Chapter 1
A hand snaked around from behind me and clamped on my mouth. The other arm hooked around my left arm and yanked it behind me. And then I was leaned backward against a hard muscular body as my left arm was shoved upward, threatening to tear it out of its socket.
I screamed, but it came out as a gurgle. My right hand swung my purse up and over as I tried to beat him on the head. But no such luck. I tried kicking backward, wishing that I had my boots on. So I tried to drive my spike heels into his shins.
He yowled and yanked my left arm up even higher. But he said nothing, as though afraid I might recognize his voice.
He momentarily released my left arm. And then I suddenly smelled something sweet and sickening. It made my head swim. And then it was jammed under my nose. That did it.
I didn't conk out. But gray fog was all around me. I felt my knees getting gooey. He threw me on the ground. I felt his fingers fumbling under the collar of my dress. It was ripped to my waist. My bra was torn away. My panties were the next to go. And all I could do was lay there in the swirling fog, helpless as a calf on a skating rink, and as naked as a marble.
The grass was sharp and dry and was cutting my back and my buttocks and legs. It was torture. But my legs were not bothered by the grass very long.
My legs were pulled up and spread wide apart. And then I was rammed. I managed to give a weak scream, as I was ripped apart. He lay full on me, mashing my legs against my torso, and making like a jackhammer, as I fought against the passion rising within me.
He was a goon, a monster, and the lowest form of animal, to grab and chloroform me as he had done. If only I could tell who it was. But it was as dark as outer space. And his cologne mixed with sweat had the damndest odor, and made me sicker than the chloroform.
So I wasn't about to enjoy being raped. I struggled and fought the passion surging within me, vowing not to respond to him.
But it was useless. Suddenly a tidal wave churned up within me, rising higher and higher, and I exploded like an ammunition dump.
That fired him up even more. He rocked and rolled and ground his bone into mine. His fury charged me even more. And in a moment we blasted together.
I was soon limp and weak. I had had it, and felt as if I were ready to heave.
But he hadn't had his fill. He backed away for a moment, and then he grabbed me, flopping me over on my belly. He grabbed my hips and got me up on my knees.
I wasn't about to go for that. I lunged and kicked and tried to scream. That's when I heaved, and I was too choked to yell.
He grabbed my buttocks and spread them wide. In he went with one lone hard thrust, ripping me again. My mouth and throat were full of sour swill. I felt as if I were going to heave again.
My belly flopped and churned and everything started coming up again. In the middle of that, I was suddenly twisted and tossed by a passion I had never known before. And then, as I heaved, I erupted in a cataclysmic upheaval that threatened to tear me apart. It was hell. It was horrible. One end of me was so sick and the other end of me was in the throes of ecstasy.
I lay there with my face scratched and torn by the dry grass, clawing at it, while my butt was up in the air being speared like a fish.
He withdrew momentarily. Then in he came again. This time through the back door. I screamed, but my throat was so choked up that it came out like a blubber. Everything that could come up had come up, but I was still weak and sick. Still in spite of that, my butt was on fire again and once more ready to explode.
And so, sick as I was, I found myself ramming back against him to meet his every thrust. Faster and faster he went, getting wilder and wilder, until we finally erupted in a flaming crescendo of ecstasy and fell apart.
But not for long. He rolled me on my back.
He was back for more. I wasn't about to give it to him. He hauled off and slapped me. It rocked my head to one side. But that only made me all the madder.
He ripped into me again. I got my hands up and clawed his face. By God, tomorrow I'd be able to know who had done this to me.
He let out a guttural growl. His hands found my throat and began clamping down. My eyes popped. My tongue was hanging out. I was fighting for breath. And all the while, he kept right on banging me.
Everything began to get far away. A pink haze began to float around me. And I remember being dimly aware that I was leaving this world, but, oddly enough, I didn't care.
Suddenly I could breathe again. But his body now lay prone on me as dead weight. He was no longer hammering me.
My hands shoved against him. But I was too weak for that. So I got one leg out from under, shoved with it, and at the same time rolled onto my left hip.
I was free. He was sprawled beside me. I lay there gulping air and rubbing my neck. Everything was all jumbled up. And there was still some pink haze drifting around.
I was so tired that when I tried to sit up I fell back again. And then I fell asleep.
I was awakened by a rough-soled boot on my middle, jolting me around. I opened my eyes and stared up into the glare.
"Come on, you goddamn tramp, get up," a rough voice said.
I struggled up onto my elbows, still squinting at the light.
"Get up."
A hand grabbed my arm and yanked. I was hauled to my feet. I was shoved forward. "Get going."
I was herded across the dry grass, and it cut my feet. A light kept bobbing right behind me, and a hand kept jabbing my back.
The beam finally outlined a car. Someone came in from the left and yanked open a rear door. I was shoved through the opening, and sprawled half on the seat and half on the floor. Someone grabbed my ankles and shoved my feet inside. The door slammed.
I got on my side and then up on one elbow. There was a grillwork between me and the front seat. Two big cops were sliding in up front. The motor roared. The tires kicked gravel as the car rocketed away.
I was finally able to sit up. I shoved my fingers through my hair and looked around me. The headlights bored through the blackness. And I could see fence posts flashing by but little else.
And then straight ahead, and far away, I could sec the first twinkling lights of a town. They grew brighter and brighter. And before long we were rolling down a deserted city street, with no traffic, as if it were a ghost town.
The car turned right and went a block. It turned right again and then left into a driveway. It locked wheels and skidded. I was thrown forward and had to shove out my hands to catch myself.
The two cops climbed out and went into a building. They soon came back, yanked open the rear door, and reached for me.
"Come on, get out," one of the cops said.
I was marched through an open doorway and down a hall. We finally turned right into an office.
Two young cops were sitting at desks. They looked up as we came in.
One of the cops tossed my purse onto the first desk. The cop sitting at it opened my purse and asked, "What's she in for?"
"Murder."
I stared at him. "I didn't murder anybody," I said.
"Shut up," the cop holding my arm said, "you'll have your chance to talk in court."
The cop at the desk dumped my purse and started pawing through it. "Who did she kill?" he asked.
"Johnny Blake."
"Like hell I did!" I yelled. "He raped me. Look at my throat. He was choking me and I was just about ready to shove off. Then he fell flat on me, and lay still. I crawled out from under him and I was exhausted. I guess I fell asleep."
"We get those stories all the time," said the cop at the desk, flipping through my billfold. "So you're Connie Stewart?"
"Yes," I said.
He continued flipping the plastic leaves in my billfold. He frowned and looked up. "You're a barber?"
"Yes." He laughed.
"What are you laughing at?" I asked. "You look as much like a barber as Dracula would look like an angel."
"Why?"
"Look at you. You're stacked. Hell, you look like you belong in a cat house."
I hauled off and swung at him. But he shoved back from the desk in time and jerked his head away.
The cop holding my arm grabbed my other arm and pinned them behind me. "Now calm down, you little bitch."
The cop at the desk pulled two envelopes from a drawer. He dumped my billfold and coin purse into one envelope, sealed it and signed it across the flap. He shoved it toward me and held out the pen. "Here, sign this just below my name. And if everything isn't there when you get it back, start squawking."
He shoveled everything else into the larger envelope, sealed it and signed it. He had me sign it, too.
Then I was pushed toward a counter. The cop from the rear desk came over and grabbed my right hand. He mashed all my fingers down but left the index finger straight out. He slapped my index finger onto a black pad, rolled it around, and moved my hand toward a white sheet of paper. Again he rolled my finger around. And lo, there was my fingerprint. He did the same with the other three fingers and with the thumb.
He went behind me and came around on the other side. He went through the same rigmarole. And there were all ten of my fingerprints. He handed me a piece of paper to wipe my fingers on.
I was then herded into a booth. It had lines across the white wall at the back of it. Each line was numbered. I finally realized they were used to show my height.
They mugged me from the front and from both sides. But they didn't offer to show me any proofs, so I could choose the best profile.
I was then marched out of the room and down the hall and into another room on the left. It looked like a doctor's office. And there was the familiar examining table, with stirrups. I was shoved onto the table and told to lie down. I wasn't about to put my feet into those stirrups, with those two cops staring at me.
They went out and closed the door. But I knew they were probably out there.
Before long a sinister-looking little guy came in. He had a perpetual sneer. He had the eyes of a rat and the furtive movements of one. I figured he was some kind of a cop.
He stared at me for a moment and then he said, "I hear you claim you've been raped."
I nodded.
"We'll see," he said, walking over and grabbing my ankles and jamming my feet into the stirrups. He knocked my knees wide apart and stared at me down there. He grunted.
He turned and went to a cabinet. He fitted a band around his head that had a light on it. He picked up a shiny hunk of steel that looked like a pair of tongs. He came back over to me.
Again my knees were butted by his forearms and spread wide apart. I heard a stool scrape on the floor. He disappeared from view. The cold steel was jabbed into me and I was spread wide apart.
"You're lying," he said.
"What do you mean?"
"You've had no sexual relations within the last twenty-tour hours."
"But I'm all ripped down there."
"Not much. You were probably using a Coke bottle."
"Like hell I was," I flared.
He pulled out the instrument, stood up, and walked over to a sink. He threw the instrument into it and began washing his hands. I wondered why he hadn't done that in the first place.
He put the headband in the cabinet and headed toward the door.
"You didn't look at my throat," I said. He turned and stared at me.
"Look at the marks on my throat," I said. "He tried to choke me."
He came back over and kicked up my chin. His fingers probed my throat as he frowned down at me.
"There are some bruises," he said. "But there's no evidence they were caused by fingers. What did you do, try to hang yourself?"
"Hell no," I said, getting up on my elbows. "What kind of a doctor are you, anyway?"
He turned and silently went to the door. He opened it and went out without saying a word.
The two cops came in again.
"Okay, get off that table," the taller one said, throwing some clothes at me. "Get dressed."
They went out again and closed the door. I climbed off the table. There was a pair of panties that looked as if they were made from a flour sack. There was no bra. Just a blue demin dress that looked like a shirt. And there was a pair of paper scuffs.
It didn't take me long to dress. I was jamming my feet into the scuffs when they came back in. "Come on," the taller one said.
I followed them into the hall and to an elevator. The shorter one jabbed at a button and the cage jolted slowly upward. And the higher we went, the worse it smelled. It was a combination of hog lot and privy.
The cage finally stopped. The shorter cop shoved the door back. I was pushed into the hall and down it to the right.
The shorter cop pulled some jangling keys. He shoved one key into a lock and twisted. He pulled the door open. And I was pushed inside.
It was a dimly lighted, long room with double deck bunks marching down both walls. And on the bunks sprawled women of every age, shape and size.
A tall swarthy girl with raven hair floating down over her shoulders sauntered up to me. Though young, her eyes were old and her mouth was hard and she had the manner of one who had seen too much brutality.
"I'm Lila," she said, with a cigarette drooping from her thin lips. "I'm the tank captain."
I nodded.
"What're you in here for?"
I shrugged. "They say, murder."
"That's a rap you can't beat," she told me.
"But it didn't do it," I said.
"That's what they all say," she said with a sneer. "Come on, honey, I'll get you bedded down."
I followed her down the aisle toward the other end.
"Things have been kinda slack around here for the last week," she told me over her shoulder. "Only got sixteen in here tonight. So you can have your choice of bunks back here."
I looked at the stained mattresses and wondered if I could sleep on the floor. She laughed.
"You'll get used to the decor, honey," she told me. "Come on. We'll find a blanket and a pillow for you."
She went to a pile in the corner and rummaged around. She handed me a dirty pillow without a cover and a rough blanket that smelled like a wet dog.
"Most girls don't sleep much their first night here," Lila said. "They're scared. So I let them sleep with me." I shook my head. "I'll be okay."
She squinted at me. "I said you're going to sleep with mc."
I dumped my pillow and blanket on the bed. "And I said I'm going to sleep right here."
"One thing you'd better learn, kid, is that nobody crosses Lila. I want you. And I'm gonna have you. Now get up there to my bunk."
She started toward me like a jungle cat. I backed slowly away, wondering what chance I would have if she jumped me. She kept on coming, her lip curled and her eyes glowing with lust.
A big fat Amazon suddenly sat up on her top bunk. She had hennaed hair and a bloated sagging face, and breasts that flopped around on her fat belly. I glanced at her on my left, as I backed down the aisle. Lila paid no attention to her.
But as Lila passed her, her foot came up and hooked under Lila's jaw, snapping her head back.
"I told you to leave these green girls alone," the Amazon told Lila, as she staggered back, grabbing at her throat. "Now leave her be."
Lila let out a scream like a wounded tigress. The big one slid down and thudded to the floor. She was in a half-crouch with her arms at the ready. I couldn't see Lila.
And then the big one started on up the aisle, so Lila must have been back-pedaling.
I started forward and found my bunk. It was cold in there, but I wasn't about to use that stinking blanket. So I tossed it on the empty bunk above me. And I sprawled on the bed, wondering if I would have lice by morning.
Twelve hours earlier, I thought I had the world by the ears. And now there I lay on that filthy mattress, breathing putrid air, and wondering how much longer I had to live. If only I had been content to stay in L.A. But I had had a gutful of that nightmare. The air had to be chewed instead of breathed. The freeways were legalized murder. No matter where you went, you were shoved and pushed from all sides. What they called apartments was a belly laugh. They were so many cardboard boxes jammed together with a swimming pool in front. The walls were amplifiers, and you could hear the guy next door every time he belched or banged his wife.
Besides that, L.A. didn't cotton to lady barbers. I was in a five-chair shop. The four men would be busy, and I'd be reading the paper. A man would walk in and be shown to my chair. But when I got up, he broke and ran. He'd wait for one of the men. I was starving to death.
One cold smoggy morning, I was sitting in a coffee shop having a roll and coffee for breakfast. I couldn't afford anything else. And then I read a piece in the paper about a small town high in the mountains up north. Its one and only barber had just died after his eightieth brithday party. Too much ice cream and cake, probably. But anyway, the town was looking for another barber. The old man had been dead nearly a month. And everyone was driving fifty miles for a haircut.
I opened my purse and reached inside for a zipper tab. I yanked it. My fingers fumbled inside. I pulled a fifty-dollar bill and held it to my lips to kiss it. That was my mad money. I never touched it. But now I was going to touch it.
You should have seen the cashier's face when I gave her a fifty-dollar bill to pay a thirty-three cent check. But she slapped it down on the register and began pulling bills from the drawer.
A few minutes later I was in a phone booth with a hatful of change. I told the operator to get the operator in Slocum and tell her I wanted to talk to anyone in town interested in getting a barber.
The operator probably thought I was nuts. Her voice suddenly became as cool as a mountain stream. But she finally got me hooked up with Abe Jethrow in Slocum. He told me he was the head of the Town Council. And that nobody wanted to come to Slocum.
Well, I told him I'd take Slocum, sight unseen. But L.A. didn't go for lady barbers, so I wondered if Slocum would. He told me that Slocum had no choice. Driving fifty miles down a mountain road for a haircut was no picnic. And if I could do the job, I'd make out okay. So I told him I had no money to buy a shop. He told me not to worry about that. The town would buy the shop and sell it to me on my terms.
So at nine o'clock I went back to Charley, who owned the shop where I had worked. I told him I was quitting. I started gathering up my tools. When I told him I was going to Slocum, he began to laugh. It seems he had spent a vacation in that county and had stayed there one weekend. He said that the only excitement in town was when there was a dog fight. That everyone went to bed at sundown. And that there was only a general store, a saloon, the post office, and filling station, besides the barber shop.
But I wasn't about to stay in L.A. and starve. Just because everybody else went to bed at sundown, didn't mean that I had to. Oh yes, and another thing. Charley told me there was no such thing as television. And all that you could get on the radio was rock n' roll. So after the evening news, everybody shut off their sets and went to bed.
A week later I was in Slocum. I didn't know whether my old wheezing car would make it. But after two blowouts and a radiator blowup, I chugged around the last curve and rolled down Main Street in Slocum. It was just as Charley had said. There was a general store, the post office, the barber shop, the saloon, and across the street was the filling station. Main Street was about five-hundred feet long, and then it suddenly curved and once again become a mountain road. About a dozen cars were angled into the curb. Men in boots and jeans and blue chambray shirts were sitting on a bench in the sun in front of the general store, spitting at the curb and arguing. Some were smoking pipes and sitting there and saying nothing. A few were ambling up and down the street, as though they had no place to go. And the two women I saw coming out of the general store were dressed as the men were.
So this was Slocum. So this was where I was supposed to spend the rest of my life, since Slocum had no choice.
I climbed out of my car and stepped up onto the walk. The loafers in front of the store ogled me as I pegged by on my high heels. They acted as if they hadn't seen anything in skirts for many a year.
The barber shop was next door to the general store. It was about fifteen feet wide, a sliver of a building. And it was jammed between the general store and the post office.
So I stood there looking through the window. The chair looked as if it had come to Slocum in a covered wagon. So did everything else in the shop.
"Can't get no haircut, Missy," one of the loafers yelled from the bench in front of the store.
I turned and looked at him. "I didn't come here to get a haircut."
"Then what did you come here for?"
"To give everyone of you guys a haircut," I said. "You look like you need it."
You should have heard the laughter. One old geezer stood up, laughing so hard he was holding his sides. He pointed at me. "She ain't no barber. She looks more like Lady Godiva."
So from that very first day that's what I was known as in Slocum.