Tenth Street.
"I do now," I admitted, with feeling. The snout of the gun threatened me again as I hunched my shoulders. "Look," I said. "You can do what you want with me, but leave the girl out of it. Dump her off on one of these corners and let her go."
Her hollow laugh echoed through the car.
"Who are you kidding, anyway? Nelson and I split a grand if we get the two of you over there."
"I'll give you that much to let her go."
"Forget it," Nelson told me. "It isn't that kind of a game."
"You were a sucker all the way through," Elsa Lang scoffed. "You fell for everything and you took all kinds of chances. What makes guys like you so stupid?"
I remembered Dr. Call, back in New Rockford, and I remembered the Sunday I had spent with Judith in my room.
"You'd never understand," I answered truthfully. The girl stirred beneath my arm and I felt myself tremble. "You had me fooled," I said. "I'll go along with that."
"You fooled yourself," she advised me. "When you came to my place, looking for Judith, I thought we had another heavyweight lover on our hands. That's why I gave you a lot of good sex free-for-nothing. After you phoned your way into the agency' to do that story and you didn't come back, nobody wanted to believe me.
But when you showed up at Eudora's with that car and she had the license number checked she found out that the car selling gimmick was another trick. After that we put two and two together-adding your crew cut, glasses and moustache-and we got a very simple answer. We had a snoop. Mary Sharpe played her part very well, don't you think?"
"To say nothing of Nelson," I said. "He and his kids!"
Elsa Lang threw back her head and laughed. Had I been quicker, I think I could have gotten the gun away from her, but'by the time I got ready to move she was staring at me again.
The cab came to a stop in front of the brownstone and Elsa told me to get out. It took me a few moments to waken the girl but after I succeeded she followed me in a docile, sleepy sort of way. We went up the steps, Nelson directly behind me with Elsa Lang, the gun concealed beneath her coat, bringing up the rear.
"Oh, there you are!" Eudora Channing exclaimed, coming along the hall. Her smile mocked me. "Isn't this rather quaint?"
I nodded absently, considering the possibility of trying to take the gun from Elsa. But it was no use. She was too far away, near the foot of the stairs, and the girl clung to my arm, holding me fast.
"Well," Eudora said, inspecting Lucy. "Aren't we the pretty one, though?" She snapped her fingers twice in front of the girl's face and was greeted with a smile. "I see you used the capsule, Bill. Oddly enough, I thought you might not."
Only once, when Eudora tried to pull the girl away from me, did Lucy make any effort to resist.
"Oh, please, Mr. Gordon! I feel so-sleepy."
Helplessly, I watched as the Channing woman and Nelson took the girl down the hall and disappeared into a room.
"We'll wait here," Elsa advised me. She now held the gun in plain sight.
"You're going to regret this," I told her. "Believe me, you are."
"Like hell I am."
"What about Judith?"
"She's upstairs, too."
"And what's going to happen to her?"
She laughed.
"You ought to be asking the same question about yourself, Bill. Because you haven't got anybody and no one will miss you. Do you know what I'm saying?"
I didn't bother answering her. I was a man and the only thing they could hold over me were those pictures. But it wouldn't be enough and I felt sure they realized it. My death would be their only safety.
Eudora and Nelson came down the hall, the girl wavering between them. They had torn off her sweater. Upon her face was a mixed look of terror and resignation. I noticed, without paying much attention to it, that she possessed a delightfully proportioned body.
"Up the stairs," Nelson told me.
I moved ahead of them, lifting my feet slowly, trying to think about how I was going to handle this. Once the moment arrived, I would have only one chance, perhaps not even a good one, but one which I would be forced to take. I had gotten the girl into this and it was up to me to get her out of it. If they were going to kill me, anyway, it would be better if it happened in the brownstone rather than on a lonely country lane. Not that it would make a great deal of difference to me, one way or the other, but if I had to die I might as well try to make it count for something.
I turned right at the top of the stairs, as directed, and entered a huge room. Even as I paused momentarily, surveying the faces of the men and women in there, I found myself incapable of experiencing the feeling of fear. My fright, it would seem, had died the moment I realized Lucy Miller was in grave danger.
"Hurry it along," Eudora told me impatiently. "We haven't got all night."
I pushed my way further into the room. They were all there, every one of them. They had formed a large semi-circle. A bald-headed man fussed nervously with a large movie camera. Four huge floodlights, not yet turned on, hung overhead.
I kept my voice low, unemotional, and my face blank as I spoke to Eudora Channing.
"Mind if I talk to Miller?" I wanted to know. My glance moved to Elsa Lang; the gun in her hand looked bigger than ever. "My bodyguard can trail along, if you wish."
The high priestess of sex smiled cruelly. "He's waiting to see you," she said. "The rest is up to him."
I hurried across the room. Elsa's high heels clattered on the floor behind me. I had to get to Miller before they brought in the girl.
"It would seem as though I took your warning too lightly," I told him as I came up. "I think I'll know better the next time."
I stood so that he had to turn his back to the doorway to face me. No one, I noticed, seemed greatly concerned over the fact that Elsa kept me covered with the gun.
"There won't be any next time," Miller said. His face was gray and impassive, his eyes narrow and deadly. "We don't go for slobs sticking their noses into our business, punk."
"That's too bad," I said. "By tomorrow, the Morning Star will be in receipt of a complete history of what you people have been doing. It'll make interesting reading, don't you think?"
The expression on his face or in his eyes never changed.
"You can't worry me," he said, his voice flat. "We had the same trouble before, when one of their reporters got ideas. But they couldn't distribute their papers-we've got a tie-up there, too, you know. How can a newspaper make any money if it can't get distribution?"
"You're pretty smart," I said wearily. "You've thought of everything."
"And more."
The lights had been turned on, flooding the room in a glaring white, virginal brilliance.
"Please, everybody," Eudora Channing pleaded. "Please be quiet. This is to be a sound movie and we don't want it ruined."
Miller gave me a look of utter contempt and began to swing away.
"You're a lousy, rotten, filthy cop," I told him.
He hit me across the face with his open hand, once, twice, both times very hard.
"Scum," I said, feeling the nose of the gun come alive against my back. "Pig. Scum."
His eyes narrowed, his face became livid with anger, and he struck me again, several times. I took everything he had, keeping my hands at my sides, my lips frozen in a sneer. After a few blows my face became numb and all I could feel was the salty taste of blood as it clogged in my throat.
"You no-good bastard," he kept saying. "I'll kill you!"
I forced my puffy lips open and laughed at him.
"You haven't got the guts," I said.
He hit me again and again and the gun dug deeper into my back. A red, distorted haze cut off my vision and I blinked my eyes, trying to watch the room. Slowly, as though walking in her sleep, the wonderful, voluptuous girl came into the room. As the onlookers gasped in pleasure, Nelson pushed her toward the center. She stumbled and fell. With a great effort she rolled over and sat up. The burning lights from above washed across the delicate pink of her skin.
"You ought to be proud of yourself," I said to Miller. I spoke with effort because the blood filled my mouth and nostrils. "Proud," I repeated as every muscle in my body gathered itself, got ready. "Look at her. Look at her! Watch your own daughter being fed to the machine!"
His hand halted in mid-air, his eyes uncertain. And then, with a snarl, he whirled and stared into the brightness of the lights. Lucy Miller held her head high but the expression on her face was one of scorn.
"Stop it!" Miller screamed and hurled himself across the room. "Stop it!"
" I moved quickly, spinning around, grabbing for the girl behind me. My groping hands found her gun arm and she let out a shriek as I brought the arm down over one of my knees, paralyzing it. The gun spun out of her hand and skidded across the floor. I hit her once in the face, hating her, and she fell down, moaning.
I don't know who I hit next, or how many after that, but I kept boring in, driving my fists and my feet at anybody in my way. Some of the numbness had left my face and I could feel the blood gurgling out of my mouth and sliding down over my chin.
"Don't! Oh, God, don't!"
I struck him full in the face, a man I didn't know, and I drove him out of my sight.
I guess, during those frantic moments, I wasn't a human being at all but an animal, a vengeful animal. My fists were swollen from countless blows and my hands ached from the force of judo chops. All around me were wailing women and cursing men and the floor, as I stormed-my way toward the door, became slippery with blood from all of us.
Miller was at the door, trying to get his daughter outside. He was sobbing and pushing against her and he never offered to put up a defense as I hit him time and time again. The blood spurted from his nose and mouth. One more blow, and he fell.
I found Eudora Channing in the hall, waiting for me, a long kitchen knife clutched in her hand.
"I'll kill you," she promised.
But she wasn't quite so lucky. I sidestepped abruptly as I went in and the knife only caught me in the thigh, ripping it from hip to knee. I gasped as the searing pain shot through me, but I had captured her wrist. I forced her arm back, twisting her wrist in the same motion, and she let out a terrified scream as the bone snapped. The knife fell soundlessly to the carpet.
I had her on the floor, my hands locked around her throat, when somebody started kicking me in the head. I tried to escape, dragging her with me, but I couldn't get away from the pain that kept hammering against my skull.
"Let go, you crazy fool! Let go!"
I told whoever it was to go to hell and tried to overcome the growing weakness that had crept into my hands. She was getting away from me and I couldn't let her do that. I had to destroy her.
"Let go!"
Blood filled my mouth, choking me. The words of the speaker became fainter and fainter and my head seemed to be absorbing pain in the way a sponge sops up water. In a final, desperate attempt I let out a long, tortured yell and groped for her.
Quickly and peacefully, blackness possessed me.