Anthony Scott

Ladies of Chance

DEDICATED

TO

E. H. LEBEL

DEAR BILL:

Here’s the book I’ve been promising you I would some day write. I hope I haven’t bungled the job.

Lowdown doings in a high society setting bring adventure to these fascinating characters:

ED BARLOW, an ace reporter who was rough, tough and hard as nails — but soft on a gang-girl who tripped him with a smile.

CHERRY MALONE, a hard-to-get cutie who ran Ed ragged in a trigger-quick romance that got too hot to handle.

DOLLY, Ed’s old flame, who was in the kind of trouble Ed couldn’t resist...

MRS. LUCILE TRAVERS, a society temptress who had Ed coming and going until he fell into a booby-trap set by the underworld.

STORMY PARKER, whose gambling-den was a front for the most vicious racket that ever men-aced the female sex.

HARRY GREEN, a crook who payed a gun-man’s game and got himself a hole in the head.

SANDRA, the seductive woman of mystery whom Ed met face to face at last!

Chapter 1

I didn’t have any idea what I was walking into when I knocked on the door of the Meade apartment that afternoon. I had hesitated a long time about accepting Herman’s invitation to drop in on his wife while he was out of town, finally deciding that Dolly couldn’t bore me any more than I was already bored.

That’s why I was half-way glad there wasn’t any response to my rap. I’d scribble a note and tuck it under the door — and that would be that.

I didn’t rap again, my sense of duty being placated by the first unanswered rap.

I heard a woman sobbing while I scribbled the note. It sounded as though it was coming from the Meade apartment.

A monotonous, dismal sort of sobbing. No shrillness and no hint of hysteria. The sobbing of a woman who’s reached the end of her rope.

Don’t ask me how I knew. That’s what the sound made me think of. A tabloid reporter gets to be a connoisseur of feminine sobs.

I stopped scribbling and listened. It was coming from inside the apartment.

I tried the door and it was locked. I listened to that monotone of sobs and tried to make up my mind that it was none of my business.

I got far enough in that direction to turn around and take two steps toward the landing. Then turned back and rapped on the door hard.

I got action this time. The sobs turned to a snuffle. I heard someone moving inside the apartment. The door opened just as I rapped again.

Dolly didn’t know me at first. She was clutching a silk negligee together and her red eyes stared at me blankly.

I guess I stared back just as blankly. It was Dolly Meade — but what a hell of a change three years had made. Her blonde curls were mussy and her cheeks were red and puffed. Her curls had been devilishly enticing the last time I saw her, her cheeks pink and plump.

I stepped in the door and she backed away from me. “What...?”

“It’s Ed Barlow,” I told her. “Turn off the waterworks and give me the glad hand for old time’s sake.”

I didn’t know what was happening to her. Her face expressed too many mingled emotions for any of them to be clear.

She let go the negligee and threw her hot arms around my neck. Her hug and kiss of welcome was stickily enthusiastic.

I kicked the door shut with my heel and let her hang on my neck, already cursing myself for knocking that second time.

I untangled her at last, figuring I’d put myself on the spot and might as well take it if I couldn’t like it. Dolly fell back on an overstuffed lounge and watched me with wide-open eyes while I opened the windows wider and pulled the drapes back.

“Ed.” She said my name as though testing out something when I came back and flopped in a chair not too close to her.

“The same,” I smiled paternally. “Long time no see, Dolly.” That sort of chatter passes for smart repartee in Dolly’s crowd.

“It’s been years and years, Ed.” She made it sound as though it meant a lot more than it did.

“Three, to be exact. I met your husband on Flagler Street by chance this morning. He was on his way to catch a train. Seemed to think it would be all right if I dropped around to cheer you up while he’s out of town.”

“Of course, Ed.” Dolly was getting her provocative smile in working order. It didn’t go over very big considering the mess her face was in. She reminded me of a street-walking floosie going coy after too much sweet wine. “Are you still working on the Newark scandal sheet?”

That’s where I had known the Meades three years ago. I lied to her with the same song and dance I’d given Herman that morning:

“I’ve quit the newspaper game cold. Free-lancing now. Story-writing to you.”

“How thrilling.” She sounded about as thrilled as a dead codfish.

“Isn’t it?”

I lit a cigarette and Dolly held out her hand for one. I saw tears beginning to well up in her blue eyes while I lit it for her. I didn’t have any stomach for acting as the buffer between a misunderstood wife and her hubby, so I muttered some excuse about running on and started for the door.

Dolly jumped up and grabbed my hand. The tears receded when she forgot about the effect she was trying to make.

“You can’t run away like this. We’ve got so much to talk about.”

“Have we?”

“Don’t be mean, Ed.” She pouted out her lips and pulled me toward the kitchen.

I felt as though a drink would hit the spot, and weakly followed her. I remembered the grade of liquor Herman used to keep on hand.

It was just as good as ever and Dolly mixed just as lousy a drink as ever. She’s one of those women who recap a bottle of ginger ale and put it back in the refrigerator for future reference. I almost gagged over my first drink — made her open a fresh bottle of ginger ale for the second one.

Then we were back in the too-lavishly furnished parlor. I had an uneasy feeling that Dolly was nerving herself to spring something on me. She kept breaking off her sentences in the middle, and whenever I looked away and back quickly, I caught her watching me with strained intensity.

Then she began crying. I moved over to the couch beside her and patted her hand.

I asked her what the hell was eating her, and she blubbered something I couldn’t understand. Her head was on my shoulder and I was getting soaked. I pushed her away and got up.

“To hell with this. If you’re going to put on a crying jag, I’ll beat it.”

She grabbed my hand and moaned, “No. For God’s sake don’t go, Ed.”

“Why not?” I pulled away from her.

She jumped up and got in front of me. Tears were running down her cheeks. She looked like hell. I pushed her aside and started for the door.

She caught me from behind. “You can’t leave me, Ed. Not... alone here.”

I turned around and gave her the once-over. There was a funny note in her voice. It didn’t sound like a crying jag. More like incipient hysteria. And not too incipient. I said:

“Be reasonable, Baby. You know what I came up here for. If you’re not in a mood for it, that’s all right. But I’m not going to stick around and get wept over.”

She pulled herself together a little. She managed to look coy even with her face blowsy from tears. “Maybe I’ll be in the mood after awhile, Ed.”

There was something of furtive desperation in her manner that made me keep my hand off the doorknob.

I stepped close to her and asked: “What the hell’s it all about, Dolly? You act as if you’re scared stiff.”

“I... I am.”

“Of what?”

She wrung her hands and moaned.

I went over and sprawled out in a chair resignedly. “So this is what marriage has done to you?”

“It’s... it’s... oh Ed! I can’t tell you.”

“Take another drink,” I suggested. “The green lizards will chase the white elephants away and there won’t be anything to be afraid of.”

She mixed us both another drink, spilling some liquor on the rug. I lit a cigarette while I waited for her to bring mine, flipped the matchstick toward the closed bathroom door.

It lit with a little sizzle. I saw a dark blur that was just creeping out under the door. I said:

“Something’s leaking in the bathroom, Dolly. Better take a look.”

She was coming toward me with the two drinks. She looked toward the door and screamed. Her fingers opened and let the glasses drop.

I caught her before she followed the glasses, pushed her into a chair and took a better look at the dark blur.

It was blood. Spreading out under the door. I started toward the bathroom and Dolly began screaming.

I turned back and slapped her wide-open mouth. She went limp in the chair and her eyes stared at me.

I opened the bathroom door and looked in. It wasn’t pretty. Herman Meade was an old-fashioned guy who evidently didn’t go in for safety razors. The girl on the tile floor had done the job in one slash. “From ear to ear” had always been just a phrase to me. It’s more than that now.

I closed the door softly. Went back to Dolly who was gripping the arm of her chair and watching me with tight-clamped lips.

I stood in front of her and said: “That’s a hell of a place to conceal the body. Suppose it leaks through to the apartment below.”

She shuddered and moaned: “Oh my God!”

I sat down. “You’re in a tough spot, Baby. Better spill it.”

She opened her mouth to scream again. I doubled up my fist and shoved it under her nose. “One yap, and I’ll sock you and beat it.”

She knew I meant it.

“It’s June Benton. From the apartment across the hall. Oh my God, Ed! What am I going to do?”

“I’d suggest calling an undertaker.”

“She did it right there, Ed. Right in my bathroom. I didn’t know she was going to. I didn’t have the faintest idea. I knew she was upset but not that way.”

“Probably came on her all of a sudden.” I settled back to get the story from her, not because I particularly wanted a suicide story, but because getting it was second nature to me.

“Old stuff, I suppose. Stepping out on hubby and he got wise?”

“No. It wasn’t like that. Not what you think. She was crazy in love with Jim. Jim’s her husband.”

“He was stepping out, eh? And she bumped herself so as not to stand in the way of his happiness?”

“You don’t know what you’re talking about, Ed.” Dolly was moaning again. “They were like a pair of love birds. But she... she told me this afternoon she didn’t see any way out. Oh Ed!” Dolly looked at me with a frightened little scream. “I know what she meant now.”

“Yeh? You always were quick on the pick-up. What didn’t she see any way out of?”

“The terrible mess she’d gotten into. And it started all so innocently. We didn’t mean any harm. Just something to keep from being bored in the afternoons. It didn’t seem wrong. Lots of other girls went, too. But June was unlucky. Terribly unlucky. She just couldn’t win.” Dolly broke down and sobbed some more.

I had taken a cigarette out of my pocket to light it. I put it back in my pocket. God what a break! And I had been on the point of turning away from Dolly’s door without knocking a second time.

I did some fast thinking in a hurry. I’d have to get Dolly straightened out so she could talk coherently. Here was my first break after snooping around the city for a week without picking up the trail.

I said suddenly: “We’d better do something about the body. You’ll have a lot of explaining to do if the police find her here. They’ll probably arrest you and keep you in jail a week while they check up. And they mightn’t believe your story after all.”

That hit Dolly like a bucket of ice water. She wrung her hands and begged: “Help me, Ed. Tell me what to do. You know about these things. You’ve got to help me.”

“If you’ll cut out the hysteria.”

“I will, Ed. I swear I will. See, I’m calm as anything.”

She was wringing her hands as though she would tear each finger off. I got up and went to the door, opened it and looked out into the hall. It was deserted. I called to Dolly:

“Come here. Which is this girl’s apartment?”

Dolly came close to me and pointed shakily over my shoulder at a door opposite. “That one. That’s the Benton’s.”

“She and her husband live there alone?”

“Y-yes.”

“When will he be home?”

“Not for... an hour or so.”

I stepped across the hall and tried the door. It opened into an apartment that was a duplicate of the Meade’s. I stepped inside and got a six-foot throw rug from the kitchen entrance. Dolly drew out of my way with dilated eyes when I brought the rug in.

I threw it down in front of the bathroom door and said over my shoulder to her: “Better look the other way. This is going to be messy.”

It was. I rolled up my sleeves and got her on the rug. Made it into a trough to hold the blood in, and carried it across the hall to put the rug back where it had been — with the body laid out as though June Benton had fallen forward when the blood began to spurt.

Herman’s razor was clenched in her right hand. I got it away from her, ransacked the kitchen for a sharp butcher knife, smeared it with blood and pressed it in her cold fingers.

Not a nice job. But it looked all right when I was through. There wasn’t enough blood but I figured the dumb cops would think she’d been anaemic. I didn’t leave any fingerprints behind me, threw the nightlatch on the door and locked it as I went out.

Dolly was crumpled up in a big chair when I went in and closed her door behind us. I didn’t disturb her, but went right to work on the bathroom.

It wasn’t perfect when I got through, but what the hell? There wasn’t any reason for anyone to look for blood in the Meade bathroom.

I went out and closed the door behind me. Dolly had snapped out of it some. She had stopped whimpering. She looked at me like a cur dog waiting for a kick in the ribs.

I sat down and lit the cigarette I had put back in my pocket a little while before. Dolly didn’t say anything. Just watched me.

“Everything’s all right,” I told her, blowing out smoke. “Keep your mouth shut and pretend to be surprised when you hear the sad news.”

“Oh, it’s too utterly ghastly. I can’t bear to think about it. She was just sitting here talking to me as calmly as you please... in that very same chair you’re sit...”

“You just said you couldn’t bear to think about it. Don’t think — talk. What’s the low-down on it, Dolly? You said she was unlucky.”

“Terribly unlucky. I used to tell her it proved the truth of the old adage. You know: Lucky at love and unlucky at cards. She and Jim were so happy until...”

“Until what?”

Dolly pressed her lips together and looked secretive. “I... that is... I can’t tell, Ed.”

I pointed my cigarette at her. “Listen, Baby. I’ve just gone to a lot of trouble getting you out of a mess. You’re not out of it yet. Maybe I’ll decide to tell all I know. It all depends on what sort of explanation you’ve got for the whole thing.”

She wailed:

“But I’ve sworn not to tell, Ed. And you’re a newspaper man, too.”

“Was. I told you I’d quit.”

“But what does it matter? Why do you want to know?”

“Call it curiosity.”

“There’s an awful lot to tell,” she faltered. “I’d have to start back at the beginning to make you understand.”

“Good. That’s where I want you to start.”

“I couldn’t bear to tell everything.”

I said, “Oh hell,” and got up to get my hat and coat.

Dolly grabbed my hand and begged. “No. For the love of God, Ed, don’t leave me here alone. I don’t know what I might do. I’ve been thinking about June and...”

“And what?” I turned around in the middle of the floor and looked as disgusted as I felt at her playacting.

Dolly was drawn up in a huddle on the lounge. She buried her face in her hands and moaned: “I’ve been thinking... maybe...”

Dolly needed a jolt to start her talking.

“About bumping yourself? Hell! That takes guts.”

“But I can’t go on after this. I... I want to die.”

“Okay.” I had a .32 automatic in my coat pocket. I tossed it on the lounge beside her. “Anything to oblige a lady.”

Dolly raised her head and stared at the gun with bleared eyes. I stood ten feet from her and watched while she groped for it with fingers that were too blunt.

It was late in the afternoon and dusk was creeping into the room.

I laughed at her. “Still playing to a gallery, Dolly.”

I’ll be goddamned if a sort of an animal gurgle didn’t come from her throat. She lifted the gun to her forehead and held it there.

She wasn’t crying any more. Her hand had ceased trembling. She pulled the trigger and went down to the carpet in a limp heap.

I walked over to her and laughed. “Very pretty.”

She looked up at me without understanding, too dazed to argue with me. And the hell of it was that I realized she hadn’t known it wasn’t loaded.

I kicked the pistol out of the way when I saw her eyes slide around toward it. “Okay, Baby. Get off the floor and unload your secret sorrow.”

She got up. Caught hold of my hand and pulled herself erect. She acted like a sleepwalker. As though the power of active thought had deserted her.

Watching her, I had a funny feeling in the pit of my stomach. It wasn’t pity. I don’t go in for that. Something else. I wanted to walk out of there and never come back.

I mixed her a heavy drink and poured it between her lips, bracing my arm about her shoulders to hold her up.

Her negligee was sagging open in front. She didn’t care. I tried not to care. But it was getting darker in the room. And she had quit her weeping.

That made a lot of difference.

And something had happened between us when she put that gun to her head and pulled the trigger.

I put it out of my thoughts, concentrated on the dope I knew she was getting set to spill.

I led her over to the lounge and set her down. “Pull yourself and that negligee together. What have you women gotten yourselves into that pulling a gun on yourselves looks like the only way out?” I didn’t turn on a light. Sat down in a chair and looked past her so I could keep my mind clear for the job immediately at hand.

Dolly faltered: “I guess I went crazy for a minute, Ed.”

“You always were a little bit nuts. What’s sent you off the deep end?”

“I’ve been so worried. I... I didn’t know where to turn.”

“What about Herman?”

She shuddered. “Oh no! Not him.”

“Oke. Herman’s out. Just like the Benton gal’s husband was out, eh?”

I wasn’t watching her so I don’t know how she reacted to that. Except that she said:

“June... hasn’t anything further to worry about.”

“And you have, eh?”

Dolly moaned and lay back on the lounge. I pulled my chair up close enough to take hold of her hand. “You need to talk to someone. I’m a swell talker-to. Spill it. You can’t tell Herman. How about letting me pinch-hit for him?”

“Can you?” Her voice was dreamy. It was dark in the room. I had four highballs inside of me.

“Don’t you know I can?”

“You’re sweet, Ed.” Her fingers tightened on mine.

I let myself slide to the edge of my chair. I could see the blur of her face. The pressure of her hand didn’t let up. I slid from the chair to the lounge. She lifted my hand to her lips.

“Love me a little, Ed.” Her voice was a passion-drugged murmur.

I pulled far enough away from her to get my mind to working again. There was a dictograph planted in my hotel room. If Dolly had the dope I thought she had, it was a job for witnesses.

I said: “Let’s get out of here. We can go to my hotel.”

“I don’t want to move.” She snuggled against me.

I said: “Damn it, I never did like to foul another man’s nest. Even if he’s a guy like Herman. Get something on and let’s go to my room.” I got up and pulled her up. She was breathing heavily. I pushed her toward the bedroom.

“I’ll wait for you in my car down front. Slip into any sort of a dress and come on.”

I grabbed my coat and hat and got out before she had time to argue. There was a telephone booth downstairs. I called the Bugle and got Pete Ryan on the phone. He and I had worked together in Newark before he came with the Bugle and I was sent to Miami on special assignment.

I told him to get a stenographer and go to room 306 in my hotel that was rented in my name and unlocked. It was next to my room and the dictograph came out there.

Dolly came down the stairs just after I hung up, and we beat it to the hotel.

Chapter 2

“Now, suppose you crack loose and tell me what all the shouting’s about.” I reached out for a cigarette and match from the table near the head of the bed. Dolly’s face on the pillow next to me showed white in the flare of the match. Her lips were parted and she was breathing easily like a baby. She blinked and turned her face from the light.

“I feel like telling you everything, Ed. Here in the dark with no one to hear.” Her sigh was almost a moan. “I feel as though I’d go absolutely crazy if I didn’t talk to someone.”

“Swell.” I lay back and puffed on my cigarette. “Get it off your mind to Uncle Dudley.”

“You swear you’ll never tell a soul, Ed? It would be too horrible if Herman ever found out.”

“It’ll be as secret as though you were at confession,” I promised, squeezing her hand. Then I reached out to the table and threw the switch opening the dictograph so Pete and his witness could listen in from 306.

Dolly said: “I hardly know how to start. It’s all such a mess.”

“Start at the beginning.”

“That was at Mrs. Faraway’s. Where a bunch of us used to play bridge.”

“For money?”

“Of course. It isn’t any fun unless you bet. And she suggested going to this other place where you could play all sorts of things. Like roulette and betting on the horses.”

“And you were unlucky?”

“But I didn’t bet half as heavy as June. I’ll never forgive myself for taking her the first time. I didn’t know she’d be like that. Honest to God, I didn’t. I thought it would just be fun for her to go. But she didn’t know when to stop. She’d just bet and bet and keep on losing and then bet some more.”

“Her husband must have plenty.”

“But he hasn’t. That was the terrible part of it. He’s got an insurance office and Herman says he isn’t doing a bit good. But they’d just been married about six months, you know, and they still had a joint bank account. That’s where she got her money at first.”

“Sounds like the same old story.” I put out my cigarette and yawned.

“You haven’t heard anything yet. That’s just the beginning.”

“I haven’t heard anything worth slitting her goozle over.”

“Ed. You wouldn’t be so heartless if you knew.”

“I’m waiting for the sordid details.”

“I tried to get her to stop. Honest to God, I did. But she just wouldn’t listen to me.”

“No one’s blaming you... yet,” I told her. “Get on with your story... if you’ve got one.”

“I’m trying to tell you but you keep interrupting.”

I lit another cigarette and didn’t say anything. She said:

“Well?”

“What?”

“Why don’t you say something?”

“I’m practicing not interrupting so you can get on with your yarn.”

“Oh. Well, I lent her some money the first month to put back in the bank so Jim wouldn’t know. She swore to me she’d quit as soon as she got even. But she didn’t get even. She was terribly unlucky like I told you. And the second month all her money was gone and she was frantic and went to Mr. Parker — he’s the manager — and he was awfully kind and loaned her the money to put back in the bank so the statement would look all right to Jim.”

“Quite a philanthropist.”

“What?”

“Let it pass. Did he loan her the money without any security?”

“Only her IOU. And he made her promise to bring it back and gamble with it after Jim saw the bank statement.”

“And she was fool enough to do it?”

“What else could she do? He had her IOU. It wasn’t her money. She just wanted to get back even so she could quit.”

I said, “Of course,” and let it go at that.

“That was when she quit telling me things,” Dolly went on quickly, sucking in her breath. “Jim was out of town a lot on some business, and June began going out evenings. I asked her where she went and she acted awfully funny. Just as if I wasn’t her best friend. And sometimes men came to her apartment and stayed late. Strange men. I left my door open a crack and saw them. But I didn’t ask her any more because I didn’t want her to feel like I was sticking my nose into her affairs.”

“God forbid,” I muttered.

“What?”

“No matter. You saw these things through a crack in your door. How long ago was that?”

“Three or four weeks ago. I was going to this place every afternoon and I had worries of my own. Herman was beginning to gripe about money being missing from his pants, and I was trying awfully hard to win back enough to pay the grocery bill before the man got mad and sent it to Herman.”

“Why didn’t you try borrowing some from the kind Mr. Parker?”

“We-e-e-ll. I did. Finally. That was just last week. And he said I could borrow any amount I wanted... just as long as I promised to not use it for anything else except gambling. And the funny part of it was, Ed, that when I told June about how nice he had been, she begged me not to sign any IOU’s. I couldn’t understand. She cried about it and made an awful scene. I couldn’t get her to tell me why, but she just begged and begged me not to.”

“So you didn’t, of course.”

“Well, I promised her I wouldn’t. But I didn’t tell her I already had.”

“How much?”

“A... a thousand dollars.” Dolly said it in an awed voice.

“How much is left?”

“Not... any. I lost the last of it yesterday on a horse that the man said was a sure winner at six to one. Shows how much he knew. The old nag came in so far behind they didn’t even list him.”

“What the hell has all this to do with June Benton committing suicide in your apartment this afternoon?”

That, I thought, would give Peter Ryan a jolt, listening in on the dictograph.

There was a catch in Dolly’s voice when she said: “I’m just leading up to it, Ed. It’s so horrible I... it makes me feel sick at my stomach to think about what made her do it.”

“Go to the bathroom if you’re going to be sick.”

“Not really sick, Ed. You know... I just feel sick.”

“Go on. Get it out of your system.”

“Get what out of my system?”

“Either the story or what you ate for lunch.”

“I was going to tell you about June. Mind you, I didn’t know anything about all this until this afternoon when poor June came in white as a ghost and said she’s just been to a doctor and he said she had... you know... a nasty disease.”

“What sort of disease?”

“A... a venereal disease. The worst one there is.”

“Syph?”

“Oh-huh. Isn’t it awful? I thought I’d just die when she told me. It’s almost as bad as leprosy or something, isn’t it?”

“Almost. Did she tell you how she came to get a dose?”

“She told me everything. I felt so sorry for her. She used to be so sweet and nice. You’d never dream she’d do anything like she did. When she loved Jim so. But it was really because she loved him so much that she did it. She couldn’t stand to have him find out what she’d been doing with the money. And when they began demanding that she pay it back, she was frantic. They threatened to go to Jim and she begged them hot to. She knew it would just kill him. And they wouldn’t let her have any more money and she was desperate. So she... well... she was crazy to earn enough money to get her IOU’s back and get away from them...”

“So she took the easiest way?”

“It’s horrible of you to say it like that, Ed. You wouldn’t if you knew June like I knew her. She wasn’t that kind of a girl. I don’t believe any man except Jim had ever touched her. She told me she walked the floor two nights praying to God before she decided it would be better to do that and not have Jim know than to be prudish about it and have him find out.”

“All right. All right. Your friend was a sweet innocent little angel. It’s a cinch she didn’t know the ropes, getting dosed up. How did she get in touch with the men?”

“I... I think Mr. Parker had something to do with it. He was the one that first suggested she do it to make the money back.”

I swore under my breath. This was nastier than I had even suspected. But I had just about cleaned Dolly of information. She owed them a grand, and was wondering when they were going to start putting the clamps on her to make her “earn” it back.

I switched off the dictograph and comforted her by promising to get her some clean clients if it finally came to that.

Chapter 3

A whole raft of telephone messages were waiting for me when I got back to my hotel at four o’clock the next morning after taking Dolly home. All between midnight and three o’clock and all from Ellsworth Grange, managing editor of the Bugle.

The final one on the list was marked three-fifteen A. M. It said, tersely: “Mr. Barlow is to call Mr. Grange immediately no matter when he comes in.”

I stuffed the sheaf of messages in my pocket and went up to my room. I knew hell must be popping to have Grange so hot on my tail, but I needed to relax and have a snort before I found out what he was chewing his fingernails about.

Right here will be a good time to give a picture of the situation I was in.

The Miami Bugle is the newest of a string of tabloids on the Atlantic Seaboard. The main office in Newark pulls the strings that make the Bugle go. I’ve been with the outfit a good many years, filling a dozen different jobs; reporter, copy desk, rewrite, even city editor for a couple of rags on the string, finally settling down to covering feature stuff wherever it happened to break.

That’s how I drew the Miami assignment. The job called for a man who wasn’t known in the Magic City; a man who wouldn’t be suspected of having any connection with the Bugle until the whole story was tied up and in the bag.

My meeting Herman and Dolly Meade had been an accident. I didn’t even know they had moved to Miami. When I took the assignment I’d sworn I didn’t know a soul below the Mason and Dixon line.

There had been a wave of society-woman gambling sweeping the country. Remember? It seemed to start in New York and spread west and south. I covered the story in Boston and Philly without getting any big results. We uncovered a certain amount of dope pointing to one big syndicate behind the whole layout, but didn’t get anything definite to tie to.

By the time we got onto the story, the syndicate had begun to cover up and move on. That gave the boss the bright idea of sending a man to a city where it hadn’t begun to break publicly, with the idea of boring in and exposing the racket before the syndicate behind it got scared and took to cover.

Miami was the city selected; Ed Barlow, the man.

I’d been in Miami a week without uncovering anything. I stayed away from the Bugle office and contacted Grange by telephone only. They had a stack of murmurs and hints of what was going on, and I had run down a number of false leads before bumping into Dolly.

In the north we had uncovered the viciousness of the racket, the system of inveigling pretty young married women and mothers to gamble on credit until so deeply involved they were afraid to tell their husbands, then forcing them into prostitution in houses owned by the syndicate.

The rankest sort of blackmail and white slavery. Inevitably, a wave of suicide and divorce had followed the gambling craze.

Grange suspected it was reaching that point in Miami, and he was hot on my tail for results.

I went up to my room feeling pretty good. Meeting Dolly had been pure chance, of course, but Grange didn’t need to know that. I figured I’d be a damned fool not to make it look like a nice piece of gumshoeing.

I slipped out of my clothes into pajamas and a dressing gown, got out a bottle of Three-Star and had a straight snifter before I called Grange at his home.

I heard the phone buzz twice before he answered. His voice was thick with irritation and sleep. “Hello.”

“Barlow speaking.”

“Barlow?” The irritation increased and the sleepiness went out of his voice.

“Hope I didn’t wake you up.” The cognac kept my voice from being too conciliatory.

“Of course you awoke me. The phone’s right by my bed. I had just dozed off after waiting all hours for you to call.”

“Sorry.”

“What did you call Ryan out for this evening?”

“I had a hot date with a cutie and I wanted to make him jealous.” I could just see Grange swell up over that. He’s a toad-like little fellow with an Irvin Cobb underlip.

“Is that what we’re paying you for?”

“Why ask me? You’re the one that signs the checks.”

“Goddammit, Barlow! I don’t like your tone.”

“That makes us even,” I told him with a chuckle.

He paused long enough after that crack for me to tilt the bottle. To hell with him. I was feeling pretty cocky about the dope Dolly had spilled. And he was just my boss by proxy, anyway.

“Are you deliberately trying to irritate me, Barlow?” he managed after a long pause.

I lied cheerfully: “Not at all. Why get your guts in an uproar because I’ve been putting in a hard evening and haven’t been here to yes you over the phone?”

“A hard evening... with a cutie?” He said the last word as though it all but strangled him.

“Why not? Haven’t you ever?”

I could hear him breathing hard into the mouthpiece and decided to ease off the pressure before the fool did have apoplexy or something.

“I ran into a lead this afternoon, Mr. Grange, and I’ve been following it relentlessly.”

That got him. It sounded like one of his own headlines. “Information about the syndicate, Barlow?” he bellowed.

“Nothing less. And plenty. This cutie is being taken all the way down the line.”

“Get much out of her?”

“Plenty. In more ways than one.”

Grange chose to disregard my pleasantry. He was all choked up and excited. “You’re sure your connection with the Bugle is completely covered?”

“Sure as hell.”

“Don’t be too sure. That’s what I’ve been trying to get you about. We had an anonymous telephone call this evening. A plainly-worded warning for the Bugle to stay out of the story you’re on. It’s a fight to the death, Barlow.”

“Eh?”

“Indeed, yes. The scoundrel who telephoned didn’t mince his words. He gave us to understand clearly that any man we assigned to cover the woman gambling situation was marked for death.”

“Hey...” I started feebly.

“I wanted you to know immediately.” Grange sounded very executivish and energetic. I could imagine him sitting in the middle of his bed in mauve pajamas — or a baby-blue nightshirt.

“I defied him, of course. I gave him to understand emphatically that the Bugle is not to be intimidated in any of its battles for the right.”

How sonorously the words rolled off his thick tongue. He sounded as though he was chafing at the bit for an opportunity to take up his sword and venture out to fight dragons single-handed.

“Wait a minute,” I protested. “I’m the goat that you’re marking for slaughter.”

“Tut, tut, Barlow. This is no time for trivialities. I tell you this is the most glorious crusade the Bugle has been privileged to embark upon. A magnificent and unparalleled opportunity for Public Service.” His voice imbued the words with capital letters.

“A dead crusader won’t buy you any headlines,” I pointed out to him.

“The work must go on, Barlow. The Bugle will lead the right-thinking citizen of this community in a counter attack on the embattled powers of evil, and with God’s help, right will prevail.”

“You and God,” I told him, “can carry on your crusade. I don’t believe you’ll need Ed Barlow’s assistance any longer.”

“You’ve never been one to display the white feather in the past, Barlow.” His voice was gently chiding.

My temper went all the way overboard. “I’ve never worked under a damned ass before. Why the hell didn’t you play ball with this anonymous telephoner until I can get things lined up and ready to spring?”

I suppose it was a new experience to Grange to be called a damned ass by one of his menials. He must have been so thunderstruck he couldn’t think of anything to say.

“For God’s sake,” I raved on, “if anything like this comes up again before I’m out from under, kid the guy along. It won’t cost you anything to agree with him. Let him think you’re scared off. I’m sure I’m covered so far but I’ll be damned if I want any mugs checking up for a Bugle reporter when I start horning in.”

“You can’t seriously consider asking me to temporize...”

“Listen,” I put it to him straight, “I was sent here to do a job for you. I’m doing it. I’m supposed to take orders from you. All right. If you can’t get your feet down to the ground, I’ll catch a train back to Newark. You can stick my pay-check up you know where if you insist on trying to get me bumped to feed your damned vanity.”

He choked up and gurgled things into the mouthpiece. I hung up and took another drink.

My phone rang before I took the bottle down from my mouth. It was Grange. He sounded subdued.

“I... uh... agree that there’s a certain subtlety in your suggestion, Barlow. I shall instruct my staff to so handle the matter if another such call comes into the office. What facts have you dug up, Barlow?”

“Plenty. I could write a whale of a story right now, but we don’t want that. I’m going to a tea with the cutie tomorrow.”

That touched him off again. “A tea? Really, Barlow...”

“Don’t,” I said wearily, “go off half-cocked again. This is a very unusual kind of tea. Hot stuff. It has all the earmarks of a stunt to draw women into the net we’re trying to crack. I’ve got an idea...”

“The Bugle wants facts... not ideas, Barlow.”

I hung up and muttered, “Go soak your head.” Daylight was streaking the east and I wasn’t in any mood to listen to Grange read me a lesson from the reporter’s primer.

I took the precaution of calling Pete Ryan and making him promise to seal up the dope he had gotten over the dictograph and put it in a file for me in the office where it would be when we wanted it and where Grange couldn’t get his hands on it.

Then I took another shot and hit the hay to prepare for a crack at the tea with Dolly.

Chapter 4

It was an unusual tea in a lot of ways. Any afternoon tea would seem unusual to me, of course. But I suppose that on the surface, Mrs. Axelrod’s tea wasn’t any different from hundreds of such gatherings of people who don’t know what else to do with themselves.

I was looking for beneath-the-surface stuff. The sort of thing a man wouldn’t notice unless he was on the look-out for it.

Dolly had inadvertently let the hint slip the night before, and I made her promise to take me. She wasn’t sure, but she had heard two or three things from different women that made her believe Mrs. Axelrod’s home was being used as a gathering place where recruiters for the gambling syndicate got in touch with their victims.

I’ll say one thing for the syndicate, it chose swanky surroundings to make its pick-ups.

Dolly and I rolled up to the island estate in a taxi promptly at four o’clock. Dolly was wearing a filmy dress that trailed out behind her, and I had on striped trousers and a cutaway — bought on Flagler Street that morning from a nance of a clerk who assured me it was the correct attire for an afternoon tea. I had to take his word for it.

I had visited joints like the Axelrod place before, but never as a tea guest. We drove across an arch bridge to reach the island, along a curving drive to a thick hedge of purple bougainvillea, turned in through massed flower beds to what looked like the entrance to an ancient Grecian temple.

It was the Axelrod residence. I got out of the cab feeling that something was wrong somewhere. These people couldn’t be mixed up in what I was looking for.

The feeling persisted while Dolly and I were handed over from a uniformed doorman to what I suppose was a butler and then to a fat lady in a lace dress with diamonds who was receiving at the door.

That was Mrs. Axelrod. She looked through us and we went past her into a cathedral-like room filled with an assortment of women and demi-men drinking everything in God’s world except tea.

They stood and sat about in little groups of from two to ten, flooding into the conservatory and spilling over into the gardens in the rear that were surrounded by a high wall.

The Axelrod liquor bill must run into heavy dough if they have many teas. There were a dozen or more servants circulating with trays of drinkables. Although there were no signs to that effect, there was a spirit of “If We Don’t Have What You Want — Ask For It” about the servants and their eagerness to see that no one was left thirsty.

That’s the first off-color hint I got. It seemed to me that the Axelrods were being a little bit freer with their liquor than wealthy people are ordinarily. Somehow, an atmosphere of persuasive bonhommie hung over the gathering, or was being rapidly fostered by the dizzying selection of drinks passing around. It was incongruous in that chastely beautiful setting, like watching a lorgnetted dowager get tipsy and let her hair down. Hard to describe, but that’s the feeling I had as Dolly and I moved among them.

I came on a tray of side-cars and put three down the hatch in rapid succession while Dolly was toying with a frothy concoction that stunk of absinthe and chartreuse.

A foppy little mustache with a mincing footed thing in trousers came up as I was setting my third glass down. He was sporting a jewelled cigarette holder half a foot long and murmured, “Gad, what a beastly crush.” His lips looked suspiciously more colorful than nature generally touches the lips of men. I started to tell him to go on and roll his hoop when I recalled my cutaway and striped trousers. It wasn’t his fault if I looked like a pal of his or something.

I grabbed another side-car and carried it with me before he began pawing my hand.

Dolly had faded out of the picture somewhere. I was surrounded by chattering femmes, many of them horse-faced, some not too old and so-so on looks, with here and there a radiant young thing out of place in the gathering.

I kept my eyes and ears open without getting to first base. No one seemed to be talking about anything more important than Mrs. Van De Water’s latest affair with her newest footman. I overheard some long-shot talk about the races, but when I edged in it wasn’t anything more than a couple of dames who had taken a licking at Hialeah last month.

I wandered through the conservatory and into the garden, fortifying myself with a couple more side-cars enroute. The air was clear in the garden, and there was an unobstructed view across the bay to Miami. I was contemplating it with some pleasure when a quiet voice said, behind me:

“Bridge is a fascinating game... but I find it rather dull unless one plays for stakes high enough to provide interest.”

“And my dear Mrs. Travers...” The second voice was twangy and shrill, “...no one in Miami dares to risk more than a cent or so a point.”

“Have you found it so?”

“Decidedly, I have. Now, in Detroit we used to have the most exciting games...”

“There are exciting games here if one knows where to go.” Mrs. Travers spoke with intriguing casualness.

“Truly?”

“Oh, yes, indeed.”

“I do wish I could discover something like that. I’ve been so frightfully bored this last month.”

I slowly turned away from a contemplation of the bay. Two women were seated on a bench behind me. One was tall, with a slender, well-put-together figure. She wasn’t any chicken and had been around. Quietly dressed in lustrous gray, with nice hands and feet. The other woman was short, bony, and flat-nosed. She looked as though her face might have been lifted by a surgeon who didn’t know his business. She had on too much jewelry and her petticoat showed.

The tall, slender woman was speaking: “I can help you... if you’d really like to know where to go.”

“Would you?”

“Let me take your telephone number. I’ll make inquiries tonight and give you a ring tomorrow.”

“I’ll be so grateful, Mrs. Travers.”

“No trouble at all,” Mrs. Travers murmured. She wrote down the phone number with a tiny gold pencil taken from her purse. I moved away and found another tray of side-cars not in use.

The flat-nosed woman went back to the conservatory after a little more conversation. Mrs. Travers remained on the bench. I picked up two side-cars and went across the lawn to her.

She didn’t see me coming. She was sitting with her hands folded in her lap, staring across Biscayne Bay as I had been doing a few moments ago, oblivious to everything about her.

She had nice lips but her eyes were hard. I sat down beside her and held out a glass. “You look like a woman with a secret sorrow. Let’s drown them together.”

I didn’t startle her. She withdrew her eyes from the bay and looked at me. Speculatively, with cool amusement. She took the glass.

“Thanks,” she murmured.

“This is my lucky day,” I told her.

“So?” Long lashes veiled her eyes as she set the glass down.

“I’ve had six of these.” I gestured toward my empty glass. “Side-cars make me impetuous. Do you mind?”

She turned back to me and lifted long lashes to give me a glimpse into the smouldering depths of eyes I had first thought cold and hard. “I rather think I like impetuous young men.”

There it was. We were off to the races. I got the tray of drinks and brought them over to the bench.

She was Lucile Travers, divorced.

“You’re not a part of this,” I told her. “Any more than I am. You and I could raise a lot of hell if we set our minds to it.”

She raised her eyebrows and set down her fourth cocktail glass empty.

“Listen, darling.” I had hold of her hand. My voice quivered a little with weariness after my set-to with Dolly the night before. “I can go for you in a big way,” I went on, setting myself to the job. “What say we drift away from here where we can be alone?”

Her eyes narrowed, widened as she caught in her breath sharply. The garden was full of people, but there were only the two of us.

“I’d love it.” She spoke the words lingeringly. “I have seen two or three women I must speak to first. Let me attend to that...”

“I’ll sit here,” I promised.

She stood up, sinewy and straight. Touched my hand and moved away. I lifted another glass and watched her intercept a young girl coming from the conservatory. One of those radiant young things whom I had thought didn’t belong at this tea.

The late sun touched her brown hair with a glint of gold. They stood ten feet from me and talked. The girl was less than an inch shorter than Lucile. Her gray eyes were looking past Lucile at me as she talked.

I stared at her — without pretending not to. She wasn’t beautiful, but she had something. One look told me she was a girl I could go for. Yes, and damn it, one look told me she felt exactly what I felt.

That’s all there was to it. Her eyes were fixed on mine all the time she was talking to Lucile. I put down another side-car and told myself over and over that I mustn’t get sidetracked from the main issue. I could imagine what Lucile was saying to her. I looked away from the girl while I thought of her walking into the same trap Dolly was in — and June Benton had been in.

That was almost too much. Then she and Lucile were walking away together. I sat there and cursed for thirty consecutive minutes. Then Lucile came back.

She was through, ready to beat it. She had her own roadster there. The sun had vanished and swift darkness came on.

We got out without seeing Dolly or Mrs. Axelrod. I crawled into the driver’s seat and Lucile pressed herself very close beside me. She gave me the name of a middle-class Miami hotel and I started driving.

Chapter 5

There was a peculiar phosphorescent glow on the water as we drove across the bridge to the causeway connecting Miami with the beach. Everything was awfully damned serene. Lulling a man to intimate thoughts.

Lucile’s presence didn’t help make my thoughts any less intimate. She didn’t say anything. There was a half-eaten apple of a moon swinging in the sky. Bent palms along the causeway were mistily etched against the dull glow of the night that seemed to be reflected from the waters of Biscayne Bay.

There’s something in the Miami air that does things to a man and woman riding together at night. A heavy sensuousness that would be cloyingly sweet if it weren’t for the cleansing tang of the sea mingling with the scent of tropical flowers.

Nowhere else on earth, I suppose, is there just this combination that drives virgins into moods of frenetic instability, and arouses in the flabby breasts of old women an indecent urge to set about recapturing the ecstasies long denied them.

It effects men in much the same manner. Too bad that Ponce de Leon landed at St. Augustine instead of Miami in his search for the fountain of eternal youth. The magic of a Miami moonlit night was what he was looking for. Impotent oldsters grow aggressively virile; men subdued by past indulgences rediscover the urge to prostrate themselves before the lady-of-the-moment; youngsters are moved to assault, which, in turn, proves totally unnecessary.

I’m trying to say that I forgot everything except Lucile as we drove across the causeway to Miami together.

And I’m fairly certain that I was the only thing important to her at the same time.

She let her head lie back against the seat and drew in great breaths of the air. I drove slowly, catching a glimpse now and again of her taut throat and the clean profile of her face.

I’ve always enjoyed the company of women like Lucile Travers. Affairs are not for men or women of less than thirty. They’re too messy, and there’s always too damned much idealism involved. Ideals get in the way.

Curiously, my thoughts went back to the girl I had seen Lucile last talking to at the tea.

The slender girl with the gray eyes. Self-reliant eyes. Calm with the certitude of youth. Than which there is no more self-revealing certitude.

She was mixed up in the picture. I knew she was. Years of newspaper work have taught me to rely on this sort of knowingness. It springs from a secret source that defies recognition. Events were leading me toward her. Dolly had been a step. Lucile was offering herself as a step.

The gray-eyed girl had a niche some place. That was all I knew. It was enough. I could take what Lucile would give me, knowing it led me on to the girl with the glint of gold in her hair and the certitude of youth in her eyes.

Lucile directed me to turn north at the western end of the causeway. Along two or three tree-shadowed blocks, and west half a block to a patioed hotel building sedately withdrawn from the clamor of downtown Miami.

Lucile’s two rooms were on the top floor. They looked all right to me. I could see she had all the money she needed. Inside, Lucile pivoted about and faced me. In the bright overhead light, her eyes were humid.

She did not smile. Her short upper lip began to quiver. Sharp teeth came out and caught it painfully. Her face was a confused blur as I looked into her eyes. Everything faded away except sharp teeth and tautly uplifted lips.

I took a step toward her and she flowed into my arms. Her lips were cold and unyielding. She let her head fall back and I had to close my eyes against what I saw in hers.

I said, “Goddamn,” when I let her go. She nodded as though in agreement. Went across the room to pull the cord of a floor lamp. I switched out the overhead lights. The windows were open and a light breeze was coming in.

“It’s early,” she announced from across the room. “I could do with a drink.”

I nodded. She went into the bathroom and came out with an assortment of bottles while I phoned for ice.

I went to a comfortable chair and let her mix the drinks, knowing she was no Dolly.

She poured liquids out of several bottles and brought me a cool, minty drink. She lifted hers and smiled warmly. Her voice was unexpectedly husky. “Here’s to us.”

I touched her glass with mine and we drank.

She sat down near me and let the smile fade off her lips.

“This is unexpectedly nice.”

“Are nice things unexpected?”

“Very much so... lately.”

“You’re the sort of person to whom nice things should come as a matter of course.”

She finished her drink and regarded me obliquely.

“Perhaps I haven’t allowed them to come. Or, perhaps my definition of nice things is not your own.”

“Quite possibly.”

She got up and mixed herself another drink. My glass was still half full. She acted like a woman who could take plenty. I wanted her to get enough — not too much. She came back, saying casually:

“I’d like to get drunk with you.”

“There’s nothing to prevent it.” I nodded toward the array of bottles on the center table.

“Would you like to get drunk with me?”

“Why not?” I lifted my glass and downed it.

“Do you know what I mean?” She was leaning toward me. Her upper lip was twitching.

“I don’t know. Do I?”

“I mean drunk enough...”

The sound of her breathing was loud in the room. I felt trapped. The way a man feels when he’s walked into something with his eyes open and doesn’t see any way out.

What got me worst was that I didn’t particularly want a way out.

“I suppose you wouldn’t want to be more explicit?” My voice sounded thick. I tossed off the rest of my glass without quite knowing I did it.

Lucile leaned back and looked past me with half-parted lips. “I married Fred Travers when I was twenty.”

I went over to the table and sloshed some straight Scotch in my glass. She didn’t appear to notice my movement.

“That was twelve years ago,” she went on.

I sat down and sipped the liquor. “The story of your life is now the order of the day.”

She glanced at me with unconcealed ferocity. “Damn all men to everlasting hell.”

I grinned at her. “What are you trying to do? Put me on the spot?”

She looked me up and down with narrowed eyes, as though she was seeing me for the first time. “Damn them because they do things to women and then evade the consequences.”

“Meaning Fred Travers?”

She shrugged her shoulders and went across the room to refill her glass. “And others before him... and after him.”

“You’re wasting time and energy,” I told her, “if you’re damning me on that score.” Things were slipping away from me. There was the woman with me and a locked door separating us from the rest of the world. There was liquor enough to bring on oblivion. Finally, there was Dolly of last night and the gray-eyed girl of the future.

Lucile came back and stood over me. Her eyes were hotly intent on mine, her fingers were cold on mine.

“I felt that way about you this afternoon.”

“Meaning... you had a hunch I’d make a satisfactory drinking companion?” I knew I was talking like a fool but I couldn’t help it. I was frightened, if you will. Goddamn it, something glowed there that doesn’t belong in a woman’s eyes.

I began wishing I hadn’t drunk so many side-cars at the tea. This was a situation that called for calm reasoning.

She said, “Yes,” and sat down.

I had forgotten what she was saying “yes” to by that time. I cast back over what had been said and remembered that I had asked her if she thought I would make a satisfactory drinking companion. Picking it up from there, I went on:

“Don’t you ever guess wrong?”

“Not about that,” she told me calmly. “Because I never felt that way about a man before.”

All I could think of to say was, “Oh,” and that seemed inadequate. She seemed to be turning as cold as ice — and as indifferent.

“Most women meet only one man in their lives with whom they feel they can go overboard.”

“And I’m elected in your life?” I tried out a feeble smile, wondering what the hell all this was leading up to. It was anti-climax after what had just gone before.

“You need another drink.” Lucile took both our glasses to the table and brought them back full. From her manner, one would not have guessed that she had had more than a couple of short ones.

I sipped mine and poured part of it on the rug when she wasn’t watching. I was afraid. It isn’t good for a man to feel that sort of fear. Realization of it set me to hating her... and to remember the reason I was in her room.

“That girl I saw you speak to this afternoon... do I know her?”

“Do you?”

“Her face was familiar but she didn’t seem to recognize me.”

Lucile said suddenly: “Damn you! You’re spoiling the party. What are you made of?” She finished her drink. Stood up.

Her eyes made me stand up with a queasy feeling inside. The feeling vanished when she moved close to me. I could hear her heart thumping and I could smell her.

An animal odor. Pungent and full-flavored. Striking directly to certain brain cells and releasing me from all inhibitions.

I put my hands on her shoulders. She gave me a level, searching glance.

My fingers tightened on the gray stuff of her gown. For an instant, I wasn’t Ed Barlow. Her breath, coming between set teeth, set my senses whirling.

She turned away from me and went into the bathroom.

She flushed the toilet just as the phone rang. I was standing close to it and reached out mechanically to lift the receiver. I said, “Hello,” and heard the voice of the girl whose hair had glinted with gold. Don’t ask me how I knew it was her voice. I knew — that’s all there was to it.

“Is this Mrs. Travers’ room?”

“It is.” I spoke into the mouthpiece, listening to Lucile go from the bathroom into the bedroom.

“May I speak to her, please?”

“Lucile isn’t in just now. She asked me to take any message that might come.”

“Oh.” The girl’s voice sounded confused. There was a little pause.

“This is Ed Barlow,” I told her quickly. “I was with Lucile at the Axelrods’ tea this afternoon.”

“Well... tell her that Cherry called. Tell her I’ve a couple of contacts and for her to call me back about them later.”

“I’ve got that.” I kept my mouth close to the phone and spoke low enough so Lucile couldn’t hear me from the bedroom. “Does she know your number?”

“Why... she should. But you can take it down if you wish.”

I said: “Perhaps I’d better.”

The girl who called herself Cherry gave me her number. I memorized it, told her I would give the message to Lucile, and hung up.

I heard Lucile calling me from the darkened bedroom. I stood in the center of the floor, irresolute. I wanted to go in to her so badly that I was almost afraid to.

She called again, hoarsely. My legs carried me toward the open door.

There was a muffled rapping behind me at the outer door as I hesitated on the threshold. I stood there, not knowing what to do. The lights in the parlor showed over the transom. The knocking got louder.

I heard Lucile utter a smothered, “Goddamn.” Then she brushed past me with a velvet robe caught about her. Went to the door and jerked it open to admit a man who smiled at her familiarly.

Chapter 6

Lucile called the man Harry, and he kissed her lightly on the cheek as he came in. He was thick-necked and short, with cheerful blue eyes. Well-dressed, with a sandy mustache and reddish hair.

She pulled away from his kiss and asked him what he wanted as though she wasn’t any too pleased to see him. He looked past her at me before answering:

“I was passing and had the happy thought of dropping in on you for a drink.” Sandy eyebrows were question marks as he kept on looking at me.

Lucile shrugged her shoulders and said: “Harry Green... Mr. Barlow.”

I shook hands with him without saying anything. He planted his feet solidly on the rug in front of me and drooped the lid of his right eye.

“Sorry to have busted in and interrupted.”

I told him that was all right, looking over his shoulder and trying to figure out what Lucile’s frantic gestures meant. It was clear that she wasn’t glad to have him there. One hand twisted the front of her robe, and her eyes on Green’s back were murderous. She bit her underlip when he turned away from me and said:

“I’ll take that drink... now that I’m here.” He went to the table and began mixing a drink as though we had both begged him to make himself right at home.

I lit a cigarette and walked over to the window with my back to them. Lucile’s voice drifted to me across the clinking of glasses.

“I told you I didn’t want to see you again.”

Without lowering his voice, Green told her cheerily: “But I knew you didn’t mean it.” There was the hiss of a siphon in his glass. I heard a little movement, and Green’s whispered: “Who is this bird?”

Lucile said aloud, angrily as though she wanted me to hear and be drawn into the conversation: “Ed Barlow. A very particular friend of mine.”

I turned around and Green laughed across the room at me. But there was no real mirth in his eyes. “Only yesterday, I was Lucy’s most particular friend.”

I didn’t answer him because I had a feeling he hoped I’d say too much.

Lucile said flatly: “That’s a lie.”

Green tipped his glass and drank from it looking at her over the rim.

He was turned sideways to me and I saw a bulge in his coat just in front of his left armpit. The sort of bulge made by a small automatic in a clip holster.

I said: “Maybe I’d better be running along.”

Neither of them heard me. Lucile was breathing hard, not shrinking from the steady look Green was giving her.

He said: “Men have waked up in hell for saying less than that.”

“Don’t lie about me then.”

He set his glass down without looking at it. “Trying to pull the wool over your new boy friend’s eyes?”

Lucile was beginning to tremble. “What I do isn’t any business of yours.”

He lifted his glass and seemed to consider that statement. Both of them acted as though they had forgotten me. I sat down in a chair and wished I was some place else.

Green emptied his glass. He said slowly: “You’re an ungrateful bitch.”

Lucile slapped him — hard. I jumped up, and Green’s glass fell to the rug. There was a patch of white on his ruddy cheek. He said, “You shouldn’t have done that,” in a tone that made me realize she shouldn’t have done it.

She seemed to feel it, too. Her hand, raised as though to slap him again, fell limply to her side. I took a step forward without quite meaning to.

Green said out of the side of his mouth without looking at me: “Keep out of this.”

Lucile’s eyes were enormous as she looked at me and gasped: “You’d better go... Ed.”

“He’s staying,” Green told her. I sat down and lit another cigarette, wondering why the devil I had to step into a mess like this.

Green mixed himself another drink and said musingly: “No. You really shouldn’t have slapped me. And just because I called you an ungrateful bitch. Worse men than I have called you worse than that.”

Lucile’s hands curved into claws at her side. I was sweating like a nigger at an election in Alabama.

Green seemed to be extremely pleased with the effect he was creating. He tasted his drink and nodded approvingly, carried it to a chair near me. “Better sit down,” he said to Lucile.

She was drawing in great shuddering breaths. She looked older than I had thought her. She said shakily:

“You have no right to force yourself in here like this, Harry.”

“Force myself?” Green winked at me, for all the world as though he and I were companionably watching a good show. “Hear the woman rave. Didn’t I knock on the door and didn’t you let me in?”

I couldn’t figure him. He seemed to be deliberately trying to drive her wild with anger.

“I wouldn’t have opened the door if I’d known it was you,” she spit at him.

“Nuts,” he told her. “You have opened it for me plenty of times.”

Lucile gritted something at him and turned her back. I stood up.

“I’ll be going along.”

Green slouched back in his chair and slitted his eyes at me, hooking his thumb in the top button of his coat.

“I’ve got a few questions that need answering first.”

I said, “To hell with your questions,” and started for the door.

Green was in my way before I took three steps. His hand was near that bulge in his coat. “Not so fast, wise guy.”

I might have knocked him down before he could get hold of his gun. But it would have been close, and I like to have the odds on my side when I butt up against a gun-play. I stood still and said:

“Get it over with.”

“You wouldn’t run out on your little playmate, would you?” Green’s thick lips twisted into a nasty snarl.

“Is that one of the questions?”

Lucile had swung about and was facing us. The expression on her face was unreadable.

“No. But this is: Did you have a good time at the Axelrod tea this afternoon?”

“Since it introduced me to Lucile... yes.”

“You figure that was a break, eh?”

“I did... until you shoved your goddamned ugly face in the door.”

Green didn’t twitch a muscle. He said: “Somebody is liable to get hurt around here.”

I was watching his hand. Thumb and first finger were twiddling with the top coat button. I said:

“Go on with your questions.”

“Here’s the important one. Who are you and what do you want?”

“Looks as if I might be wanting Lucile.” I tried to make a joke out of it.

“You’ll stay healthy a lot longer if you decide to make out with some other man’s doll in place of mine.”

“I’m not,” Lucile said in a strained voice, “his doll.”

Green didn’t turn his head. The pupils of his eyes dilated a trifle. He said, “Shut up,” out of the side of his mouth with surprising venom. His coat sagged open.

I asked: “What is this? A badger game?”

“This isn’t any kind of a game, Mister. I asked you who you were.”

I felt empty in my middle, but hell! I couldn’t stand there all night and take his lip. And it looked as though he was getting ready to blast me whether or not.

“It’s none of your goddamned business.” One dive and I could have my shoulder in his belly.

“Oh.” He relaxed unexpectedly, looked me up and down with a curious expression on his face. “Maybe it isn’t,” he said after a little time. He moved from in front of me toward the table.

I looked at Lucile. She sank down on a couch and was watching Green, sharp teeth nibbling at her underlip.

“You’re lucky if it isn’t,” Green added to me as an afterthought while he splashed whisky in a clean glass.

I moved toward him. “You’ve asked your questions and had your answers. Are you going to beat it or shall I throw you out?”

Lucile moaned. Just loud enough for me to hear. I was past paying any attention to further histrionics from her.

Green emptied the glass and set it down. “Hard guy, eh?”

“Not particularly.” I kept on moving toward him. “I don’t have to be hard to handle a cheap gunman like you.”

Lucile moaned a little louder. Green’s mustache twitched. I was pretty sure I had his number. I told him not to let the gun under his arm give him any big ideas.

“This one?” His hand snaked in and brought out a .38 automatic.

“Have you another one?”

“This is all I need. You’re asking for it.” He swung his hand forward with the automatic flat in the palm.

I ducked and it slid over my head. My left rocked him back on his heels but he was built as solid as a brick outhouse and wouldn’t go over. The butt of the gun was sliding into his hand and I just had time to put my knee in his abdomen before his finger touched the trigger.

He went down on the rug in a heap with a little exhaled sigh. Lucile grabbed my arm as I came up with the .38.

“Oh, my God!” Tears were racing down her cheeks. “You’ve done it now. You’ll have to get out before he comes to.”

“This is a hell of a poor time to start running,” I told her. “He’ll be out for some time... What with a left to the chin and a knee to the belly.”

She was leaning against me, shaking and sobbing. I put my hands on her shoulders and shook her. She leaned against me and my arms went around her.

I had thought I was all done with that sort of thing for the night, but something made desire surge up stronger than before. Reaction from looking at death, perhaps. There’s a close alliance between death and what Lucile offered me.

I kissed her lips and she stopped crying. Her body tensed and seemed to grow cold. I shivered and a ghoulish chill swept over me. I would have given a whole lot to have been able to turn my back on her and go out the door.

I couldn’t. I said, roughly: “We were going to get drunk.”

She was looking past me at the huddled body of Green on the floor.

I pushed her away. “Mix some stiff drinks. I’ll get rid of this.”

She went to the table and started mixing drinks. I picked Green up, shouldered him like a sack of flour, carried him out to the hall and rang for the automatic elevator. I put him in the cage when it came up, closed the door and left him there.

Lucile had the drinks mixed when I went back.

They were potent. So potent that the rest of that night hasn’t a definite place in my memories.

Which is, perhaps, just as well.

Chapter 7

The telephone awoke me at two o’clock the next afternoon. I stumbled out of bed, half-awake, and tilted the receiver against my ear.

The woman’s voice coming over the wire brought me out of my trance in a hurry. With the words, “Oh darling!” Lucile managed to say as much as a woman like Dolly could put across in a string of paragraphs.

I said, “Shoot,” and braced myself against the wall.

“I have to see you right away, Ed.”

Her tone kept me from asking any questions. “All right. Shall I come over?”

“No! Not here, Ed.”

“Hold everything. Can you talk... or is someone listening?”

“I can talk. But I can’t tell you over the phone.”

“Want to come to my place?”

“I can’t do that.”

I asked her what she could do.

“Suppose you meet me in the park in half an hour.”

“Bayfront Park?”

“On the walk at the foot of Flagler.”

“In half an hour,” I promised, and hung up.

I sloshed some cognac in a water glass and put it down, sitting on the edge of my bed in pajamas. I had Lucile figured as not the jittery sort. Take the evening before, for instance. After I dragged Green out, she didn’t waste time on post mortems or attempted explanations.

No, she wasn’t the sort to go jittery without plenty of cause. I took a cold tub and got dressed without asking myself too many questions. After all, I hadn’t dodged the issue in my interview with Green.

She was waiting for me when I parked my car on the near end of Flagler. She looked like hell before breakfast.

Her left eye was an ugly bluish-green. The whole left side of her face was angry and swollen. She hadn’t put on any rouge or powder, and the hem of a white slip showed beneath her blue tailored skirt. She looked for all the world like a stevedore’s sweetie who had unsuccessfully tried to get away with a bit of two-timing.

I said, “What the hell?” and began chuckling.

She grabbed my arm, hard, and led me to an unoccupied bench behind a clump of oleanders. There wasn’t a spark of mirth in her eyes as we sat down together.

“It’s nothing to laugh about, Ed.”

“Green must have recovered from the solar plexus knockout,” I guessed.

Lucile nodded. She touched the shiner with her fingertips. “He gave me this... when I refused to give him your address.”

“What would he have given you if you hadn’t decided to cough up the address?”

She started violently. “How did you know...?”

“He didn’t impress me as the sort of a bird who would stop at a shiner.”

She shuddered. “He would have killed me, Ed.”

“When can I expect a visit from him?”

“That... depends. I promised I’d try to get you to meet him some place where you could be alone.”

“What,” I asked her, “is the plot?” I gave her a cigarette and took one. Lit them both. She puffed on hers half a dozen times, grimacing with her bruised lips.

“Before God, I wish I knew.”

“Jealousy?”

She shrugged her shoulders. “It’s rather late for that.”

“Then what’s it all about?” I asked roughly.

She looked away from me. Stared across the bay. Her thickening lips twitched. “I think he intends to kill you.”

“Sure, I know that. But why?”

“What you did to him last night is enough reason for Harry Green.”

“Why did he jump me last night?”

She asked drearily: “Don’t you know?”

“I haven’t the faintest idea.”

“All this doesn’t matter.” She grabbed my arm again. “You’ll have to get out of Miami, Ed.”

“I like it here.”

“Enough to... want to stay always?”

“I’d just as soon be buried here as anywhere.”

“No, Ed! My God!” She was shaking uncontrollably. “It’ll be my fault.”

I stretched out my legs and puffed on my cigarette. “I’m too old to learn to run from things I don’t understand.”

“But he’ll kill you. You don’t understand. It’s not only Harry. It’s...” She caught in her breath sharply.

I pretended not to notice. “I’m stubborn as hell. And as curious as an old maid about what’s under a man’s shirt tail.”

“He’ll... not stop with you, Ed.” The words came faintly. She was twisting a lace handkerchief into a wispy string.

I lit another cigarette from the butt of my first one. “Here’s the way I get the picture: Green has some reason for thinking I’m in his way — not only so far as you’re concerned. Am I right?”

Lucile nodded.

“Just to be on the safe side,” I went on conversationally, “he decides to rub me out... and at the same time he’s likely to make it tough on you.”

Another nod. The tip of Lucile’s pink tongue was caressing her swollen lips. She seemed to be studying my words carefully — as though they were more important than I was making them sound.

“I still like Miami,” I told her.

She cupped her chin in her hands, resting her elbows on her knees, gazing out through a rent in the foliage to the blue of Biscayne Bay rippling to the feel of an inshore breeze.

“Let’s take a ride up to your hotel.” I took hold of her arm and pulled her up.

She drew back. “We’d better not.”

“Afraid Green might be keeping tabs?”

She nodded nervously.

I said, “To hell with Green,” and pulled her toward my car. With her riding beside me, I went on: “You can call him as soon as we get there. I’ll tell you what to say later.”

She didn’t answer. I saw her looking at me out of the corners of her eyes. I was doing a lot of figuring in a hurry and it didn’t add up right.

Lucile put her hands on my shoulders as soon as the door of her room closed behind us. Lifted her face to mine. “Don’t mix up with Harry. Please darling. Take my word for what he is.”

She tried to pull my face down to hers. I pushed her away. “What the goddamn hell is all this about?”

She walked over to the window and stood beside it, looking out across the bay.

I said: “Don’t bother to put on a show for me. I’ve got the layout down pretty well. Just how does this Green stack up with the gang you’re playing ball with?”

She whirled on me. All of her face was white except for the bruised place. “What do you mean? Who are you?”

“Barlow’s the name.”

“But... what made you say that other?”

I shrugged my shoulders. “That’s the only way I can hook up Green’s play.”

“How much do you know about that?” she demanded.

“Not a lot about anything. I’m using the brains God gave me and I know there’s something besides jealousy behind Green trying to put me on the spot. He looks like a guy with too much sense to fight over a skirt.”

Color flamed into her cheeks. “So, you don’t think I’m worth fighting over?”

“Hell no. No split-tail is.”

“All right.” She was breathing hard. “Read the cards if you’re so wise.”

“I figure Green for the trigger-man in the gambling racket you’re fronting for. Somebody’s made a mistake and put the finger on me. Maybe you.”

She was staring at me as though I had just come into her life. “So Harry was right. You are wise.”

“Plenty.”

“What are you going to do about it?”

“Nothing.”

“Nothing?”

“Why the hell should I do anything?”

“Harry thinks you’re a dick.”

I snorted. “That guy doesn’t think.”

She came close to me. “Honest to God, Ed, I don’t give a damn, see. I like you. That’s plenty. But it isn’t enough for Harry. It’s his job to be suspicious of everybody and everything.”

“So he decides to rub me out on suspicion? And, after it’s all over... you will have fingered me?”

She shuddered and put her arms around my neck. “I’m taking a chance on getting it myself by warning you.”

“You’re all right.” I kissed her ear and she liked it. “But Green is all wet. If he’ll let me put my cards on the table, I can prove to him that I’m a right guy.” I took her hands down from around my neck so she could get her mind back on important things.

“He was going out to the salon on Weston Avenue. Maybe you could see him there.”

“What’s the address?”

She gave it to me. And told me the password for the week was Walla-Walla.

I frowned and shook my head. “That’s too much like walking into something. He might not give me a chance to talk. I’d like to meet him on neutral ground.”

How the hell to do it? I went back and forth across the carpet while Lucile mixed us both a drink. I asked her if anyone knew about Green beating her up.

“I rang for the porter,” she admitted. “He came up and Harry left.”

I thought that over. She went into the bathroom and closed the door after putting her drink down. The bedroom door was open. I stepped in softly and went to the bureau. A pair of soiled white gloves lay there. I put one of them in my pocket. And picked up one of a pair of flashy emerald earrings.

I was standing by the table sipping my drink when she came out of the bathroom.

“You’d better call Green,” I told her. “Make a date to meet him at the north end of Lummus Park on the beach just after dark. Tell him it has to do with me.”

“What’s it for, Ed? What are you going to do?”

“I’ll see him and have a chat.”

“You’ll be careful?” She came close to me. The drink had put a sheen in her undiscolored eye. Her hands crept up to my shoulders.

“Sure I’ll be careful. Think I want to stop breathing now?” I reached around and patted her.

She smiled at me and pouted out her lips.

“Business before pleasure.” I pushed her toward the telephone.

She called a number and waited. Then asked for Mr. Green. Listening a moment, she covered the mouthpiece and told me he wasn’t in.

“Leave the message for him,” I directed her.

She left a message for Mr. Green to meet Mrs. Travers at the north end of Lummus Park shortly after dark.

That was all to the good. A witness to the fact that Green had gone to meet her wouldn’t hurt my plan a bit.

I broke away right after that was fixed up. She was all set to have me stay for another go-round, but I had to get away from where I could look into her eyes.

I satisfied her with a promise to come back that night, and got out.

At my hotel, I told the clerk I had been called to Jacksonville on business and would leave that night, explaining that I’d keep my room and be back in a day or so.

He looked up train schedules for me and found an F.E.C. going out at seven that carried a day coach. That was what I wanted. I asked him to get a ticket for me, and told him I would bring a bag down to be checked.

I packed a bag and left it in the lobby, then went out and walked up the street to a travel agency and picked up an F.E.C. folder. The seven o’clock train made a stop at Little River and one at North Miami Beach. I knew there was an ocean drive running north from Lummus Park to North Miami Beach on which I should be able to make good time after dark.

But I wanted to be damned sure there wasn’t any slip-up, so I drove over to the north end of Lummus Park and timed myself to North Miami Beach.

I made it in ten minutes less than the train schedule. Coming back, I parked my car in front of the hotel and went to my room where I poured a slug of cognac down me and called the Bugle.

Chapter 8

I was lucky to catch Pete Ryan at the City Desk. I said, “Hi mug,” when his raspy voice came over the wire.

“I don’t know any hot-loving blondes looking for a man; I haven’t a tip on Hialeah, and I’m so broke I couldn’t loan my own dear grandmother a fin if she wanted it to shoot craps with.”

“Listen instead of talking so damned much,” I growled. “I’ve got plenty on my mind.”

Pete said, “Shoot.”

“Stick around Lummus Park after dark tonight. Keep your eyes open and your mouth shut. Look for a white glove and an emerald earring somewhere about the body. The guy’ll probably be sweet on a dame hanging out at room 543 of the Covington Arms Hotel. That might be a lead.”

“Imagine who’s giving me a story,” he jeered.

“Hell! I’m not giving it to you. I’m making it for you. Two or three more things. Know anybody you can trust to pick up my car at North Miami Beach about seven-thirty, drive it back and park it in the hotel garage and forget about it?”

“I can fix it.”

“Be damned sure the guy’s got a good forgetter.”

“Yeah. Trust your Uncle Dudley.”

“I’ve got to,” I groaned. “That’s the hell of it.”

“Is that so, guy? When did I ever let you down?”

“Let’s not go into that. Don’t let me down tonight. Who’s the best mouthpiece in the city to represent a dame who’s going to be charged with first degree?”

“U-m-m.” I could almost hear Pete thinking. He was busting to know what it was all about, but pretended to be as blase as hell. “Herman Blattscomb, I’d say.”

“Fix it for an outside party to get hold of him as soon as it breaks. The Bugle will pay the bill but mustn’t show in the deal. This dame is going to shoot a wild story she hasn’t a chance in hell of proving. It’s Blattscomb’s job to convince her she’ll beat the rap easier by admitting she bumped him in a fit of anger because he beat her up this morning. Got that?”

“You’re miles ahead of me,” Pete admitted cheerfully. “But I’ve got it.”

“One thing else. Call Lucile Travers at the Covington Arms at six-thirty. Act mysterious as hell. Tell her you’re a friend of mine and that I’m in a jam. Get her to meet you some place where you won’t be and where there’s not likely to be any witnesses to prove she was there. Got that?”

There was a little silence. Pete’s voice held a new note when he spoke again. “You’re not so far ahead of me now, feller. Are you putting the frame on a dame?”

“What is it to you?” I cracked. “Want a story, don’t you?”

“Sure... but.”

“This,” I told him, “is something that’s got to be done. I’m on the track of something so big that there can’t be any buts. And she’ll beat the rap. Hell, no jury on earth will convict her of rubbing out the rat. Switch me to Grange.”

Pete muttered something and there was a little silence. Then Ellsworth Grange’s voice pussy-footed over the wire. “Yes?”

“Barlow at this end.”

“Indeed? I wondered when you would condescend to communicate with us.”

I yawned into the mouthpiece. “I just got out of bed.”

“Ah. Recuperating from the tea date, I venture.”

“Something like that. You know how it is... one thing leads to another. I dragged the body home at daylight after putting in a strenuous night for the dear old Bugle.”

“I trust you have some definite results to show.”

“I’m not any Man-of-War,” I protested. “Give me time.”

“The man is known by the results he achieves,” Grange informed me sententiously.

“I’ve been working too hard and need a vacation. Believe I’ll run up to Jax for a couple of days.”

“I don’t believe I understand you, Barlow.”

I yawned into the telephone again. “I’m catching the seven o’clock train. Thought I’d tell you so you wouldn’t worry.”

“This has gone far enough,” Grange told me severely. “The Bugle cannot countenance such blatant disregard of duty. I’m quite sure your work will not permit you to afford any such preposterous...”

“Don’t worry about me affording it. It’ll all come to you on the swindle sheet.” I hung up on Grange’s gasp of astonished anger, and took another drink.

Then I dug a tiny .25 automatic out of my trunk, loaded it to the hilt and wiped off all the fingerprints. I had accumulated it from a floosie in Baltimore a couple of years ago. She was trying to get up nerve to use it on herself when I bought her a drink and convinced her that there was a silver lining.

It was pearl-handled and dainty, but deadly as hell at close range.

I had a pair of soft rubber gloves in my pocket when I drove away from the hotel just before dark. I had called Lucile’s hotel and been informed that she was not in.

I had a funny feeling in my stomach as I drove across the causeway. The deck lights of an outgoing liner were brilliant on my right. An orchestra was playing on the upper deck, and the rails were lined with passengers. Lucky fools — not to have anything more important to do. It was getting dark in a hurry, and I stepped on the gas to be not late to the rendezvous.

It was fully dark when I parked the coupe on a side street half a block from the ocean drive.

I pulled on the rubber gloves as I went down a walk toward the beach where long combers were rolling in. The park and beach was practically deserted at this hour. I skirted a crowd of picnickers and went toward a bulky figure standing alone near the water’s edge. He had a felt hat pulled low over his face, but I recognized Green’s stance.

My rubber-gloved right hand went into my pocket and brought out the .25, so small that it fitted snugly in the palm, perfectly concealed.

I strolled toward Green, feeling pretty good to see that there was no one within eyesight of us, and subconsciously realizing that the sound of the combers breaking on shore were enough to cover up any sound I might make.

I went up to him and pushed back my hat so he could see my face. He leaned close and loosed a “Goddamn.”

I said, “It’s me, Green,” softly. “Want to take a walk?”

He grabbed me by the left arm and swung me around. “Not so fast,” he grunted.

I said, “You want to beg my pardon?” and held out my hand.

He screwed up his face into a snarl and stepped closer. “I just want...”

I’ll always wonder what Harry Green “just wanted.” I jammed the muzzle of the baby automatic against his belly and pulled the trigger, kept on pulling the trigger until it was empty.

It was funny how little noise the automatic made. I don’t believe it could have been heard ten feet away. Funny, too, how slowly and easily Green slumped to the sand. Like a slow motion picture. His body just seemed to fold up on itself like an accordion, as though he didn’t have any bones or joints.

I dropped the automatic on top of him, slipped Lucile’s glove underneath his outflung arm, dropped her earring on the sand nearby, then went hell-for-leather to my car and up the beach road.

Chapter 9

A Jacksonville morning paper carried the story. I read it while I ate breakfast in a little joint near the station. I could read Pete’s work all the way through.

Green’s body hadn’t been found until almost eight o’clock. That was all to the good for me. There were at least three men that would swear I was on the train at that time — and no reason for anyone to think I hadn’t boarded it in Miami.

It hadn’t taken them long to get on Lucile’s trail — led by Pete, I suppose. The cops were waiting for her when she came back from the wild goose chase Pete’s phone message had sent her on.

The glove and earring matched with ones found in her room, and it hadn’t taken the sleuths long to turn up the beating she’d taken from Green that morning.

The news story had it all added up to a first degree murder charge. There wasn’t a word about me in the two column spread. Green was characterized as a small-time gunman, and the papers couldn’t be blamed for making Lucile his moll.

I looked up a friend in the insurance business after breakfast, told him I’d been having bad dreams lately, and wanted another policy on my lousy life. We spent the morning in his office figuring on different policies, had lunch together, and I left him that afternoon with my promise to let him know which one I wanted.

I killed time with a couple of lads on a local paper, picking up a copy of the Bugle just before it was time to catch a night train back to Miami.

Pete had more than done himself proud on the hints I’d dropped. He had the case all sewed up, ready to deliver to a jury. I took a sleeper going back, woke up in Miami at seven in the morning of what turned out to be a hectic day.

A flatfoot picked me up at the station. He wasn’t any too polite about escorting me to a patrol car and up to the courthouse where the State’s Attorney was waiting to ask me plenty of questions.

He was Jerome Lester, a nice guy. Lucile had spilled the dope before Blattscomb got to her to shut her up, and Lester had it all down in black and white.

At that, it didn’t do him much good. He was apologetic about it when he started, and kept getting more so as I raved just enough and denied everything.

They couldn’t pin a damned thing on me. Lester got friendly after asking all the questions in his book, admitted that Lucile’s story looked like a desperate effort to drag an innocent man in with her.

I admitted knowing Lucile, admitted spending the night with her and being in her room that afternoon. Just to make it sound good, I put in a few details about Lucile being upset and how I’d had a premonition that she was going to pull something.

It went over swell. Lester was apologizing when I left his office at nine o’clock. As far as I could see, I was all the way in the open. The coast was clear for me to follow up the leads I’d collected.

A fat man was waiting at the elevator when I came out of Lester’s office. His jowls were blue-black, his nose was flat, flared at the base. He was bald and had the keenest eyes I ever saw.

He followed me into the elevator and touched my arm as it started down. “If I could have a word with you, Mr. Barlow.”

“More monkey business? I thought the trip to Lester’s office cleared it.”

He coughed and took a card from a pigskin case. I looked at it as we got out at the main floor. Herman Blattscomb!

I said: “I just got in from Jax. Walk up to my hotel with me?”

He nodded and we swung along Flagler without saying anything. I bought a Bugle and we went up to my room. The flatfoot had sent my bag up after shooing me into Lester’s office.

With the door closed behind us, the lawyer sat down with a sigh and mopped his broad face with a white silk handkerchief.

“Perhaps you know I’ve been retained for Mrs. Travers’ defense.”

I got down a bottle and raised my eyebrows invitingly.

He shook his head regretfully. “I’m on a strict diet.” He folded his hands over his paunch and watched me down one.

When I set the glass down, he leaned forward and said: “I’ll be blunt with you, Barlow. The lady has told me her story — and I believe her.”

I sat down. “So what?”

“That remains to be seen,” he said softly.

“I’ve got an airtight alibi.”

He nodded, those bright eyes of his fixed on mine. “I supposed you would have.”

I poured myself another small snifter. Drank it and lit a cigarette with his eyes following my every movement as though they were important.

“The State’s Attorney gave me a clean bill of health,” I told him.

He nodded.

His silence was getting me. I walked up and down the room. “What the hell do you want?”

“Are you going to let an innocent woman go on trial for her life?”

“She deserves a medal for bumping Green.”

“Perhaps a medal is deserved. Not by my client.”

“They don’t convict good-looking dames of murder in Florida.”

He raised white eyebrows. “I’m not afraid of a conviction.”

“Then what are you squalling about?”

He looked away from me. Out the window. “I’ve already advised Mrs. Travers to plead guilty to justifiable homicide. The man threatened her again when she met him on the beach. He was insane with jealousy. He had a gun in a clip holster, and she knew he always carried one. There won’t be an indictment.”

“Why the hell were you throwing it at me about letting an innocent woman go on trial?”

“I was interested to know what your reactions would be.”

“To hell with it.” The guy was beginning to get on my nerves.

“Ah.” The smile went away from his face. “There are certain other interests involved...” he began.

“I’m tired and I’m not interested in anything you’ve got to say,” I broke in. “Suppose you do your speculating elsewhere.”

He got up, surprisingly agile for a man of his weight. He moved toward the door, turned to face me. “I believe I know why you found it necessary to eliminate Harry Green. I may keep the information to myself.” He went out the door while my jaw was hanging open stupidly.

I couldn’t, believe Blattscomb was hooked up with the gambling syndicate. The way I read it, Lucile must have blabbed everything and Blattscomb was feeling around to see how he could make the best use of his information.

It was up to me to get the jump on him by tearing the thing wide open before he made up his mind.

I called Pete and gave him the phone number the girl who called herself Cherry had given me that night at Lucile’s. He promised to call back with the address in half an hour. I’d already made up my mind to use the Walla Walla gag and visit the gambling house after dark. There was half a day to kill and I had a hunch Cherry would be worth culitvating — in more ways than one.

Chapter 10

The address took me to the Northeast Bay section of the city, an old stone mansion that had been cut up into housekeeping apartments when the boom busted in ’26.

There were letter boxes in the vestibule. Over one was the name, Cherry Smith. The number was twenty-two. I prowled up a wide stairway to the second floor and found number 22. Voices floated over an open transom. I flattened myself against the wall and listened.

A man: “Going high-hat on me, eh?”

The girl: (softly) “No.”

“Then why do you want to get rid of me the moment I’ve made the pay-off?”

“I’m tired, Stormy. And I’ll have to be up late tonight.”

“Too tired to be nice to me, eh?”

“Your kind of being nice is pretty strenuous, Stormy.”

Silence. Subdued scuffling inside the room. A man’s heavy breathing.

“That wasn’t so hard to take, was it?”

“Will you go now, Stormy?”

“But it wasn’t, was it?”

“I don’t like to be slobbered on.”

Another brief silence.

“You’re driving me nuts, Cherry.”

“You’re doing that to yourself.”

“Goddamn it! Hasn’t any man ever waked you up?”

“Not that way.”

“One of these days I won’t be able to keep my hands off you.”

“Don’t come up here any more, Stormy.”

“Can’t stand the sight of me?”

“I’ve liked you until this afternoon. A lot.”

“Is that what you call liking a guy a lot?”

“As much as I’ve ever liked any man.”

“Nerts! Tell that to the Marines. A smooth number like you doesn’t grow up without knowing what it’s all about.”

“You’re spoiling everything by acting like this, Stormy.”

“Yeah? I should go on letting you play me for a fish and pretending to like it?”

“But I’m not playing you. I’m trying to be honest with you.”

“Why did you think I spoke up for you at first and kept you out of going into the regular racket like all the rest of the dames that can’t pay up?”

“I’m sorry.”

“Hell. I’m not. But you’re going to be sorry if you don’t make up your mind to do something about it.”

“I suppose you’ll assault me?”

“Damn your teasing little soul! That’s what you deserve.”

“I think you’d better go now.”

“Yeh. I’ll go. This time.” A chair scraping back. “I’ll take one kiss before I go.”

I moved away from the wall and down the hallway to a cross corridor. Standing out of sight, I heard the door open and slam violently shut. Heavy footsteps receded toward the stairs. I got a glimpse of a tall athletic figure with a gray fedora pulled low in front. Stormy went down the stairs and I waited two minutes, then walked casually to the door of 22 and knocked.

Cherry’s voice asked: “Who is it?”

I said, “Ed,” and turned the knob. The door opened and I went in. It was the tall, gray-eyed girl of the Axelrod tea. Her gray eyes were misted over and there wasn’t any sunlight to touch her brown hair to gold.

She stood in the center of the large room and looked at me. I closed the door and looked at her. The expression on her face made me pretty certain she was remembering our meeting at the tea. She wore a gray smock over a silk gown that had the sleeves rolled up. Waves of brown hair were fluffed out about her flushed face.

I put my hat down and said, conversationally: “I saw Stormy coming out. He looked mad enough to bite railroad spikes in two.”

She put her hands behind her on a center table, carefully, as though she needed support. “Who are you?”

“Ed Barlow.” I looked at her in surprise. “You’re Cherry, aren’t you?”

She nodded slowly. “I’m Cherry.”

It seemed to me that a hint of desperation lurked in her eyes. “Stormy didn’t see me,” I told her, “if that’s what you’re worried about.”

She shook her head. “I’m not worried about Stormy.”

“He’s plenty worried about you,” I told her breezily. “You’re the only girl he hasn’t bragged to me about.”

A little smile touched the corners of her mouth. It went away quickly. “I haven’t met you before.”

“I’m new at this end. Just getting squared around into harness.” I sat down and she remained standing.

“What... do you do?”

“This and that. Just now... with Lucy in the can for bumping Harry... I’m sort of taking care of her end.”

“What do you want with me?” Cherry sat down and became very matter-of-fact.

“What do most men want of you?”

“Aren’t you taking too much for granted?”

“Am I?”

She got up with a little shrug. “There are dishes in the kitchen waiting to be dried.”

I followed her into the kitchen. A dishpan full of dishes stood in the sink. I took the cloth away from her and began drying them. She sat down on a stool, propped her chin in her hand, and watched me gravely.

“Are you going out to the joint tonight?” I asked as I juggled knives and forks.

“The joint?”

“On Weston Avenue.”

“Yes. I have to take a couple of women I met today.”

“Perhaps I’ll see you there.”

She nodded, looking away quickly when I tried to see into her eyes.

I finished drying the dishes and dumped out the water. “Let’s go into the living room where it’s cooler.”

She followed me in, sat down in a deep chair facing me, took one of my cigarettes and leaned forward to get a light off my match.

“How can you take it?” I asked suddenly.

“The same way you do.”

“Hell, I’m a man. You’re the one that’s cheating on your sisters under the skin.”

She puffed on her cigarette. “It’s a living.”

“The easy way?” I sneered.

“Why not?”

I leaned back and decided I was getting nowhere fast. “Oh, the hell with it. Let’s get down to business. With Lucy out of the picture, I came to get some dope from you.”

“What sort of dope?”

“Well, I like to know where I stand. Stormy has charge of the joint, eh?”

“He’s the only one any of us come in contact with.” She opened her lips to say something else. Closed them without saying it.

“I was ordered to report to him... but that doesn’t mean I’m going to take orders from him.”

“You might be better off if you did.”

“Why?”

“I’ve heard whispers... that the person at the top is a woman... or a female devil.”

“I’d like to meet her.”

“They say no man has ever met her and been the same.”

“Bunk. Women don’t get under my skin.”

“Don’t they?” Cherry was smiling faintly.

“How many of you were working with Lucile?”

“Four of us have been working with her regularly.”

“How many other missionary groups at work?”

“Three or four.”

That was all I could get out of Cherry about the inside workings of the syndicate. Either she didn’t know, or wouldn’t talk.

I changed the subject before she might begin to think I was too curious for one supposed to be on the inside, and got up to go after talking about this and that without breaking through her reserve.

I’d tossed my hat on a little stand near the door when I came in. Picking it up, I was looking down at a round flat brass receptacle for calling cards. A large square one was on top. I blinked my eyes at the name: Herman Blattscomb.

Cherry was holding the door open for me. I went out wondering.

Chapter 11

Walla Walla got me through the ornamental iron gates leading to the huge palm-shrouded structure on Weston Avenue. There was another uniformed guard at the door. Walla Walla wasn’t enough for him. I had to mention Lucile and Stormy before he pressed a button and let the heavy doors swing open.

There was a swanky foyer just inside. Potted palms, and girl attendants who were dressed and looked like houris. A lounge and bar opened off the foyer. A wide arch led into a vaulted space that must have once been a ballroom.

There must have been a hundred bridge tables in that one room. Half of them occupied early in the evening when I went in.

Concealed lighting shed a soft glow over the room. A cathedral-like hush hung over the tables.

That was my first impression. Strolling down among the tables gave me a different feeling. Women are lousy gamblers. There’s nothing light-hearted about a game of chance among women. No cheerful sallies across the table. No mirthful laughter while the cards are being shuffled and dealt.

They don’t enjoy gambling. It just isn’t in their natures. They play to win. Their fingers are avid, their eyes calculating.

There were a few men scattered among the women players. Pretty poor specimens of my sex. Two distinct types. Cold-eyed and predatory. Effeminate weaklings.

Every foursome — each member of every foursome — would have repaid a psychoanalyst’s close observation. The one common denominator was greed. Human greed. The distinguishing characteristic of our civilization.

I wouldn’t have given two cents for our civilization as I strolled through the room. Goddamn it, it was enough to make a sane man sick at his stomach. You could see that most of the players had plenty of money. A large percentage of them must never have known want as the word is commonly used.

I’m no tin god, but a demonstration of human greed always gets my goat. It wasn’t so much that any of them wanted money as it was that they wanted to take it away from someone else. A desire to feed their ego at the expense of another. Brotherly love didn’t stand a chance in that joint.

I wasn’t particularly interested in the bridge playing. There wasn’t much to be learned about the workings of the syndicate in that room. An attendant told me I could find anything I wanted upstairs.

I went up a curving stairway to an upper hall where my feet sank into the soft carpet. There were nude statues in little niches along the hall. The hum of voices, the drone of croupiers, the rattle of dice came from rooms leading off the hall.

I peeked into some of them as I went by. Women by the hundreds. Expensively dressed, jeweled women. With tense, strained faces.

There were roulette tables drawing a big trade, and faro layouts fringed by a small group of the initiate. The crap tables were getting a big play, and I paused to watch a horse-faced hussy spit on the cubes and roll them out imploring for a “natural.” She didn’t get her natural, and the houseman raked in a pile of crumpled bills that would have fed a coal miner’s family for a month.

There weren’t any fillies hanging around the crap table. They were all women old enough to have known better.

It’s funny to see how the different types go for different ways of losing their money. I’ve noticed the same thing among men.

Ninety per cent of the bridge players were women in their thirties. Slender, poised, well-gowned women. Wealthy sophisticates.

Roulette seemed to draw the youngsters — and the women not so obviously wealthy. There was more naivete displayed on the faces watching the little ball go around the wheel. Less sophistication and more unconcealed eagerness. Older, dumpy women, with their petticoats showing as they leaned over the tables to push their money onto numbers or combinations.

The crap layouts seemed to appeal to another distinct group. Lorgnetted dowagers threw away all their dignity moaning for the dice to “do them right.” Watching them, I got the impression that they would have liked to have hung their corsets up to the chandelier and really gotten hot.

There were chuck-a-luck tables in another room, red-dog, poker, and black-jack dealers. The chuck-a-luck layouts were getting a fair play. Two or three red-dog and black-jack games were taking money from women who didn’t know any better; but the two tables set aside for the devotees of the grandest sport were deserted.

A woman sat at one of the tables, smoking a cigarette and fiddling with a deck of cards. There wasn’t even a dealer on duty at the other table with the neon sign, POKER, overhead.

I went over and sat down in one of the chairs in front of the woman dealer. She had white hair and gentle eyes. She reminded me of my grandmother who used to set out cold buttermilk and a crock of cookies when we visited at her Indiana farm.

I said: “Not much doing tonight?”

“Hell no.”

Coming in her gentle voice, it was as much out of character as if Lily Pons had come on the Met stage and sung Frankie and Johnny.

I said: “Deal me a hand of stud. Maybe I can start a game for you.”

“You’ll have to buy some chips, Mister.”

I took out a billfold. “How do they run?”

She squinted her gentle eyes at me. “The whites are a buck; reds are two; the blues, five and the yellows, ten.”

I peeled off three twenties. “I’ll go you those.”

She counted out some different color chips and pushed them across to me. Her white fingers shuffled the cards deftly and dealt them. My up-card was high.

“Your bet, youngster.” Her voice took on a metallic timbre. She dangled the butt of her cigarette from an unrouged underlip and watched me as I pushed out a couple of whites.

“Quite a joint,” I mentioned as she flipped out two more cards.

Her eyes slid over my face. “Your first time here?”

“Yeh. I didn’t know there was a place like this in the city.”

“It’s all right.” We bet and she slid out a couple more cards.

“Reminds me of Reno — having so many women customers.”

Her face lighted up. “And I jumped out of Reno when the women came flocking in for divorces.” Her tone carried more meaning than her words.

I turned over a pair of jacks and took the pot. “Were you... dealing poker there?”

“I’ve been dealing poker all my life.” She passed out hole cards and gave me an ace up. I bet a red and she turned over. I said, “You must have had an interesting life.”

“You’ve been in Reno? Ever hear of Ace-High Lil?”

I hadn’t, but I said I had.

“I’ve dealt in every big-time house in the West,” she boasted.

“That must have been plenty different from this.”

“God’l’mighty, yes. Women don’t belong in a gambling joint.”

“Would you rather deal to men?”

“God yes. The tougher they came, the better I liked to deal to them. Thirty years ago, when I got my start in Silver City, a dame couldn’t sit in on a game. Stud or draw was a man’s game from the word go.”

“Those must have been good days.”

“They were hell-roaring days, Sonny.” She had a little frill of white lace around her neck. It bobbed up and down as she sighed reminiscently. “I’ve sat in many a game where a million dollar mining claim was won and lost.”

“That sort of thing just about went out when the mines played out.”

“Oil was next.” She won a small pot from me. “I followed the boom-towns from Tampico to Signal Hill.”

“And ended up here?”

“Ain’t it hell?” She sighed gustily. “I get plumb ashamed of my profession when I look around me and watch these women trying to be good sports and not knowing how.”

“Why don’t you get out of it? You must have a pretty good stake laid away.”

She shook her head dolefully. “A gambler’s stake. I’m stuck here... drawing down a salary and glad to get it.”

“Where do all these women come from?” I asked her as she won another small pot from me.

She looked at me levelly out of her gentle eyes. “It don’t pay to get too curious, stranger.”

“I wondered how you got so many women and kept the men out.”

“That’s the kind of play the boss caters to.”

“I shouldn’t think you’d last long under cover. Women usually squawk when they lose.”

“Women that play here don’t.” Her voice was preoccupied and grim.

I took a chance and leaned across the table. There was no one near us. “I didn’t come here to gamble. I’m looking for a girl.”

“You better hope to God she’s not here, Sonny.”

“But she is. She has been. I’ve just learned that she’s been coming here a couple of months.”

“Then she won’t be here now... unless she was awful well-heeled.”

“That’s the hell of it. She wasn’t. She... had a thousand dollars I’d given her to buy furniture... for the apartment we were going to move into after we got married.”

Ace-High Lil patted my hand. “Maybe she’s lost it and is afraid to tell you.”

“But I can’t find her. She’s disappeared. I’ve been away for two months and haven’t heard a word from her for three weeks.”

“H-m-m.” Lil withdrew her hand and dealt another round of stud. “What’d she look like?”

I made the description so indefinite that it might have fitted any one of a hundred habitues of the place.

“That don’t help much,” Ace-High Lil murmured. “Your bet, Sonny.”

“Could I find out from the manager?”

“I wouldn’t.” Lil hesitated, then went on slowly. “Maybe you’d best forget all about your girl.”

“What do you mean?”

“Like as not you’ll be better off if you don’t find her.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”

“Of course you don’t.”

“I’m desperate. You seemed to me the sort of person who might help.”

Ace-High Lil sighed and shook her head. I noticed her hands were shaking too. “I’d be glad to help, Sonny, if there was anything anybody could do.”

“Don’t talk in riddles. I’m beginning to wonder...”

Ace-High Lil nodded somberly. “This is a filthy joint, Sonny. There’s goings-on here that I don’t like to think about. That’s a laugh, you’ll say. You think I’ve seen my share of dirty doings in the mining camps and oil fields. I’m telling you that I feel lower down than a snake’s belly to be having any part in the game the way they play it here. Be goddam’ glad if you don’t find your girl, Sonny. You won’t want her, I’m thinking.”

I pushed back my chair and got up. “I’ll find the guy running this joint and I’ll choke the truth out of him with my hands.”

Ace-High Lil caught my hand and held it with surprising strength. “And get yourself tossed out in the street with a bullet in your guts or your throat slit? Don’t be a fool. Seeing Stormy wouldn’t help. He takes his orders. It’s that hellcat that gives the orders. Get to her. Maybe I can help you. Come back tomorrow night. And beat it now. You’ve been talking to me long enough. None of us are allowed to get familiar with the customers.”

I said: “I’ll wait... until tomorrow night,” and turned away from her table.

There it was again. Another mysterious allusion to the woman behind the scenes. The woman who gave Stormy his orders.

I felt good as I went out of the room. But I was treading on mighty thin ice, what with my different story for every person that would listen to me. If any two of them got together, hell was liable to pop.

The women were ganged up three deep around the roulette tables. I stood on the fringe and looked at their faces. Youngsters of sixteen and up to thirty. Any one of them might have been the fictitious girl I had told Ace-High Lil about.

I made up little stories to go with each face. This was a college girl away from home and losing the money that would take her back.

This; a sensuous little hussy from the cornstalk country who knew how to get plenty more money when the fat roll in her stocking went to the house.

A couple of smooth dolls that should have been on a yacht.

Someone’s kid sister. Not a day over fifteen. Blonde and eager.

An abrasive red-head, catching a too-red underlip between sharp teeth as the ball bounced out of her number.

A willowy divorcee getting rid of some man’s alimony.

A tall brunette whose lips quivered and whose attempted smile was ghastly as she turned away, clutching a beaded purse in desperate fingers.

I watched her move across the room. She stopped near the door, fumbling inside her bag.

Out of the corner of my eye I saw the croupier watching her too. A single light blinked over the door. I moved toward the girl, not knowing what I expected.

She dropped her bag on the floor, lifted her hand toward her lips.

A uniformed attendant came from somewhere and knocked her hand away. A little bottle dropped to the rug and spilled its contents there.

He had his arm around her shoulders, his hand clamped over her mouth. It was clear that this wasn’t anything new to him.

I followed as he led her out and down the hall. No one else seemed to have noticed. He took her to a paneled door at the end, turned the knob, pushed her in and said something, pulled his head out and closed the door.

I strolled into the crap room until he came down the hall and went into another door. I waited three minutes, then went down the hall to the paneled door and went in without knocking.

Chapter 12

There was a big office behind the door. The girl sat opposite a man at the flat-topped desk. Her face was ghastly white, her eyes piteous. One hand played with a string of beads at her throat. She looked at me without seeing me as I eased in.

The man was talking. He was half-turned from the door. The same athletic shoulders I had seen going from Cherry’s apartment. Stormy Parker. His voice was quiet and strong:

“...we’re sorry, Miss Lane, but we can’t possibly advance you any more cash on your personal IOU’s. I explained this to you before you began playing this evening.”

“Then why didn’t you let me do it?” The girl’s face was working. The hand playing with the beads jerked and beads spattered on the floor. “I’ve nothing to live for. I’m ruined... disgraced. What right had you and your men to keep me from doing the only thing left to me?”

“And leave us holding the bag?” Stormy’s voice was suave. “Are we supposed to twiddle our fingers for the two grand we’ve advanced you?”

“That’s all you can do anyway,” she told him hopelessly. “I warned you I had no way of paying if I lost.”

“I think we can arrange that.” Stormy turned his head and saw me standing against the door. He had superb control of his facial muscles. There was no indication that he hadn’t known I was there all the time.

“What do you want?” He had cold blue eyes and white teeth in a tanned face. Wavy blond hair was brushed back from a wide forehead. But for the saving impression of virile strength, he was handsome enough to have posed for a subway collar ad.

I walked into the room and took a chair. “I happened to witness the scene in the roulette room.”

Stormy kept on looking at me. Just that. As though he was only casually interested in my presence. But I saw his hand slide toward an open desk drawer.

He said: “This is a private office.”

“Such matters are best discussed in private,” I agreed.

“This isn’t your party.” His hand moved away from the drawer, hovered over a button on his desk.

“I had hoped to make it mine,” I told him mildly. “Ladies in distress are a specialty of mine.”

“So?” His hand stayed above the button.

“Please,” the girl gasped piteously, “may I go now?”

“To take another crack at suicide?” Stormy growled. “No.”

The girl half rose from her chair. She opened her mouth to scream. Stormy was up and had his hand over her mouth before the scream got well started. He pushed her back — hard.

She bit his hand. He cursed in a monotone and slapped her. I smiled as though I found the scene amusing. Lit a cigarette and murmured:

“I envy you your finesse in handling women, Mr. Parker.”

He sat down without a quickened breath. “Where did you learn my name?”

I shrugged my shoulders. “It was mentioned during a discussion at the club the other night.”

“What club?”

“The Biltmore.”

That stopped him for a moment. The suspicion went out of his eyes. His voice became heartier:

“In what connection?”

I raised my eyebrows in the direction of the girl who had dropped her head to the desk and was sobbing.

Stormy nodded thoughtfully.

I said: “Could I have a moment with you privately?”

He got up and said harshly to the sobbing girl: “I’m going to lock the outer door. Stay right here and think things over.” He went to the door and locked it.

I walked to the girl’s side and touched her cheek with my fingertips. “It’s going to be all right, sweetheart.” Stormy led the way into an inner office and closed the door.

“What’s your racket, fellow?”

I sat down and puffed on my cigarette, doing my damnedest to act like a wealthy young clubman on the trail of an amorous adventure.

“I thought you were the one with the racket.”

“Say what you’ve got to say.”

I waved my cigarette negligently toward the outer office. “I like the looks of the girl out there.”

“Yeh. She’s a honey.” Stormy continued to study me.

“She seems to be at the end of her rope.”

“Yeh. That’s what she thinks now. With a chance to think it over, and an out, she’ll be like all the other dames.”

“You think her attempted suicide was just a gag?”

“Hell, no.”

“You must have handled plenty of them like her.”

“Plenty.”

“The friends I mentioned at the club gave me to understand that you... er... sometimes made it possible for girls like her to repay the money you’ve advanced them.”

“Why not? Is the house supposed to hold the bag?”

“Not at all,” I said hastily. “I was told that I might pick up something pretty nice here. But I didn’t expect to run into anything like her.”

“We get all kinds. Hell, I’m doing the dames a favor if I line ’em up to where they can make some easy jack instead of giving it away.”

“Of course.” I ground out my cigarette. “As a matter of fact, Mr. Parker, I had a vague idea of putting a business proposition to you when I came here tonight... until the sight of this girl in distress threatened to drive all thoughts of business out of my head.”

“Yeh? What sort of proposition?”

“It must be rather difficult for you to find suitable... er... clients for the young ladies who are looking for what you aptly termed an out.”

“Go on talking.”

“To put it baldly, my acquaintanceship is quite extensive among the young bloods in Miami. The sort of fellows who think nothing of paying a thousand dollars to the right girl for the right sort of evening’s entertainment. It was my thought that we might come to an understanding whereby I could arrange such affairs advantageously.”

“You do the pimping, eh?”

“Please.” I waved my hand with an embarrassed smile.

“Okay. Call it any other name and it doesn’t sound so bad. If you can produce results, we might get together.”

“I can guarantee results. I... the mutuals haven’t been kind to my pocketbook this season.”

Stormy nodded wisely. He was sizing me up, and was pleased with the picture he was getting.

“I’ll have to talk it over with... the boss. But it listens good. What did you say your name was?”

“Barlow. E. Barlow. I’m stopping at the Clairidge. You can call me there.”

“Yeh. Suppose I buzz you tomorrow after I talk it over and see what can be done.” He got up.

“And this girl in the other room?”

He grinned goatishly. “Take her along with you tonight for a sample of what we got to offer. Her name’s Lane. Kitty Lane. She’s in a couple of grand. You can break her in easy... show her the ropes. I don’t think she’s been around much but I don’t think you’ll be breaking anything. She’s not married, so go easy.”

“Indeed I will.” We went back to the outer office. The girl had quit crying. She stared at us dully.

Stormy said briskly: “This is Mr. Barlow, Miss Lane. He’s fallen for you hard and fixed it up about those notes you owe us. Don’t worry about them any more. Run along with him and don’t make him sorry he helped you out.”

“But I... I couldn’t,” Kitty Lane faltered.

“Everything’s arranged,” I told her cheerfully. I went to her, took her hand and pulled her up from the chair. “Don’t worry your sweet little head about anything. I’ll take care of you,” in my best walk-into-my-parlor manner.

“I don’t know you. I don’t understand.” She tried to pull her hand away, staring at me as though she guessed my intentions might not be strictly honorable.

I pulled her close and put my arm around her shaking shoulders. “I’ll explain everything when we’re alone.”

She shook her head in bewilderment and let me lead her out of the office. We went down the hall toward the stairs.

A party of three women reached the top of the stairs as we got there. Cherry was between two middle-aged women whose faces were alight with sinful anticipation. She gave me a scornful look and brushed past. I went on down the stairs and out to my car. Kitty Lane got in without a word of remonstrance and I drove to the first drug store where I parked and went in to a pay station.

I caught Pete Ryan at his rooming house.

“Get out to my hotel in a hurry,” I told him. “The same room. Take along a couple of witnesses and get the dope. I’m bringing a frail up.”

Without giving him any time to ask questions, I went back to Kitty and drove to the hotel in a roundabout way to give him time to get planted with his witnesses.

Chapter 13

There was a light in 306 when we went up to my room. That meant that Pete was on the job. Kitty was very quiet and submissive. She seemed to be doing a lot of thinking on the drive. I didn’t interrupt, figuring that the more thinking she did, the more talkative mood she’d work herself into.

I flashed on the light and took Kitty’s coat. She stood in the center of the floor and looked at me trustingly. I maneuvered her to a deep chair near the planted dictograph, pulled one up close to her and lit us a couple of cigarettes.

“Would you like a drink to break the tension?” I motioned toward my shelf of drinkables.

“Not... just now.” Her eyes were wide, fixed on mine; reminding me of the eyes of a doe I once shot by mistake.

I had to cut the doe’s throat to put her out of her misery. I said to Kitty:

“You’ve got yourself in a hell of a mess, sister.”

She didn’t say anything; just looked at me.

“Drinking poison is a lousy out,” I went on.

Her hand went up to her throat. “And I even failed at that.”

“They can’t stand that sort of publicity in a gambling joint.”

“I should have waited until I got outside.” Her eyes were still wide, staring.

“How did you get inside in the first place?”

“I met a lady at the hotel who told me how I could easily make a lot of money... and I needed a lot of money desperately.” Her underlip began to quiver.

“I’m your friend,” I told her hastily. “Don’t worry about it any more. Everything’s going to be all right. Maybe I can even help you get your money back.”

“Oh... if you only could!”

“I’ll have to have your cooperation.”

“What can I do to help?” She leaned close, her eyes shining.

I decided to play a long shot on the kid. If I had her figured right, it was the only way to get her to talk. I said:

“I pulled a fast one on Stormy Parker back there at the joint. He thinks I’m going to square your debt by bringing men to you. As a matter of fact, I’m out to smash the syndicate back of the joint.”

“You’re a policeman?” She drew away from me.

“Nothing like that, sister. Call me a private investigator with a personal grudge. Maybe I had a girl that went the same way you’re headed and don’t know it.”

She was twisting her fingers together nervously. “I’ll tell you anything I can.”

“What do you know about the inside workings of the ring? Behind Parker?”

“Nothing. Nothing at all. He was the one who arranged to let me have money to keep on gambling after I’d lost all I had.”

“You’re not going to be much help,” I told her roughly. “It looks as though I wasted my time bringing you here.”

“You mean... you won’t help me?” Her voice was piteous.

“Not unless you can do something for me, sister.”

“But what can I do? I’ve told you all I know.”

“That’s just too bad. I thought maybe you’d got behind the scenes and knew some names.” I stood up disgustedly, went to the shelf and poured myself a drink.

Kitty sank back in her chair with a moan. She had gotten her hopes high, and I suppose it was tough on her to see them come tumbling down again. I sipped some cognac and watched her.

Her lips were quivering when she turned to me. “Were you... just fooling Mr. Parker when you brought me away?”

“Didn’t I tell you I was?”

She stood up. Damned if there wasn’t a misty sort of exaltation on her face. The old martyrs must have had it when the faggots began to crackle under them. I’ve a hunch Joan of Arc looked like that.

“Would you... change your mind?”

She moved toward me, her lips parted, her eyes offering me everything a woman has to offer a man she doesn’t love.

“For two grand?” I tried to laugh. My lips were too dry. I had forgotten about Pete listening in on the dictograph in the other room.

“That’s what Mr. Parker meant, wasn’t it? When he said I could earn the money easily.”

“That’s what he meant, sister.”

“I have to earn the money.” She was close to me. A faint perfume came from her hair. “I have to.” She spaced the words evenly.

I put down the rest of my cognac. The warm glow spreading through me wasn’t wholly due to the drink.

“You were ready to step out of the picture an hour ago,” I reminded her.

“That was... before I had a chance to think. Before I... knew there was any possible way I could get the money back.”

“Don’t do it, sister. Money can’t be that important to a kid like you.” That’s what my lips said. My hands were reaching out for her. I took hold of her arms just above the elbows. I swear I didn’t pull. But she was pressing against me. She was saying, in a new, hard voice that had come to her all of a sudden:

“It is that important. I did something terrible when I gambled with that money. It wasn’t mine. Mother is ill and she’s coming here for an operation next week. It... was going to pay for making her well.”

The softness of her was burning into my blood. I looked over her head and said:

“Don’t do anything you’ll regret.”

“I won’t regret it.” She was passionately eager for me to believe her. “Not if you’re the one. At least, the first one. Show me how... I can make some money.”

She lifted up her face beneath mine. There wasn’t any fear in her eyes. That same look of exaltation. Not so misty, now.

I said: “Goddamn,” and backed away from her to pour myself another drink. I spilled some on the floor. She took the glass away from me. Tipped it up and drained it without a sputter. Ninety-four proof cognac.

I said: “Listen, sister. I haven’t got any two grand. Go to a man who can make it worth your while. No use your giving stuff away if you’re really going on the make.”

“But you told me you might be able to help me get my money back. I thought...”

“That was when I thought you could spill some dope that was worth money to... the people who’re hiring me.” I was sweating.

She faltered: “It might be easier... the first time... if you didn’t have money.”

“Don’t you know anyone that might be mixed up with the gang who could dish out the inside dope?”

“I... not unless Janet would be willing to tell you.”

“Janet who?”

“She calls herself Mrs. Carhart here. When I knew her at Vassar, her name was Janet Ettinge.”

“Wait a minute. Janet Ettinge! What part does she play?”

“I thought I told you. She’s the one who took me there first. We’re staying at the same hotel on the beach.”

“How deep is she in?”

“She works there, somehow. I don’t know exactly. I’ve seen her there several evenings.”

I said: “This may be the break I’ve been waiting for. If it is... I’ll see that your mother has her operation.” I moved toward the telephone. “Does this Janet happen to hail from Newark?”

“I... believe her folks used to live there.”

“What’s her hotel phone number?” I had my hand on the receiver.

“But I’m afraid she won’t tell you anything. She’s... changed a lot from when I knew her.”

“Leave it to me to get her to talk. What’s the number?”

Kitty told me. I called it and asked for Mrs. Carhart. She was out. I left a message for her to call me as soon as she came in. Then I hung up and turned to Kitty.

“If this turns out the way I hope, you won’t have anything to worry about.”

She sank down in a chair. The glow was fading from her face. “You mean... I won’t have to do the other?”

“That’s what I mean, Kitty Lane.” I moved over and poured myself a drink, going on conversationally: “Though your suggestion about not getting paid was pretty swell.”

She came over and had a drink with me. “I still think it is... a good suggestion.”

I looked down into her eyes and knew I was being a blasted fool. I walked near the dictograph and said loudly:

“There won’t be anything doing until a certain Janet calls me and I persuade her to come here and talk things over. That should mean plenty of fireworks and will be worth waiting for.” I went over to a table and threw the switch that cut out the dictograph.

Then went back to Kitty and quit being a blasted fool.

Chapter 14

My phone rang a couple of hours later. It rang four times before I got to it and lifted the receiver. A feminine voice came over the wire. I didn’t recognize Janet Ettinge’s voice, but Kitty had told me Janet had changed a lot.

I asked if it was Mrs. Carhart, and she said it was. Adding that my number had been left with a message for her to call.

“That’s right. This is Ed Barlow, Janet.”

There was thirty seconds of silence. Then, doubtfully: “Should I know you?”

“Unless you’ve got a lousy memory. From Newark. The Morning Beacon.”

“Oh... that Ed Barlow.”

“Check. Does it add up?”

“I’m sure I don’t know.” She was frosting up on me.

“I do. Better hop over here, Janet, for a little confab.”

“I can’t imagine why I should. If you desire an interview...”

“My business is with Mrs. Carhart,” I told her. “If you want to keep it on that basis... you’d better grab a taxi.”

There was another prolonged silence. Then she said, “Very well. If you insist,” and hung up.

Kitty was getting dressed. I told her to make it snappy if she wanted to get out before Janet saw her. She did, and she hurried. I kissed her and sent her out to the elevator two minutes before Janet breezed up to my open door and looked in doubtfully.

I was in my shirtsleeves, shaking a cocktail. I kept on shaking it and grinned at her. “Come in.”

She came in. She still had the face and figure that had made history in Newark’s night crowd a couple of years before. She knew how to buy clothes and how to wear them. A white fox fur was tossed over her shoulder, and her mouth was a scarlet gash.

“I haven’t the slightest notion,...” she began icily, and I cut in with:

“Kick the door shut and let me give this two more shakes. It’s a Clover Club.”

She stood there looking at me, tapping the toe of her slipper on the floor. Then closed the door and tossed her fur on a chair.

“That’s being sensible,” I applauded. I poured a couple of cocktails and gave her one. I lifted mine:

“I did you a favor in Newark once.”

She nodded slowly. “I was afraid that was it.”

“Never let a newspaper guy do you a favor,” I counseled her. “They always expect something for it one way or another.”

She put her cocktail down the hatch. “You’re off your home grounds, aren’t you?”

“I get around.” I was studying her carefully, working out all the angles in my mind. She was a whole lot different from the debutante I had saved from a nasty jam a couple of years before. There was a hard, abrasive look about her. As though she had gone the limit and kept on going. I got down to brass tacks without wasting time on a subtle approach:

“I know how you’re hooked up here. I don’t know how the hell you ever managed to get in with such a crowd, but you always were one to go beyond your depth. I need the information you’ve got.”

She sat down, twirling her empty glass. “What are you going to do with it?”

“Put the syndicate where it belongs.”

“Turned reformer?” Her lips sneered at me.

“Something like that. It’s a job.”

“Why should I help you?”

I let her have it: “To prevent Mr. and Mrs. Rufus Ettinge from becoming cognizant of the present activities of their adored daughter... and God only knows why you let yourself get hooked in a place where you’ll have to talk or else.”

She made a little gesture with her hand holding the glass. It slipped from her fingers and smashed on the floor. The too-red mouth accentuated the sudden pallor of her face.

“God! what a mess.”

“Don’t expect me to weep about it.”

“You wouldn’t. You’re proud of being a hard guy, aren’t you, Ed Barlow?”

“I don’t go soft about a rich man’s daughter who gets mixed up in the filthiest racket in this country just for a new thrill.”

She began to go to pieces. The hardness was just a veneer. Underneath, she was a scared girl.

“That isn’t true. You don’t understand.”

“I understand that there isn’t a goddamned reason on earth for you to be mixed in this.”

She iced up at that. “There’s no reason why I should remain here to be insulted.” She made a move to get up.

I stood over her. “I gave you a good reason.”

“Your threat to inform my parents?”

“Isn’t that enough?”

Her lips curled back and she began to laugh. It wasn’t nice to see or hear. “What’s the diff between you telling them and their reading it in your rotten scandal sheet?”

“You don’t get it,” I protested. “Anything you tell me will be in strictest confidence. Come clean, and I’ll see that your name’s not mentioned.”

“I know what happens when a reporter learns things in strictest confidence.”

“That,” I told her, “is unfair as hell. Didn’t I kill a good yarn once before to keep you in the clear?”

She said coldly: “You only did it because you thought I’d be grateful enough to give you what you couldn’t get any other way.”

“Let’s leave motives out of it. I killed the story.”

“You did. Because I played you along until it was too dead to print. And you’ve been waiting for a chance to make up for it ever since.”

I sat down at the table. “You’re doing a lot of talking without getting anything said. What the hell reason would I have for playing your name in this story?”

“It’d make nice headlines. And murder a Newark boatbuilder.”

“I’m not after that sort of headlines. For God’s sake, this is bigger than personalities. I’m building up a case to crack down on the whole layout. Your info will just be one minor cog. This is between you and me. Not another soul will ever know you’ve been here tonight.”

“Swear it?”

“On a stack of bibles.”

She grimaced. “I’ll have to trust you... much as I hate to.”

I pressed the button cutting in the dictograph. “Thank you, Janet. You work for the syndicate, I take it?”

“Yes.”

“How and when did you first break in with that mob?”

“You’ve already accused me of looking for a new thrill.” Her voice was bitter.

“Weren’t you?”

“At first. Until they had crooked me out of all the ready cash I could lay my hands on. I was foolish enough to sign a note one night. Stormy came to my hotel the next day.”

“Stormy?”

“Stormy Parker. He’s Sandra’s right hand man. He does all the dirty work in Miami.”

“Who is Sandra?”

“That’s the only name I know for her. I’ve only seen her once.”

“Who’s behind her?”

“She’s all there is. Or so I understand. She doesn’t mingle with her subordinates.”

“Where does she hang out?”

“I don’t know.”

“Who would?”

“Stormy, I suppose.”

“What was his purpose in coming to the hotel that next day?”

“To make some not-too-veiled threats to send the note with an explanation of it to my father if I didn’t pay up immediately.”

“You could have gotten money to pay it.”

“Not without telling father what it was for.”

“Gambling isn’t so terrible.”

She made a helpless gesture. “You know how dad and mother are. He’s a pillar of the Congregational Church, and she’s the militant leader of the Woman’s Movement to Suppress Wagering.”

“What alternative did he offer?”

“That I use the prestige of my name and position to bring them new clients.”

“And you agreed?”

“What else could I do? I didn’t see the harm in it. Most of my crowd gamble without any encouragement.”

“How long ago was that?”

“About three months.”

“When did you change your name to Mrs. Carhart and move to a cheaper hotel?”

“When... I began to learn some of the things that happened to the women I sent to that hell.”

“So you did finally find out?” I asked sarcastically.

She shuddered but said nothing.

“What did you finally get wise to that made you decide to stop?”

She wet her lips. “Don’t you know?”

“I’ve been doing a lot of guessing. A few facts will be a welcome change.”

“They suck the money from women and then blackmail them with threats of exposure to do shameful things for more money to pour into the fixed games.”

“Prostitution?”

She nodded.

“Say it,” I told her.

“They own several houses where they send some of the girls. Others, they introduce to selected men clients. Those who don’t have the nerve to resist blackmail, or...”

“Or the cowards who can’t stand the gaff and cut their throats to get out from under?”

She said, “Yes. Oh God! yes. I couldn’t help it, Ed. I didn’t know at first. I thought it was just an ordinary gambling house. I didn’t mean to do any harm. I just wanted to make enough back to pay the note so my folks wouldn’t know. But Stormy wouldn’t give me the note back. I kept getting in deeper. They tried to drive me onto the street and I told them I’d rather die first. They must have believed me, for they let me go on the other way. I’ve been taking men lately. I’m supposed to get a commission on what they lose. I urge them to make high bets and Stormy doesn’t pay me my commissions. I can’t go on. It’s driving me crazy. I’ll kill myself. What’s the use of going on living? They won’t let me go. I can’t get away from them. I’ve gotten in so deep now that it would kill mother and dad to find out the truth. I hate and despise myself for what I’ve done.” She covered her face with her hands and sobbed.

“A swell exhibition of histrionics,” I told her. “But, don’t for God’s sake, go on a weeping spree in my room. All this is water under the bridge. I’m going to smash hell out of the gang and you’ll be out of it.”

“I’ll... I’ll kill myself if my name comes out in connection with the story.” She wiped her eyes and looked at me dully.

“If you’d been going to kill yourself you would have done it long ago,” I told her. “Run along home now, and sleep it off. Don’t worry about what you’ve told me. I won’t spill it to a soul.”

She wept some more and had a couple more drinks. I got rid of her as soon as I could, and went into 306.

Pete was there, with a stenographer and a notary public. They had a complete transcript of everything that had come over the dictograph, not excluding the things that had passed between Kitty and me before I cut the contraption off. I tore that part out and told Pete to put the rest of it in a sealed envelope in my file at the office. Then I caught a couple of hours sleep.

Chapter 15

I had Cherry on my mind when I woke up the next morning. Not that I wanted to have her on my mind. But I woke up thinking about her. Lay in bed and smoked two cigarettes while I kept on thinking about her.

It was a lousy mess that drew girls like Cherry, Janet, Kitty, Dolly, Lucile, and Jane into it. A filthy, stinking mess.

Thinking about Cherry in connection with it gave me the jimmies. There was something about that girl that didn’t fit into the picture. I smoked my cigarettes and tried to fit her in.

In the first place, I knew goddamned well she wasn’t weak. Not like the other women who got panicky after taking the first step. I couldn’t figure Cherry getting dragged into anything against her will.

I liked that thought. Dwelt on it for a time. I haven’t any use for weak women. Give me one that knows where she’s going, and goes there.

Still — it was damned nasty. I kept seeing Cherry’s gray eyes through the curling smoke. Sentimental? What man isn’t, lying in bed in the morning?

I didn’t have to dig down very far to know I could go for Cherry in a big way without half trying.

That made it tough. I was just about ready to crack down on the whole gang. A lot of people were going to get burnt when I cracked down. Cherry among them.

I figured on ways to keep her out of it. She didn’t seem to be in very deep. A hint dropped in her ear might be enough.

But that wouldn’t work either. I couldn’t see her taking a runout powder. I didn’t want to see her that way.

My thoughts went around in circles and didn’t get anywhere. What about the mysterious Sandra? I needed a line on her. Cherry had dropped a hint. That was all I had. Hints.

A woman at the top of it was hard to swallow. What sort of a female could she be? Plenty hard, evidently. I had a hunch Cherry knew more about her than she told me.

Just a hunch. Something in her eyes when she mentioned her. Under other circumstances I would have read it as jealousy. It didn’t add up that way.

And there was Blattscomb. What in hell was his card doing at Cherry’s place? How did he tie in? Checking things over, I saw I was walking a pretty shaky rope. Trying to be all things to all men wasn’t in my line. About a dozen different people had a dozen different stories from me. Sooner or later, two of them were going to get together and compare notes. It was going to be too bad for Mrs. Barlow’s only son when that happened.

I put out my second cigarette and got up. I called Cherry’s number and had to wait a few moments before hearing her voice. She sounded sleepy. “Hello. Who is it?”

“How are you this morning, sweet?”

“Fair. Who is it?”

“Did I wake you up?”

“Yes. Who is this speaking?”

“I’m sorry. You sound as though you had a hard night.”

“Is it any concern of yours what sort of a night I had?”

“Of course it is, darling. This is Ed Barlow.”

“Oh... and you’ve appointed yourself to check up on my nights?”

“That’s it. And days. I’m coming over.”

“You must be crazy. I’m not even dressed.”

“Neither am I. So there’s no advantage there.” I hung up on her gasp of astonishment or anger.

I dressed and stopped at a grocery store for bacon and eggs, butter and coffee.

Cherry opened the door looking sweet as a dew-kissed rose. She was all ready to blast me down for my presumption, but she looked at the brown paper bag of groceries in my arms, and laugh-crinkles formed about her eyes.

I brushed past her to the kitchen, set the sack on the table and turned to find her facing me in the doorway, hands on hips.

“You look kissable as hell, Cherry.”

She smiled. “So early in the morning?”

“That’s one of the very best times for kissing.” I was going toward her, all mixed up in my feelings.

She didn’t back away. Didn’t lift a finger to fend me off.

I stopped before I got to her, feeling foolish all at once. “It’s a treat,” I told her. “Didn’t know whether you kept any food in this dump or not. So I brought breakfast makings along.”

A dimple came in her cheek and stayed a moment. “I’ll do my face while you do breakfast.”

Just like that. I put on coffee water, broiled bacon, and scrambled eggs. I liked girls who don’t ask silly questions and interpose a lot of silly objections.

It didn’t take her as long to do her face as it did me to do breakfast. She put up a card table in the living room, with a frilly cloth on it and a vase of rosebuds.

Sitting across from her with a cup of steaming coffee after bacon and eggs was pretty swell. I told her so.

She leaned back in her chair and there weren’t any shadows in her eyes.

I got up and put my hands on her shoulders. She leaned her head back and looked up at me.

“Why don’t you get out of it, Cherry?”

She didn’t ask what I meant. She knew. Her eyes were wide and candid. They looked honest to me. She said. “What is it to you?”

“Don’t you know?”

She shook her head slowly.

“You’re a liar. You know I’m nuts about you.”

“So what?” Her eyes challenged me.

My fingers bit into her shoulders. “Get out of it, baby. Before you get in too deep. You don’t know what you’re doing to those women you take there.”

“You’re hurting me. Yes I do.”

“I intend to hurt you. You can’t know.”

“I do. It’s their own fault if they gamble more than they can afford to lose.”

“That’s a lousy argument.”

“I haven’t asked you to argue the matter with me.”

“What’s Stormy got to do with you being in it?” I guess my voice was pretty hoarse. My fingers were going deeper into the flesh of her shoulders. She didn’t flinch.

She said: “I’ve only known you since yesterday.”

“That’s a lie,” I told her flatly. “You’ve known me always.”

She wasn’t looking at me any more. Her neck was stiff and she was staring across the room. I had a little struggle to keep from kissing her just below the lobe of the ear. I won.

She asked: “What am I supposed to say to that?”

“Admit you know it’s true.”

“That I’ve known you always?”

“You have. I saw it in your eyes the first time I met you at the Axelrod tea. Remember? You were frightened because you felt it too.”

“Are you trying to tell me you’re psychic?” Her voice was as cool as though she were asking the time.

I let go her shoulders. “All right. Be a little fool about it if you want.” I went around and sat down opposite her.

A tear slid down her cheek. Just one. I watched its downward path and waited for her to raise her lashes so I could see her eyes. She didn’t raise them. She said:

“Are you through insulting me?”

“I’d do it some more,” I told her angrily, “if I thought I could snap you out of it.”

“I’m quite sure you can’t.” The tremor was going out of her voice. She had her hands in her lap and I couldn’t see them.

“No,” I told her. “You’re the sort who’ll go on to hell in your own way and to the devil with anyone who tries to stop you. I’m a nut to want to.”

“Isn’t all this rather melodramatic? After all, your hands aren’t exactly clean.”

“It’s different with a man,” I argued. “It’s a job.”

“I know it’s different with a man.” She obstinately refused to look at me. “There are all sorts of inducements for you, aren’t there? Such as the one I saw you walking out with last night.”

“She was just a crazy girl who had gone hysterical and tried to bump herself. I was taking her out to cool her off.”

“That’s not the way Stormy told it to me.”

“What?”

“Take time to think up a good answer,” she told me scornfully.

I did a lot of fast thinking in a few seconds. It was pretty thin ice but I had to skate over it. “No matter what Stormy spilled to you... that’s how it was.”

“I’d just as soon let it go at that. Your personal affairs are your own. And mine are mine.” Her chin came up at a determined angle.

“If that’s the way you feel about it...” I got up.

“It is. Thank you for the breakfast.”

“You’re entirely welcome.”

I got my hat, moving slowly enough to give her time to change her mind. She didn’t. She didn’t say anything. She let me walk out without saying she would be disappointed if she never saw me again.

I went back to my hotel. There was a message asking me to call Mr. Parker at a certain number. I went up to my room, had an after-breakfast snort, and called him.

Chapter 16

He asked me how I was, and cleared his throat. I told him I was swell, and waited for him to go on.

“How did you... make out last night?” he asked finally.

“Swell. If you can line up any more like her, I’ll go through with my proposition like a shot.”

“Yeh. That’s what I called you about.”

I waited for him to go on. He did, giving the impression that someone was standing at his elbow telling him exactly what to say:

“I’ve talked it over with the big boss. She’s interested. Wants to talk it over with you.”

“That’s fine. Can you make an appointment for me?”

“Yeh. Tonight.”

“Very well. Where will I meet this... big boss of yours?”

“Suppose I meet you at the hotel and take you out?”

I asked him when I should expect him.

“Make it about nine.”

“I’ll be waiting for you.” He said goodbye and hung up.

I turned away from the phone with plenty to think about. Things were coming to a head. Stormy said she was interested. Sandra. I had everything pretty well sewed up except the mystery woman at the top. I was going to see her tonight, but that wouldn’t do my case any good unless I could figure out some way to tie her into the deal so a jury of twelve asses couldn’t refuse to convict her.

All I could do was to wait and see what broke. She was a woman. Thus far, I’d been pretty lucky with the women in the case. I’d have to trust my luck to hold once more.

I had brought a copy of the morning Bugle back from Cherry’s with me. I looked over the headlines and worked my way back to the editorial page in practically nothing flat.

There was a double column spread of leaded type in a center of the page box. A facsimile of Ellsworth Grange’s signature was stuck on the bottom of it. Black type across the top proclaimed:

THE BUGLE PUSHES ON

I spread the sheet across my knee with a funny feeling in my belly. I knew Grange was the sort to lose all sense of proportion when he waxed editorial.

Undeterred by threats of physical violence from ruthless underworld forces, The BUGLE again is proud to lead a campaign to rid our community of vicious elements which seek to undermine and destroy the most basic elements making for a stable and unsullied society.

Armed with the right, the BUGLE heeds the clarion call of an aroused citizenry and embarks upon this new campaign with all the holy zeal of the Crusaders of old. Fearless in the face of obstacles and anonymous threats of reprisals, the BUGLE leads the van in this new struggle which must be to the death...

Tomorrow this menace will be named in this space. A brief description of some of the methods employed to abase our womanhood will be set forth.

DO NOT FAIL TO READ TOMORROW’S BUGLE. BUY EARLY OR YOU MAY BE TOO LATE. THE MOST SENSATIONAL EXPOSE OF DECADES IS PROMISED IN FORTHCOMING ISSUES. MORE EXCITING THAN A FICTION SERIAL. MORE LURID THAN THE LUCKY LUCIANO AFFAIR IN NEW YORK.

Remember — THE BUGLE IS THE ONLY PAPER ABLE TO BRING YOU THIS DAY-BY-DAY STORY OF STARTLING DEVELOPMENTS, A GRIPPING, REVOLTING STORY, UNPARALLELED IN MODERN ANNALS.

And, it was signed by my managing editor.

I rolled the paper up and tossed it in a corner. It seemed to call for a drink. I took a big one — wondering if Stormy had read the Bugle before calling me. That was something to wonder about. I began god-damning Grange for a stupid, blundering ass. A pompous, moronic idiot.

I went to the phone and called the Bugle. The girl said Grange was in conference. I supposed that meant he was looking in his thesaurus for some more nine-jointed words for tomorrow’s editorial. I had the girl switch me to the city desk, and got Pete. As soon as he heard my voice, he said:

“Before God, Ed, it was all the Old Man’s idea. I tried to talk him out of it but you know how bull-headed he is when he gets what he considers an idea.”

“I want you to get that private file of mine on this story out of his way,” I growled. “There’s dynamite in that if he sticks his nose inside.”

“Hell, that’s what I’m trying to tell you,” Pete wailed. “There ain’t no private file.”

“I mean these sealed envelopes I’ve been putting away...”

“I know damn’ well what you mean. What I mean is that they’re not sealed any more. Old Fuzzy took the whole caboodle into his private office this morning.”

I hung up. There wasn’t any use boring Pete with the things I had to say about Grange. I got most of them out of my system before calling the office back and telling the girl to get Grange the hell out of conference.

He sounded irritated when he finally got on the other end of the wire. “I’m extremely busy. Who is it calling?”

“Barlow.”

“In-deed? I presume you couldn’t wait to give me your congratulations on this morning’s editorial. Two-fisted stuff, eh Barlow? And that’s only the opening salvo. I’m even now preparing a T-N-T jolt for tomorrow’s first edition.”

“Using my private file on the case, I suppose?”

“Naturally, Barlow, naturally. I’ve discovered some splendid material there. Why, I had no idea...”

“You never had an idea,” I told him. “You’re a damned, big-mouthed fool. I’m through.”

“Now, now, Barlow. That’s not the spirit. Not the old never-say-die of the Bugle. Why, your job has just begun. You’ve made a splendid beginning, but...”

“Did you hear what I called you a moment ago?”

“I’m willing to forgive and forget, Barlow. We’re just all one big happy family...”

I asked: “Do you want to go on living?”

He started out with a blustering, “Now, now...” that trailed off to a weak: “What was that you said?”

“Do you want to be alive tomorrow morning?”

It finally sank through his thick head that I was serious.

He tittered nervously. “A rhetorical question, I presume.”

“Do you, goddamn it?”

“Of course, Barlow. Naturally...”

“So do I. Shut up and listen to me.”

“I certainly shan’t continue to listen if you employ that tone of voice. It is annoyingly disagreeable, Barlow.”

Annoyingly disagreeable! And me getting ready to threaten to blast his guts all over the office. That gives you an idea of what I was up against. What can you do with a guy like that? I bit a piece off the mouthpiece and said:

“If you hang up the receiver before I’m through, I’ll come down and whisper what I’ve got to say in your ear. Is that plain?”

“I advise you not to come here just now, Barlow. I have a feeling that my editorial this morning will be resented, and...”

“Psychic, aren’t you.”

“Eh?”

“Let it pass. Listen close if you don’t want your wife to wear black.”

“I’m... I really haven’t time for this bickering, Barlow.”

“You’ll take time and like it. Got a memorandum pad handy?”

“Yes indeed. Are there new developments, Barlow? Good heavens, man, why didn’t you tell me before? I’m on the qui vive.”

“You’re on the spot and haven’t the sense God gave a louse or you’d know it. Start writing on that pad. Here’s what you’re going to do: First, write a retraction of this morning’s childish editorial. Say that the editor got drunk and stuck it in over your signature as a prank. That there’s not a word of truth in it and you’ve fired him for it. Run that in a box in every afternoon edition, and in tomorrow’s paper. Got that?”

“This is preposterous. An outrage. I assure you...”

“You can’t assure me of anything. That’s the first thing you’re going to do. The second is to put every sheet back in those envelopes you stole from my file, and reseal them. I’ll hand out what I want when I want to. Is that clear?”

He said stiffly: “I fail to understand...”

“You and the old maid,” I told him, “will go to hell failing to understand. Skip it. I’m not asking for understanding. I want action.”

He blustered some more. I finally made him realize that I meant business. I don’t know how I accomplished it. But I didn’t hang up until I had his promise to do the two things I demanded. Beating an idea into his head was like trying to drive a shingle nail into concrete. I was soaked with sweat when it was over.

I didn’t have much hopes the retraction would do any good. But I had at least put a stop to any more of his damn-fool editorials. At least for a time. And I didn’t have much hope that he’d put the stuff back in my file and forget it. Or if he did put it back, he wouldn’t forget it. I figured he’d read it all before he put it back, take notes on what he couldn’t remember. But, what the hell? I’d known all along I couldn’t keep that sort of information confidential. Having him break in on it that way gave me an out. I could swear I hadn’t turned it in for publication.

The editorial worried me most. I knew that any retraction he wrote was going to sound silly as hell. Sillier, even, than the editorial.

It was done and that was all there was to it. I’d have to take my chances.

Chapter 17

I got in some sleep during the day, dressed, had dinner alone, and was back at my hotel at nine to meet Stormy. I had a little argument with myself about packing a rod on the trip I was scheduled to take with him, deciding against it at the last moment.

Stormy was on time to the minute. I met him in the lobby and we went out to a taxi he had waiting. The driver evidently had his directions, for he pulled away and drove out to the Venetian Causeway without waiting for orders.

I tried to make some light conversation with Stormy, but it fell flat. He answered in monosyllables without making any attempt to keep the conversation going.

The taxi swung to the left at the end of the causeway, drove a couple of blocks along bayside concrete plants and lumber warehouses, threading through a narrow lane to a small wooden dock jutting out into a walled waterway a couple of hundred feet wide.

We got out there and Stormy told the driver to wait. A thirty-foot motorboat was tied up to the dock. Lights came on and the engine throbbed to life as I followed Stormy along the dock toward it.

Two men were waiting. Stormy grunted at them and we stepped aboard. One of the men threw off the ropes, while the other made the engine roar and twisted the wheel.

Stormy was standing close to my right side as water swirled between dock and boat. The other fellow pressed against my left arm. Starlight gleamed on blue steel as Stormy nudged me in the belly with an automatic. He said, past me:

“Frisk him, Mike.”

The fellow started going over me. I was plenty glad I had decided to leave my gun at home. “What’s this for?” I protested. “Please take that gun away from my stomach.”

“This is just a precaution,” Stormy told me. “You won’t get hurt if you’re all right.”

The man was going over me with a fine-tooth comb. He stepped back, breathing heavily. “Okay, boss. He ain’t carryin’ nothin’.”

“All right.” Stormy kept the muzzle of his gat hard against me. “Fix him up for a ride.”

I stood still and kept on protesting while the man stepped behind me and tied a blindfold tightly over my eyes. The engine was cut down to a muted throb and the boat was maneuvering in the center of the channel.

Stormy guided me to a chair after I was blindfolded. It was impossible to tell whether the boat went on east into the system of interconnecting waterways that thread the peninsula, or whether it swung out into the bay where it could cut across to the mainland, or swing out around the south tip of the beach into the Atlantic.

Stormy sat down beside me and said matter-of-factly: “I think you’re all right, guy, but Sandra doesn’t take chances on visitors she doesn’t know. This is the only way anyone can get to see her. After she gives you the once-over, you’ll either come without a blindfold or you won’t come at all.”

I told him it was a hell of a note, still trying to play my role of a dumb man-about-town out for a sort of lark. Stormy wasn’t very communicative, and I had to sit there and play a game of guessing our direction and speed.

Perhaps it can be done blindfolded on the water, but not by me. Put me in a car in a city I know and I can plot out a street by street course with my eyes closed. I was lost in a motorboat.

I smoked three cigarettes, chain-fashion, and had just lit my fourth when the engine cut out and we began drifting. The side of the boat bumped gently against a wall or piling, and there was movement about me. Three cigarettes meant approximately twenty minutes on the water, the way I smoke. Twenty minutes at fifteen miles an hour. Five miles, more or less, from the east end of the Venetian Causeway. Which didn’t mean a goddamned thing to me.

The boat was drifting along, bumping against a wall with its fenders. It came to a stop and Stormy pulled off my blindfold. We were in a thirty-foot channel, between concrete seawalls. A long tunnel with electric lights in the arched ceiling. We were tied up to a narrow platform with concrete steps leading up.

Stormy went up the steps. I followed him to a summer house. A flagged path led between Australian pines to the huge bulk of a house a couple of hundred feet away. Some of the windows were dimly lighted.

We went in a side door through a hallway to a big room that had class written all over it. Soft lights, paintings on the walls, rugs your feet sank into, comfortable lounging chairs and divans.

There wasn’t a living soul in sight. An empty silence met us. Stormy told me to sit down, went to a row of buttons on the wall and pressed one. I lit another cigarette and tried to fight back a creepy feeling that wouldn’t stay back.

Stormy came back and sat down by me. After we waited a couple of minutes, a voice exploded right in the middle of the room. I jumped and tried to look every direction at once while Storm listened.

It was an eerie, hollow voice. Yet so surcharged with husky resonance that the entire room tingled with the impact:

“Send Mr. Barlow up to me. You will wait there for the others.”

Stormy nodded, just as though the owner of the voice could see him. He said, “Come on,” to me, led me to the far wall and pushed a single button. An entire wall panel slid back, showing a small elevator cage.

I had gotten my breath by that time. “What is all this hocus-pocus?” My voice trembled and I wasn’t surprised that it did.

Stormy said, “Get in the elevator.”

I said, “I’ll be damned...” and he pushed me in. The panel slid back into place and a little light glowed in the ceiling of the cage. It started up. I gritted my teeth and tried to keep a firm hold on reality.

The cage stopped in front of a blank wall, and another panel slid back. The light above me went out and I stepped into a room not larger than ten by ten.

A girl stood beside the wall. She pressed a button and the panel went into place. A young girl. Not more than sixteen. She wore a single full-blown rose where Eve is reputed to have used a fig-leaf to good advantage. If there was any more to her costume, it was not visible.

Her cheeks were white and her eyes were piteous. So damned piteous that I couldn’t repress a step toward her. They widened and she shrank from me, breathing, “No,” so softly that I guessed at it rather than heard it.

There was a soft, hazy light in the room. I couldn’t tell where it originated. A damned clever concealed lighting arrangement. The floor was covered with an oriental rug, and there were drapes across a doorway at the other end.

The girl took my hand and led me toward the drapes.

I’m not going to say my heart wasn’t pounding like an air-hammer, when she pulled the drapes aside and motioned for me to go in. It was. A De Mille couldn’t have stage-managed the affair better. Say what you please, there’s a lot in a front. No man can withstand a direct appeal to all the senses at once.

I stood just inside the drapes and let them slither shut behind me. The same hazy light made me blink to focus my eyes on the woman who lay on a couch across the room. A soft rose light that touched every object in the room to indescribable glamour.

Threads of smoke curled up from burning incense at the head and foot of the low couch where Sandra awaited me. The odor wasn’t heavy nor unpleasant. A subtle fragrance suggestive of unrestrained voluptuousness, hinting at delectable gratifications, pervasively sensuous.

I don’t want to go off my nut telling about it. This is being written afterward. It’s difficult as hell to recreate a certain atmosphere in written words.

I’m admitting it got to me. I had an insane impulse to drop down on my knees and grovel forward to the woman on the couch. The light was faintly stronger over her, touching the flowing silk robes cleverly arranged to disclose the sinuous length of her while mysteriously concealing every intimate detail of a body that my pounding senses told me was the most beautifully seductive body I had ever seen.

Long black hair was let down luxuriously on her shoulders. Her face was beautiful and cruel. Barbarically beautiful and savagely cruel. A hell of a combination.

Anyhow, there she was. Lying on the couch waiting for me. Waiting — with the stage set for the effect the spectacle was supposed to work on the overwrought nerves of mere men coming into her presence the first time.

She was watching me from beneath incredibly long lashes veiling elongated eyes. She said throatily:

“So you’re Barlow?”

Her voice was part of the stage presentation. It was as heavy with allure as was the incense.

I said, “That’s right,” and went toward her. The only article of furniture in the room was the couch she lay on.

She said, “Sit down by my side, Ed Barlow,” letting slim fingers droop over the side of the couch toward a pile of silk cushions.

I sat on them. It brought my head level with hers. A slow smile curved her lips. The warm breath of her was on mine. I looked into her eyes and everything else faded away. They grew to enormous proportions. I was shaken as no woman has ever shaken me before. Her fingers touched my cheek, lingeringly.

Still looking into her eyes, I said: “You’re Sandra?” I’m afraid it was more a gulp than a question.

She didn’t answer. Her gaze was brooding. Inviting.

I got up and turned my back on her. It was the hardest thing I ever did. I said: “I’ve come to talk business with you. Didn’t Stormy tell you?”

“Sit down. We can talk business... afterward.”

I swung about and looked at her. “If I take hold of you, you’ll know you’ve been taken hold of.”

A shiver went down the length of her body beneath the silk covering. She said: “Men take what I give them thankfully.”

I was getting used to the incense. Enough accustomed to it so I could make a try at thinking things out. I had sense enough to know I wouldn’t get very far by giving up to the impulse she aroused in me. It was easy to see the terrific hold she’d get on a man who gave up to her.

I said: “You’re nothing but another woman to me. Stripped, you wouldn’t be any different from hundreds of others I’ve known. What the hell have you got to offer that I should be thankful about?”

Hell glittered in her eyes. I went on because I knew it was the only way I could break down the spell the room and Sandra had put on me:

“I came here to talk business.”

The hell-light didn’t go out of her eyes. “Stormy told me. He did not tell me you were like this.”

“He wouldn’t have told you anything if he’d known what I really wanted.”

“No?”

“No. Because if I have my way, Stormy will bounce out on his ear.”

“And you, possibly, could be persuaded to take his place?”

I shrugged my shoulders. “Your layout needs a man to take hold.”

“You think well of Mr. Barlow, do you not?” Her eyes were veiled, her voice suavely curious. There was an undertone of menace beneath the suavity.

“Not as well,” I told her, “as you will if you let yourself get acquainted with me.”

She seemed to ponder that a moment. “Perhaps I can use you.”

“No you can’t. I’m not a bird that can be used.”

Hell came flashing back into her eyes. “Aren’t you rather presumptuous?”

I said, “Hell,” disgustedly and let it go at that.

Her fingers were clawed toward my face and she said in a choked voice: “You’re either a fool or you don’t know what can happen to you.”

I laughed at her and that was that.

A green light glowed on the wall above her head. She held up her hand and pressed a button. A ray of white light was focussed on a slide at the foot of her bed. I looked at it and saw the reception room below where I had left Stormy.

Stormy was walking away from the row of buttons on the wall. Two figures stood in the doorway. A man and woman.

As my eyes accustomed themselves to looking at the slide, I recognized the couple. Herman Blattscomb and Cherry.

Sandra spoke in her normal voice. “You may bring them up to me.”

I saw Cherry and Blattscomb jump and look all around them, and realized that Sandra had a trick electrical device that reproduced her voice in the room below.

Stormy escorted them to the elevator, followed them in, and the panel slid shut. Sandra pressed the button that shut off the light on the slide. She said:

“This should be an interesting meeting, don’t you think, Ed Barlow?”

Chapter 18

I didn’t say anything. I didn’t see that there was a hell of a lot to be said. It looked as though Cherry and Blattscomb would be having enough to say to fill in all the gaps.

I moved nearer Sandra and saw she was watching me with triumph or something else in her eyes. It was as though she wanted to look triumphant but couldn’t quite make the grade.

I heard the panel slide back outside and Cherry and the lawyer get out of the elevator. There was a slithery movement beyond the drapes; a voice, muffled and indistinct.

The drapes parted and the nude odalisque ushered Cherry and Blattscomb in.

Cherry’s eyes lingered on the girl, then went to me. Blattscomb kept looking at the girl until she dropped the drapes behind them.

Then he wet his lips and looked at Sandra. Then at me. I’d known all along that I didn’t like the man, but I hadn’t realized how much I didn’t like him.

My fist sounded good and felt good smashing into his face. There was just the smashing sound, then a little rustle as he crumpled to the floor in a heap.

I swung around to face Cherry with my fist still doubled. I heard Sandra say behind me: “You can’t get away with that. I’ll...”

I kept on spinning around and she was reaching for a button. I caught a white forearm that had muscles in it like a toe dancer’s leg. I dragged her off the lounge and pushed her away from the buttons. There were red marks on her arm when I let go.

I said: “You can call your wolves later. You’re going to listen to me first.”

She stood near Cherry, breathing hard. I had a hunch that being manhandled was a new thing in Sandra’s life. She wasn’t the kind to scream and she knew she couldn’t get past me to call for help.

Cherry had a funny, twisted smile on her face when I looked past Sandra to her. Fleetingly, it seemed to me I glimpsed approval in her eyes. Damned fleetingly. It vanished in an instant and she was all the way against me. She opened her mouth to speak but I beat her to the gun.

I put it straight to Sandra: “This shyster and girl are trying to horn in on your game. They’re burned up because I know too much about them to let them get to first base when I start running things for you. Without being on the inside, I can tell you they’re here to queer me.”

Sandra looked into my eyes a moment, then turned on Cherry: “Stormy said you insisted on seeing me personally to tell me something I should know about Barlow.”

The little smile came back to Cherry’s lips. This time, it was an acknowledgment of checkmate. Her eyes wandered to Blattscomb. He hadn’t moved nor uttered a sound since hitting the floor.

“My chief witness is indisposed.”

“Don’t quibble,” Sandra raged at her. “Tell your story and get out.”

Cherry’s head came up. Her eyes were level with Sandra’s. “Under the circumstances, I think I prefer to get out without telling my story and being called a liar.”

I laughed with as much mockery as I could put into a laugh. Neither of the women heard me. Sandra was all cat. Her eyes were green and it didn’t take a strong imagination to detect her back arching. “Tell me or I’ll slap it put of you.”

Cherry turned her back on her. Sandra made a movement forward and I got between them. “Let the dead bury its dead.”

Sandra tried to push me out of the way. I didn’t push. The arch went out of her back. She moved to the lounge and pressed a button. Cherry stood facing the drapes with her back toward us.

I heard the elevator stop outside, and a couple of huskies came in. Sandra said, “Take them away,” pointing at Blattscomb and Cherry. The two huskies took them away. Sandra rearranged herself on the lounge. She had changed back from an infuriated leopard to a purring house-cat.

“I like men who don’t cringe. So few don’t.” She patted the lounge by her side.

I said: “You’re going to like me more and more as you get to know me better.” I didn’t move toward her.

The long lashes came down over her eyes. “You’re not letting me get acquainted very fast.”

I grinned at her. “That’s because I know what you would do to a man who let himself go for you without having a lot of things understood first.”

She leaned back against the cushions. “You’re talking in riddles.”

“No, I’m not. Don’t play dumb, Sandra.”

She laughed at that. A low, gurgly laugh. The first perfectly natural sound I had heard her utter. For a moment she forgot to play up to the Sandra stage-setting. I went on in a hurry because I wanted to get it said and get the hell out of there:

“You want to get acquainted with a man on your own terms. In your house and under the pressure of knowing that a move that offends you will mean getting slapped in the face with a spade. Damn that. No woman has ever had me her way. It’s got to be fifty-fifty or I don’t play.”

She didn’t look at me. She was touching the red marks my fingers had left on her forearm. “You’re the queerest man I’ve ever met.”

“I’m probably the first man you ever met.”

She nodded, still without looking at me. “I’m beginning to wonder if you aren’t.”

That was my cue to get out — while she was still wondering. My only hope was that she would continue to wonder until her curiosity became so great she would be ready to come to me. If I could get her in my room with the dictograph open...

I turned away from her. “Suppose you take time to think things over. We’ll talk turkey whenever you’re ready to forget the way you’ve made asses out of every other man you’ve known. Send for the elevator so I can go down.”

I went through the drapes into the other room without giving her a chance to get in a last word. I didn’t know whether the elevator would come or not, but it did. I went down on it and Stormy took me out to the boat without asking any questions. They blindfolded me and took me back to Miami Beach.

Chapter 19

I was just taking my fourth drink after getting back to my hotel when the phone rang. A man’s voice: “Barlow?”

I said, “Yes,” and he said he was coming right up to see me, and hung up before I had time to ask who the hell he was or what he wanted.

I went back to the table and finished my fourth drink. I yelled, “Come in,” to a knock on the door.

A man came in and closed it behind him. A good-looking young fellow. Broad-shouldered and well-dressed, with a soap and toothpaste look about him. I had never seen him before that I could recall. He looked at me without saying anything or blinking, and I set my empty glass down.

“You’re Barlow? Ed Barlow?”

“That’s right. Who are you?”

“My name is Benton.” He walked toward me slowly. His voice was flat and unemotional.

I poured myself a drink, set the bottle near him and gestured toward a clean glass. “Join me.”

“I don’t,” he said, “drink with skunks...”

“I don’t make a practice of it myself,” I told him.

He waited until I set my glass down — empty. Then he slapped me.

I moved backward toward the dresser where I could get my hand on a gun.

I stopped six feet short of the dresser when he took a blunt revolver out of his pocket and carelessly pointed it in my direction.

His ring had cut a little gash on my chin. I wadded my handkerchief against it to stop the blood. His eyes were gray and hard. He had the look of a man itching for an excuse to pull the trigger.

I sat down in a rocker, being careful to keep my hands in plain sight so he couldn’t get any foolish ideas.

“What’s it all about, fellow?”

“For you, Barlow, it’s about the end.”

I didn’t say anything and he stood there holding the gun on me.

After a while, I said: “It’s your move.”

He scowled and said: “I’m trying to decide whether you’re worth killing.” He spoke as though it was an abstract problem. Like a problem in algebra.

I said: “Men have burned for thinking too far in that direction.”

He hunched his heavy shoulders. “I’m not worrying about what might happen to me.”

“Pulling the trigger would be a fair way of committing suicide,” I agreed. “Not quite as messy as the way your wife elected.”

He shook his head as though there was an unendurable pain inside. He crouched and said: “Damn your soul to everlasting hell.”

“Nuts,” I told him disgustedly. “Blast away if you think I had anything to do with your wife’s trouble. You’ll wake up in hell knowing you’ve made a bad mistake.”

His lips were quivering. He looked like a college boy sitting on the sidelines watching his team fail to advance the ball in the big game.

I took a chance and jumped him. The gun went off into the wall. I got a nice uppercut flush to his chin and laid him out. Then I poured myself a drink, sat him upright in the rocker, and went to the door to explain to a porter and two or three excited guests that a bottle of warm champagne had blown up. I don’t know whether any of them believed me or not, but a glance into the room was enough to convince them that a couple of us were throwing a jag and a champagne bottle might have blown up.

Benton was coming to when I got rid of the gang at the door. The glaze was going out of his eyes, and he was waggling his head up and down.

I poured a snifter of brandy and held it under his nose. His mouth flew open and he gulped mechanically when I poured it down. Then he sat up straighter and looked around with a pained expression.

I sat down in front of him and unloaded his gun. Then tossed it in his lap, saying: “It’s safer to carry one unloaded.”

His lips came back from his teeth and he said, in that same flat tone he had used at first: “You goddamn’ lowdown bastard.”

I took a drink and offered him one. He waved it aside, not taking his eyes off me.

“Get it out of your system,” I urged him. “Maybe you’ve got some more pet names you’d like to call me while you’re able.”

He shook his head, looking a little bit bewildered. “I was a fool not to pull the trigger when I had the chance.”

“All of us do foolish things now and then,” I consoled him. “But just what would it have got you to bump me?”

His nostrils flared at the base and he breathed hard: “It would have made some amends for... what happened to June.”

“You’re blaming me for that?”

“You’re goddamn’ right I am. I know all about it.” His lips twitched and his voice broke.

I said: “Have another drink, sonny,” pushing the bottle toward him.

He took it this time, his hand shaking so badly that he spilled an ounce of cognac on the rug while getting half an ounce down his throat.

“I suppose you’ve been talking to Dolly?”

“To Dolly and...”

“And who?”

“None of your goddamn’ business.”

“And who?”

“I’m not telling who. I promised.”

I motioned toward the gun in his hand. “I’ve got you dead to rights on an attempted murder charge. That costs twenty years in Florida.”

“I don’t give a goddamn’.” His lips twisted up into a boyish snarl of defiance. “I’d be just as well off in Raiford I guess. I’m nothing but a goddamn’ bungler.”

“You’re that all right. And you’ll be the biggest kind of fool alive if you don’t trade me the person that sent you here for my promise to forget what happened.”

“No! I’ll be goddamned if I’ll play stool pigeon.”

“That’s very heroic. Little Lord Fauntleroy couldn’t have said it any nobler.”

“Why don’t you call the police?” he flared at me. “I’ll do some talking when they come for me, you can bet your bottom dollar on that. I’ll tell them plenty about you. If I do twenty years in Raiford, you’ll be doing forty.”

That gave me something to think about. I took a drink and thought about it. I’d be in a hell of a mess if he went blabbing to the police now — just when I had things about sewed up. But I needed to know who had filled him full of the idea of coming to my room with a loaded gun. That was important. Someone who wanted me out of the way pretty badly.

“I haven’t got anything to hide,” I told him at last. “Any shooting off you do to the police will be your own hard luck.”

“All right.” He was all wrought up and defiant. “We’ll see. I just dare you to lift the phone and call them.”

“You’re acting,” I told him, “like a two-year-old.”

“And you’re acting like a man with plenty on his conscience,” he gibed.

I started to take another drink — decided to lay off until I thought up some answers. This was going to take a lot of figuring. I couldn’t turn him in, and I couldn’t let him out of my sight in the shape he was in. He had a pretty bad case of the jitters coming on if I wasn’t badly mistaken.

But I couldn’t keep him in that damned hotel room. One yell would bring someone who wouldn’t be as easily satisfied as the porter had been.

I walked back and forth while I looked through the mess for an answer. He sat in the chair and watched me with a smirking air of triumph.

The cognac bottle was less than half-full. I took it up and hefted it with him watching me. He didn’t know I was calculating how hard to swing it without killing him. I didn’t want to swing it too hard. Dead, he wouldn’t be any good to me.

I swung it and caught him just above the left ear. He toppled over without a groan and with a surprised look on his face. I got some adhesive tape from a drawer, taped his mouth and arms, found his heart was still beating, and called Pete Ryan at his rooming house.

He sounded grumpy and sleepy: “Who the hell is it now?”

“Ed. And I’m in one hell of a jam.”

“Oke.” He came awake like that. “Where are you and what do I do?”

“In my room with a body that may come back to life any time. Know a good place to take a man to make him talk?”

Pete thought a minute and then said, “Sure.”

“I’m going to get him down the back stairs. Meet me in your flivver at the alley entrance in ten minutes.”

“It’s a date,” Pete said blithely, and hung up.

I put a bottle of liquor and a loaded automatic in my pocket, bundled the still unconscious Benton over my shoulder like a drunk and dragged him down the rear stairway. Pete was waiting for me with an anxious grin and no questions. We got Benton in the front seat between us and Pete drove away.

Chapter 20

Benton had more guts than sense. Pete had to go out twice to vomit before I gave up and admitted that Benton was a better man than I.

I sat down in a rickety chair and looked at him disgustedly. He lay on the rough board floor of the waterfront shack Pete had taken us to. His face was battered but his eyes were still defiant.

“What,” I asked him, “is all this getting you?”

He licked the blood off his upper lip and didn’t answer me. A swinging lantern above threw a shadow back and forth across his face. His knees were contortedly drawn up near his chest. The heavy sound of his breathing and the soft swish of waves outside were the only sounds.

Pete came in and closed the door behind him. He looked like the end of a bad night. Greenish-white around the gills. He gave me a sickly grin and didn’t look at Benton.

“Got the fishes all fed?”

He shuddered and lit a cigarette. Drew two puffs on it and threw it away as though it tasted bad. I picked up the butt and said:

“That’s one thing I haven’t tried yet. I’ve heard that between the toes is the tenderest place.” I squatted down and began unlacing one of Benton’s shoes. He kicked at me feebly and I sat on his legs.

Pete moved around in front of me. He said between his clenched teeth:

“Lay off, Ed. I can’t stand any more.”

“You can’t stand any more?” I laughed up at him, pulling off Benton’s shoe. “And you’ve been passing yourself off for a tough guy all these years.” I tossed Benton’s sock after his shoe and lifted the glowing butt Pete had thrown away.

Pete stiffened and said: “Goddamn it, Ed, I’m not going to let you do it. You’re crazy. You don’t know what you’re doing. You’ll regret this like hell tomorrow.”

I put the butt in my mouth and puffed on it to make it burn better. I took it out and spread Benton’s second and third toes apart.

Pete said: “No.”

I looked up at him with the cigarette poised. He was trembling. His fists were balled up at his side. Pete’s a big guy. Outweighs me at least forty pounds. And a hell-cat in a rough and tumble. I’d had him on my side in plenty of brawls. This was the first time he’d ever lined up against me.

I rocked back on my heels, still keeping enough weight on Benton to hold him steady.

“I haven’t told you what this is all about, have I?”

“You haven’t told me a goddamned thing. I haven’t asked any questions. But by all that’s good and holy, I can’t stand here and watch you torture that poor devil any more.”

“Does it mean any thing to you that he tried to kill me tonight? That he’s got information that may keep me from getting bumped tomorrow?”

Pete shook his head doggedly. “That doesn’t mean a damn to me, Ed. It wouldn’t to you except that your stubborn streak is aroused.”

“Are this guy’s toes more important than my life?”

Pete shrugged his shoulders. “You never set such a hell of a store by it before now. Why has living suddenly got so important to you?”

I got up and threw the cigarette butt across the room. Benton groaned and relaxed. Maybe I was glad Pete stopped me. After all was said and done, I was beginning to have a secret admiration for Benton. There must be some good in a man that refuses to squeal.

“What can I do with the guy?” I asked Pete. “He’s got to stay out of circulation for a day or two at least.”

“Leave him here,” Pete offered quickly. “No one comes here. I’ll send a man to guard him until you say the word.”

“Then let’s get going.” I turned away, glad enough to get out of the shack into the night air. Benton wasn’t in any shape to break loose and make his getaway.

Pete followed me to the car and drove me back to town. Neither of us said anything until I told him to let me off at a corner near Dolly’s apartment. He drummed on the steering wheel as I got out, and said suddenly:

“I hate to go back on a pal. But beating that guy up wasn’t in your line, Ed.”

I told him, “Okay,” and walked up the street to the building where I had first walked into things beginning with June Benton’s suicide.

It was two o’clock in the morning. A pimply boy was dozing in front of the switchboard. I waked him enough to put a call through to the Meade apartment. Dolly’s voice answered. She sounded quavery and frightened.

“This is Ed,” I told her. “Is Herman back in town yet?”

“Ed?”

“You know the one.”

“Of course.” A fluttery laugh. “Ed!”

“Are you alone?”

“Well... yes. But it’s terribly late for you to come up. Don’t you think...?”

“I’m on my way.” I hung up and went up the stairs with the boy picking at his pimples and watching me goggle-eyed.

I hadn’t seen Dolly since the Axelrod tea. Things had been moving along and I hadn’t needed her. She let me in with a fluttery furtiveness. She had on a bedraggled pink nightgown that clung tightly to her hips.

She turned her face away from me, but I kissed her mouth and patted her behind.

“You... I wish you wouldn’t,” she said hesitantly, pulled away from me and sucked in her lower lip.

I went across to a deep chair and sat down. “You haven’t got a very hot welcome for me.”

“Why should I have?” she flared out with a strange burst of anger. “I’ve had trouble enough from the last time you were here.”

“That so? What sort of trouble?”

“I guess you know well enough.” She was quivering inside her nightgown like a kootchie dancer.

“Don’t know a thing about it.”

“The hell you don’t.” She was actually venomous. “Who sent that reporter up here if it wasn’t you?”

I shook my head. “I’m not in the business of sending reporters anywhere. Just routine stuff, I suppose. The Benton suicide raised quite a stink.”

“Routine nothing.” She sat down ten feet from me. Her bare toes curled inward on the rug. Looking at them, I thought of the way Benton’s toes had curved when I spread them apart for the cigarette. “How did they know I knew anything about it?”

“I suppose you shot off your mouth too much. And you were one of June’s friends and her closest neighbor.”

“There was more to it than that. He asked all sorts of questions that only you could have told him to ask me.”

“What paper?”

“The Bugle.”

I didn’t bat an eye. “I didn’t have a damned thing to do with it,” I told her. “What the hell would I send a reporter to pump you for? You spilled your guts to me that night.”

She screwed up her face in a frown. “I could have stood the questions. But the reporter wouldn’t let poor Mr. Benton alone either. And he made Mr. Benton think that I knew a lot more about June’s trouble than I’d let on to him.”

“And Benton jumped you and you told him the whole story.”

She looked startled, her mouth hanging open and eyes bulging: “How do you know?”

“I don’t need a blueprint. When did you spill the dirt to him?”

“Day before yesterday. And he just went wild, Ed. Raved and swore something terrible. Called me everything awful and blamed everything on me.”

“And you handed him my name to get out from under?”

“He dragged it out of me.” Dolly began to get ready for a weep-fest. She pouted up her face and blinked her eyes. “And why shouldn’t I tell him? You were the one that got me into it. It was your fault all along. I wish to God you hadn’t come here that day. I wouldn’t have had anything to hide if you hadn’t come. He even accused me of murdering June when he found out she... did it in my bathroom.”

“So he found that out too? You certainly must have told all when you got started.”

“I couldn’t help it. That fool reporter had filled him up with hints that you must have told him.”

I said wearily: “You played merry hell when you blabbed.”

She was sobbing. She looked haggard and old. “I don’t care. I don’t give a goddamn. It’s good enough for you. It’s plenty good enough for you.”

“Would you be interested in knowing that Benton came to my room to kill me tonight?”

That jerked her up short. She forgot about the act she was putting on. Stopped sobbing and stared at me with her hand in front of her mouth. “What... what happened?”

“I slapped him down.”

“And he... where is he?”

“Where he won’t pull any more guns for awhile. If he’d killed me, you would have been a murderess, Dolly.”

“Not me! Oh God, no! Not me, Ed. I didn’t tell him anything that would have made him want to kill you.”

“You sent him to someone that set him on me.”

“Not me. It wasn’t my fault.”

“You were bragging about it a minute ago,” I reminded her. “Where did Benton go to get information about me?”

“I don’t know.” She had a handkerchief balled up in her hand. Her teeth were biting on it.

I got up and walked toward her. “Better start remembering.”

“I don’t... I won’t tell you.”

“I’ve had enough of people that think they’re not going to tell me things. I’m all through going soft for tonight.”

She shrank back from me. Put up her hands in front of her face. “I don’t know what you mean. I’ve told you everything I know.”

“Everything except the name of the person that sent Benton after me. Who was it?”

“Before God...”

“You don’t need to blaspheme. I’m going to find out... or wring your fat neck.”

She broke down and began blubbering. Every object in the room took on a faint tinge of red. I saw Dolly’s face beyond a red haze. I had taken a lot that night, and I wasn’t used to taking things.

I reached down and put my hands about her neck. Lifted her up with her squalling like a dying calf. My fingers on her windpipe shut off her voice. I held her in the air, then opened my fingers and let her drop to the floor. “This is your last chance to use your mouth for something besides bawling.”

She looked up at me and believed me. She whimpered: “I still don’t know what you’re talking about. But,” she hurried on as I bent over her with my hands clawed, “I know he got on the track of somebody else that he believed was going to be able to tell him things. I didn’t send him to her. I don’t know how he found her. I don’t even know whether she had anything to do with it or not. He was in to see me early this evening and was all excited and said he was going to get the real lowdown from this girl. He had a date with her then.”

“Who was she?”

“I tell you I don’t know her. A funny name. Cherry, I think he said. Something like that.”

She started to say something else but I walked out without waiting to hear it.

Chapter 21

Cherry opened the door to my knock. She had a faded robe wrapped around her, with a filmy blue nightgown showing underneath. I brushed past her into the room without saying anything.

She closed the door and looked at me with her back against it. “What do you mean by forcing yourself in at this hour of the night?”

“You opened the door for me.”

“I didn’t know who it was.”

“Did you think it was Stormy?”

She didn’t appear a damned bit disconcerted. “It’s none of your business if I did.”

“Let it pass.” I waved my hand and sat down. “Some other things are my business.”

“They’ll have to wait for a more decent hour.”

“They’re not going to wait.”

She moved away from the door — across the room toward the telephone stand. She didn’t say anything but her silence was plenty emphatic.

I got to the phone before she did. Stood in front of it and glared down at her. “Who do you think you’re going to call?”

“I don’t know. The police, I suppose.”

I put my hands on her shoulders and shook her. I guess I must have looked like hell. It had been a long hard night. She wasn’t afraid — just contemptuous.

“Get away from the phone.” I gave her a push. “You’re not going to call anyone. You’re going to sit down and answer some questions.”

“I won’t sit down, and I won’t answer questions.” The robe slipped away from her fingers when I pushed her. The blue nightie was fragile and form fitting. She saw something in my eyes that made her reach for the robe to pull it together.

Something snapped inside my brain. Everything went flooie for a moment. I got hold of her before she managed to get the robe shut. I’ll give her the credit due her. She didn’t try to cry out. She fought me with all she had, but she fought fair.

I got up and went out to the other room. I felt like hell.

Laugh it off? That’s something that’s easier said than done. I slumped into a chair by the door, lit a cigarette and smoked and listened for some sound to come from the room I’d just come out of.

I don’t know what I expected. I guess I thought she’d have to blow up after it was all over. I wouldn’t have been surprised to hear her start yelling bloody murder. I wouldn’t have jumped more than an inch or two out of my chair if a gun had gone off in the bedroom.

Neither of those things happened. Nothing happened. I couldn’t hear a sound from her. I sat tight and let my imagination play hell with my nerves. Maybe she had passed out. Maybe she had just lain there and died.

I was able to conjure up all sorts of thoughts — none of them pleasant. Sweat was running off my forehead. I decided to go in to her and try to convince her that it wasn’t as bad as it seemed.

I didn’t move out of my chair. I couldn’t. It’s one thing to rape a girl and another to tell her it isn’t important after you’ve done it.

Then I heard her drag herself to her feet and switch on the light. I listened to every sound from her and translated them into actions.

She was moving across the room. A bureau drawer squeaked. She was moving back. I heard a door open and close softly. The bathroom door.

Well, that was natural. I strained my ears for the sound of running water and got panicky when I couldn’t hear it. Goddamn it, I sat there with my eyes open and saw the interior of Dolly Meade’s bathroom as it had been the afternoon I visited her and found June Benton suicided.

Girls use razors too. Safety razors. But a safety razor blade was plenty big enough to slit a soft throat like Cherry’s.

Was that what the squeak of the bureau drawer meant? I suppose I went slightly nuts. I was in there and had the bathroom door open before I knew I was on my way.

Cherry was standing before the mirror powdering her face. She had put on a white silk slip and seemed perfectly composed. She turned her head slightly when I threw the door open.

“Can’t you even leave me alone in here?”

I turned around and went back to the living room. I was sitting there when she came out ten minutes later, fully dressed and with a queer smile touching her lips.

I think I tried to apologize, but she laughed at me. It was laughter but there wasn’t any mirth in it.

It hit me harder than almost anything else would have. I was beginning to feel like getting down on my belly and wriggling out the door when I remembered what I had come for.

That brought me up short. I quit feeling sorry for Cherry. To hell with her. Unless I was badly mistaken, she deserved all she had gotten.

“Sit down and quit your goddamned silly giggling,” I told her.

She did both. Folded her hands and watched me.

“I told you,” I started, “that I had come here to get the answer to some questions.”

“I’m ready to answer them now. I want to answer them.”

“That’s swell. You’ve almost gotten me killed twice tonight. Why?”

“Perhaps it’s because I knew you were a louse, and tried to get you out of the way before you could do what you’ve just done.”

That hurt. It hurt like hell. I was beginning to find out Ed Barlow wasn’t quite as tough as I had thought he was.

I said: “Maybe not. What other good reason have you got for wanting me out of the way?”

“I don’t think I need any other reason.”

“You’re lying like hell. You couldn’t have known what was coming because I didn’t know it myself.”

She didn’t answer that. I tried another track: “You told me before that you weren’t on the inside... that you didn’t even know where Sandra hung out.”

“Well?”

“You seemed pretty much at home there tonight... you and your stinking little shyster.”

She stared at me with her gray eyes held wide open. There wasn’t the slightest trace of any emotion in them.

“Speak up. What have you got to say to that?” I was beginning to get mad again. The regret at what I had done was receding. She took it so calmly that it was beginning to seem unimportant.

She saw the ugliness creeping on me. She said quietly: “None of it’s any of your concern, but I’ll answer to get rid of you. Mr. Blattscomb came to me because he knew I’d been a friend of Lucile’s. I thought his information was important enough to pass on to Sandra. I was taken to her tonight for the sole purpose of warning her against you.”

“You hate me, don’t you?”

“Yes.” She nodded her head. “Though I didn’t until tonight.” She spoke calmly enough. “From what Blattscomb told me, I guessed that you were dangerous to us.”

“You didn’t seem to impress Sandra such a lot.”

Cherry compressed her lips. “No. I was afraid it would be that way. She can’t resist a man... any man.”

“You admit that you didn’t have any other reason except to get me in bad with her?”

“Of course.” Cherry’s eyes widened. “And I was glad to have a chance to do something to show her I’m looking out for her best interests. I hope to be assigned to Lucile’s place.”

“All right. This other matter,” I barked. “Why did you set him on me?”

“Who?”

“You know who damned well enough. Benton.”

“Oh. Did he find you?”

“He came to my room with a loaded gun and a burning desire to put me away.”

“You must have a charmed life,” she murmured.

She was hard. I was just beginning to find out how hard a woman can be. I thought I had known some tough ones before, but I hadn’t.

“You sent him there to kill me?”

She shrugged her shoulders. “It’s too bad he bungled the job.”

I got up. “All right. Those are all the answers I wanted.”

She sat in her chair and didn’t look at me. I started toward the door and her voice drifted to me faintly:

“You’ve gotten everything you wanted from me, haven’t you? I’ll mark that down in my book. Don’t think you won’t pay for it.”

She didn’t sound like a raped virgin.

I went out without talking back to her. There wasn’t, after all, very much for me to say.

Chapter 22

I woke up with someone pounding on my door. The sun was up pretty high, slanting across the foot of my bed. I cocked one eye at the door and wondered if whoever it was would go away if I kept quiet.

I kept quiet and the pounding didn’t let up. So I got the other eye open and went across to jerk the door open with a, “What the goddamned hell you want?”

It was Ellsworth Grange. Managing editor of the Bugle. I stared at him with my lower jaw dropped and he pushed me aside with his protruding belly and came in. His underlip was pouting more than usual and I noticed that his eyes were sort of greenish. I kicked the door shut with my bare foot and went across to the liquor cabinet for a drink.

Grange held up a fat hand in protest: “None of that, Barlow. I don’t want your faculties impaired by alcohol for the duration of this interview.”

I stared at him with my left eyebrow twitching, then tilted up a cognac bottle and hit it hard.

Grange’s face got as red as a turkey gobbler’s wattle. He sat down in a straight chair with his feet planted solidly in front of him. He put his hands on his knees and leaned forward a trifle.

“I’ve come to talk turkey with you, Barlow.”

I had to chuckle. It seemed to me his face was redder than any wattle I’d ever seen on my Aunt Emma’s farm. I set down the bottle and said, “Gobble away.”

I guess he didn’t hear me. He was full of what he had to say. It sounded as though he might have stayed up all night rehearsing it:

“This is a grave matter, Barlow. An... uh... portentious matter... too important to be intrusted to the telephone.”

I shoved some clothes off a chair and sat down. I made a mistake by yawning. I hadn’t meant it to be such a big yawn, but it acted like a slap in the face to him. I know I never saw such a red wattle.

“I’m in no mood to have my words taken lightly, Barlow. Snap out of your confounded stupor and see if you can follow a concise statement of facts.”

“Have a drink,” I shoved the bottle toward him.

“Confound it, man! Will you stay sober long enough to hear me out?”

“I was offering you a drink,” I pointed out reasonably. “I’ve already had my snifter.”

He puffed up like a toad and his eyes glittered. “I am come upon a mission of gravest import...” he began sonorously.

“Save it for your asinine editorials. I’ve only had a few hours sleep. Why not write me a letter.”

“By heavens, I’ll stand for no more of your impudence.” Ellsworth Grange smote one fat fist into a cushiony palm.

“That suits me.” I got up. “Get the hell out and I’ll pack.”

“Pack?” Grange seemed to shrink a little.

“Pack. You know... put things in bags and suitcases. One of the things one does incident to a journey.”

“You’re not leaving Miami?”

“I am. And the Bugle flat. To the devil with you and Miami.”

“But you can’t do that, Barlow. You’re altogether too hasty. Perhaps you’ve misconstrued something I’ve said. No harm intended, I assure you.” He made a sad attempt at smiling jovially.

“I’m through,” I told him shortly. “Listening to you over the phone and reading your editorials was bad enough. But if I’ve got to start entertaining you in my room, it’s all off.”

“Ha-ha. What a droll fellow indeed.”

I snorted out loud, lit a cigarette and stared out the window. I heard Grange heave himself to his feet and pad up behind me. He put a moist hand on my shoulder.

“You can’t desert us now, Barlow. You’re under sealed orders to carry on the good fight. The Bugle is depending upon you. Think of the noble work you are doing... heed the wail of orphaned children and widowed husbands. Think, my dear fellow, of the incalculable value to posterity of this work you are engaged upon.”

“To hell with posterity,” I snarled over my shoulder, “What did posterity ever do for me?”

“Tut, tut, Barlow. This is no time for quibbling.”

I turned away from the window with a sigh. I was whipped. You can’t argue with a stone wall — nor with a man as dumb as Ellsworth Grange.

“Why did you come here this morning? Why can’t you keep your nose out of the affair until I’m through? You promised me hands off... and you’ve been hindering and interfering ever since I picked up a lead.”

“I assure you, Barlow, my earnest desire has been to assist you in every possible way.”

“Then God pity anybody you deliberately interfere with.” I sat down and had another snort. Grange moved closer and said briskly:

“You’ve done good work... though I confess I cannot conscientiously approve of all your methods as disclosed by the contents of your office file... but good work, Barlow.”

“Then why are you on my tail this morning? Ten to one you’ve been followed here. The slightest hint that I’m hooked up with the Bugle will be curtains for me.”

“Nay, nay.” Grange waggled a forefinger and smiled vacuously. “I took every possible precaution to see that I wasn’t followed.”

“So what?”

“Eh?”

“Cut out the verbal prototechnics and tell me what you’re hot about this morning.”

Grange pulled his chair up close enough so he could sit down and tap me on the knee — which he did.

“The editorial to which you offered such vehement objections yesterday morning brought far-reaching results,” he declared. “It smoked out a nasty kettle of fish from a totally unexpected quarter.”

“God help us. What’s up now?”

“Simply this.” My editor tapped my knee portentiously. “The time element becomes of pressing importance. We may not hesitate, Barlow, or the race will be lost.”

“Cut the metaphors, for God’s sake, and say what you’ve got to say.”

“You’re not alone in this matter.” Grange’s voice sank half a key. “I lunched with Jessup of the Times yesterday. He was plainly agitated, and I divined for good reason. He plied me with questions concerning the facts back of my morning editorial, but I was evasive, Barlow. I pride myself that I made a poor witness. Jessup got nothing from me... but in the course of our conversation he inadvertently revealed that his perturbation sprang from the fact that the Times, too, has an undercover man at work on the woman gambling story. His fear that we had scooped him was too self-evident to be questioned. I flatter myself that I allayed his fears for the nonce by firmly declaring that I knew not whereof he spoke... but I felt that you must be made to realize, Barlow, that the time for temporizing is past. We have no way of learning how far the Times’ man may have progressed. Perhaps today... even now... they have their evidence in hand and are preparing a blatant scarehead to apprise their readers that they lead the way in making Miami a safe place in which to rear children.”

That was something. Stripped of all the Old Man’s verbiage — it was a hell of a something.

He kept on chattering while I turned every angle over in my mind. It wouldn’t have been such a job for another man to have gotten all the dope I’d gotten thus far. Things had moved right along for me as soon as I got one lead. There wasn’t any reason to suppose they mightn’t have moved right along for another man also.

But I was still at a standstill in regards to Sandra. She was the answer to everything. It was heartening to think that any other reporter must have struck just such a stone wall as I faced. Sandra wasn’t going to be easy for any man to take. Hell! I didn’t even have the slightest idea where she could be fingered if we pulled a raid and wanted to take her in. And tying her to the racket would be something else again even if we could locate her.

Grange had asked me a question three times when I got through checking the angles and was ready to listen to him again, I told him:

“No. I’m not ready to close the books yet. I can’t tell you when I will be ready. Things are moving... that’s all I can say. The worst thing possible would be to pull a raid right now.”

“But we must have no more dilly-dallying, Barlow. A day’s delay may be fatal. The Times must not, shall not, break the story first. This is your clarion call to higher efforts. Tireless devotion to duty is demanded of you. A clear head is essential. I think you would do well, Barlow, to abjure all alcoholics until such time as the affair is decisively consummated.”

He kept on along that line for another ten minutes with me not paying a hell of a lot of attention. I swore I was on the water wagon and would stay there. When I finally got rid of him, I poured the rest of the cognac in a water glass and sat down with it to make a plan or two for myself.

Chapter 23

It was a hell of a lot easier to sit down and decide to make a plan than it was to make any. Things were pretty well messed up. The Times’ angle worried me a lot more than I’d let on to Grange. The fact that another reporter was on the trail and maybe ready to crack the story under my nose wasn’t easy to take.

I couldn’t do a thing until I got hold of Sandra. That’s the way it shaped up. There wouldn’t be any percentage in nabbing the rest of them and letting her skip. That had been done a dozen times in a dozen cities. The subordinates would draw light raps, and she’d go on her way to greener pastures.

I picked up and discarded a dozen fool ideas before I hit on something that had a small chance of working. It was a long way from perfect, but I was in a mood to clutch at straws. There wasn’t much time, and I had to do something.

I wrote Sandra a note.

I signed my name to it and put it in an envelope without reading what I had written.

I had a feeling that I had set down just about what I had wished to set down. I didn’t know much about Sandra... but I didn’t think any woman could ignore the sort of a challenge I had offered in the note... no woman who had had her way with as many men as Sandra had.

How to get it to her was the next problem. I hadn’t taken that into consideration while writing it. Every avenue to her was closed. Cherry — Stormy — Lucile.

I took two drinks and got no nearer an answer. I was sitting there glaring at the envelope when my telephone rang.

It was the hotel clerk. There was a messenger in the lobby with a communication to be delivered to me personally. I told him to send the messenger up.

At a knock on the door, I let in a fellow who looked like a crooner or a eunuch. He had the full neck, the bland smile, the treble voice that comes with that type.

I let him in and took a scented note from him. Sensuously scented — like Sandra herself.

There was a single line on the heavy paper inside the envelope:

“Johann will instruct you how to come to me tonight.”

The note was not signed.

I asked the messenger if he was Johann, and he blinked his stupid eyes and nodded.

I had already sealed the envelope containing the note I had written Sandra. I wrote on the outside of the envelope:

“Written before your messenger arrived. There was nothing in your note to cause me to change my mind. I will wait for you here.”

I gave it to him and told him I wouldn’t require his verbal instructions for going to Sandra.

I was shaky after he had gone. I knew I had done a fool thing — taken a long chance. I could have temporized with her. Pretended to fall in with her command and gotten the instructions from her Johann.

That would at least have given me one sure crack at her — even though it didn’t give me a chance to tie her up to the racket.

But no. I had to play it my way. Everything or nothing. I wasn’t sure of anything, but I tried to go ahead as though I was.

Cherry was plenty on my mind. After all was said and done, I figured her for more real brains than all the rest of the gang put together. She wasn’t in deep, but she was prying her way in — and using me for a wedge. That’s what got my goat. Something had to be done about her.

What to do about her was something else. Thinking back, I saw that I’d pulled a dumb play the night before. Up to that time I’d had a feeling that I held a trump card — that I could get her to do almost anything if I went at her the right way.

But I’d gone at her the wrong way.

Then I thought a little further back and I began to see that maybe I hadn’t lost anything by jumping her like I did. She had jumped me first. Twice.

I found out I wasn’t sure of anything any more as I kept on thinking about it. The one thing I would have laid plenty of money on was that Cherry had fallen for me from the very first.

A hell of a mess. No man likes to think he’s right with a woman and then find out he’s been wrong with her all the time.

It was getting along in the afternoon. Pete called me while I was sitting there making faces at myself. His voice was excited:

“That you, Ed? I’ve just got a hot tip from Will Levin of the Times. I think it hooks up with you.”

“Yeh? Where the hell are you? At the shack watching Benton?”

“Naw. I left a pal out there at noon. This is important, Ed, if you can make sense out of it.”

“Who’s Will Levin?”

“Leg-man for the Times. He gets gabby on three drinks. I’ve bought him six.”

“Go on talking.”

“Something’s up for tonight. I don’t think Will knows just what it is. Something that’ll give them the jump on us. He’s been shooting off his mouth about the Bugle bringing an ace man to town and the Times stealing a story from under his nose. The Times is backing a raid tonight. I can’t get anything more definite out of Will. But I’m afraid it’s something to trip you up. You’d better get on your toes if you’re going to crack it for the Bugle.”

“Says you,” I groaned. “As if I’d been anywhere else since I hit this man’s town. If they’ve got a man on it, I’ll swear he’s no more ready to break it than I am.”

“I’m just telling you as ’twas told to me,” Pete said lightly. “Make anything you can out of it. Maybe it don’t mean a thing. Thought you’d like to know.”

“Things are due to happen tonight,” I told him. “How’s for sticking close to the dictograph after dark?”

“I’ll do that,” Pete promised, and hung up.

That put me in deeper. I was in a spot if the Times was getting ready to raid the gambling joint that night...

No matter how much or how little the Times had to go on, it was going to smash everything for me if they did pull a raid. I damned Grange for all I was worth. I knew sure as hell that it was his lousy editorials that had tipped off the Times that they had competition.

All that sort of thinking didn’t lead anywhere. No matter why the Times had decided to shoot before they were ready, it was going to spell finis for me. But I still didn’t believe they could put the finger on Sandra.

That was damned small consolation. If they pulled a raid and bungled it, neither of us would have a chance to put the finger on her.

Late in the afternoon, with the zero hour set for tonight! And all I could do was tear my hair and chew my fingernails — and wait to get an answer from Sandra.

That was my last hope. If I could get hold of her I’d really have something to bargain with. Something big enough to make the Times come to me for at least a split on the story — with the Bugle taking the big end of the split. In fact, I saw where I could work the Times’ raid of the gambling joint in nicely if I had Sandra to spring after it was all over. Sandra and the affidavits I already had.

I could make a monkey out of the Times by waiting until they spread their little headline sensation before the Bugle broke out with the real story behind the Times’ exposé.

I walked the floor as it came to me more clearly. I wouldn’t make a goddamned effort to stop them. I wouldn’t try to get in on the raid at all. Just keep hands off and then laugh at them for the work they’d done after it was all over.

That is — if Sandra came across. Everything depended on that. And it had to be tonight.

It wasn’t quite dark enough to switch on the lights when I heard the shuffling of several feet in the corridor, a whisper outside my door, then a loud knock.

I don’t know why I went for my gun. Something told me it was visitors that I didn’t want to see.

I didn’t get to my gun. The door burst open before I was well out of my chair.

Two bulky bluecoated cops crowded in with cannons held in line with my belt. I saw Cherry’s face behind them. I reached for the ceiling with a sick feeling in my guts as she edged around them into the room.

She said: “That’s him, officers. He assaulted me last night in my room after forcing his way in.”

One of them grunted, “And the white-livered bastard will hang for it,” while the other stepped forward with open handcuffs to take me.

Chapter 24

I backed away from him. “What the hell is this?”

“I guess you know what it is, brother. Gonna come along nice or do you wanta be handled?”

I was backed up against the table where the dictograph switch was concealed. I didn’t know whether Pete was on the other end or not. I started to put one of my hands behind me to throw the switch.

That was pretty near a fatal mistake. The nearest cop grunted, “No yuh don’t,” and his finger tightened on the trigger. I reached for the ceiling just in time to save myself a slug in the belly.

The cuffs clicked on my wrists and the cops frisked me, then stepped back and let me put my hands down. Cherry was standing near the door watching with a curious mixture of triumph and disgust on her face. I scratched the back of my hip and got the switch turned on while protesting:

“This is a hell of a note. Where’s your warrant? You haven’t got any right to come in and pull a pinch like this?”

“He says we ain’t got no right,” the bulkier cop said with a sneer to his companion. “Him, a rape artist. You’ll be damn lucky if we take you to jail, guy,” he went on to me. “We could take you down on Flagler and spread the word around about what you done to this little girl. A set of bars will look good compared to what you’d get from a mob.”

“This is a goddamn frame,” I yelled. “You’re nuts if you’re taking that frail’s word for anything. Rape? My God in heaven! She hasn’t been raped since she was twelve.”

The smaller cop cracked me on the cheek with the back of his hand. “Shut your dirty mouth and come along.”

“You’ll have to drag me. I’m not going anywhere without raising plenty of hell. The city will pay plenty for a false arrest.”

“Slap him down, Sam,” the big cop advised. “Don’t take none of his lip.”

“Yeh. Come on.” I was shoved toward the door. “We got the affidavit all swore out proper. They’ll tell you about it at headquarters.”

Still no sign of Pete. I didn’t know whether he was listening in the next room, nor what he could do if he was.

Cherry stood aside as they pushed me to the door. There was more scorn than triumph on her face.

“Satisfied?” I barked at her.

She nodded her head slowly. She didn’t say anything. They rushed me down the stairs and out the back way to a radio patrol car. I had a ride up First Street to the police station where the desk sergeant booked me and they hustled me across the street and up an elevator to a neat little cell.

It was just like that. I got cussed out every time I opened my mouth to protest. Rape isn’t a nice charge below the Mason and Dixon line. And Miami is hell-and-gone below the line. I tried to tell them who I was and tried to get them to call Grange, but I was a scummy bastard to those Cracker cops and they weren’t putting out any favors to scummy bastards.

The cell was clean and airy. One of the best cells I’ve ever been in. My outer window gave onto a sweeping view of downtown Miami, the bay, and the beach. I looked through the latticed bars and said, out loud, “What the hell?”

It’s funny how fast news gets around in jails. The guys in the cells on both sides of me knew what I was in for almost as soon as I realized it. One was a thick-necked, furtive-eyed thug with syphilis sores on his face. He chortled at me through the bars and wanted to know if the stuff I got was worth doing a hitch for the getting of it.

My cell-mate on the other side was a scrawny hunk of nothing who insisted on whispering through the bars that when the communists killed Roosevelt and seized the government that rape would be no more of an offense than reckless driving.

There was an assortment of drunks across the corridor who amused themselves by cussing me for a Yankee sonofabitch not good enough to lick the feet of a Southern girl.

Between them all, I didn’t have any chance to get lonesome.

They let Pete in to see me after I’d been there about an hour. He had to stand outside the cage and talk to me through the iron.

He was breathing hard and looked plenty worried.

“I got to the hotel just after they dragged you out. Got hold of Grange and he’s been pulling strings all over town without getting anywhere. The Bugle has been pulling some fast ones on the police, and are they tickled to have a Bugle man where they’ve got you. They’ll put you under the jail if you can’t talk yourself out of it, Ed.”

“To hell with that,” I told him. “I’m not worrying about doing a stretch. I’m worrying about tonight. Any more dope on what’s up?”

“Plenty. The Times’ raid is marked down for a little after midnight. Is this tied up with it?”

“Yeh. The gal that swore out the complaint is in with the gang. Her testimony won’t be worth a goddamn after they turn her up for what she is. But I can’t afford to stay here tonight even.”

“Maybe you can’t afford to... but I’ve got a hunch you’re not going any place else.”

“With the whole case blowing up in my face? You got to do something, Pete.”

“Yeh? I can’t whistle you out. Why in hell did you have to rape the girl? There’s plenty to be had without going that far.”

I told him to shut up. Talking about it didn’t make me feel any better. Then I told him about the letter I’d written Sandra — about my plan of getting her into my room and dragging the dope from her to play up the real story behind the Times’ premature raid.

He groaned in deep disgust at me for letting things get balled up, and promised to hang around the hotel to do what he could with her if she showed up.

That was all I could do. Sit down and twiddle my thumbs. I enjoyed planning how I would strangle Cherry while I sat there and twiddled my thumbs. Her neck was round and soft. I curved my fingers and could feel the pulsing of her throat between them.

Not too hard. I didn’t want it to be too sudden. I wanted her to feel herself going. I wanted her to look up into my face and writhe and beg for mercy — without being able to beg — with my fingers cutting off her breath.

That was a pleasant occupation for my mind. I’ve always enjoyed planning ways of killing people I hate. I’ve carried a load of hatred around with me at different times, but never such a dose as I had for Cherry as I sat in my cell and waited for the Times to pull their raid and spoil my party.

It made me sick at my stomach to remember that I had been on the verge of falling for her. I was sorry I hadn’t been rougher with her when I had the chance.

Things got mixed up in my mind. They do when a man is under as much strain as I was. The borderline of madness isn’t a hell of a lot removed from any of us when we’re normal. It was less than that removed from me while I looked at my clawed hands and thought I could feel Cherry’s throat between them.

And me sitting in a barred cell.

I couldn’t stay away from the window. It seemed to me I could pick out the cluster of lights on Weston Avenue that was the gambling joint. I could see the squads of police gathering around — with Times’ reporters getting in the way. The Bugle would have men there, too, of course, but it was the Times’ play. All my work gone to hell.

Who the hell was the Times’ man that had put it over on me? How much could he have gotten hold of? Everything but Sandra, perhaps.

Not her. I made myself believe I was the only newspaper man with a line on her.

But that wasn’t any good now. She’d be in Mexico by the time I got out of the mess I was in. We couldn’t even run the story without something to back it up.

How would Pete make out with her if she came to the hotel? It wouldn’t be any good. He could grab her, but what the hell would he have? I didn’t think he’d be smart enough to get her to talk. That was what we needed. And I’d had it planned so perfectly.

Except for one thing I hadn’t calculated on.

Myself.

I laughed at the drunks for their cussing me. I doubled everything they said. I was the goat, all right. A damned goat. Letting a frail drive me out of my head.

I goddamned myself for a fool until it got monotonous. A guard came down the corridor jangling a bunch of keys. He unlocked my cell and said:

“Snap it up.”

I snapped it up to the office with the jailbirds behind me yelling bloody hell to be let out to join the mob they figured was waiting to hang me from a telegraph pole on the corner of Flagler and Miami Avenue.

Blattscomb was waiting for me in the office. He signed some papers and they told me I could go with him. I went without asking any questions.

He had his car waiting in the basement. We got in and he drove me to my hotel. He didn’t say a word to me and I didn’t know what to say to him. I didn’t want to expose any of my cards by saying too much, and I didn’t know how much was too much.

He let me out and drove away. I went in through the lobby and up to my room. Before I opened the door, I smelled a peculiar odor that made me shiver. I gritted my teeth and pushed the door open.

Sandra was sitting in a deep chair — alone.

Chapter 25

She didn’t move. Just sat there and looked me over while I stared at her. I heeled the door shut and went across to pour myself a drink. Her eyes followed me across the room.

She said: “You aren’t wasting an effusive welcome on me.”

“Why should I? You admit it would be wasted.” I set my empty glass down and moved near her, catching a glimpse of the dictograph switch and seeing it was open. Whether there was anyone listening in 306 was another question.

She asked: “Don’t I get any thanks for getting you out of jail?”

“Did you get me out?”

“Who else?” Cigarette smoke wreathed up past her face. “Who else do you think could have gotten you sprung on a rape charge?”

“How did you manage it?”

“Pulled a few strings.” She made an expressive gesture with one of her slender hands. Expressive, because it brought up a vivid picture of law-enforcement officials jumping through a row of hoops while she stood by cracking her whip.

“Why?” I was standing over her — looking down into her eyes.

She let her lashes slide back a little farther and asked throatily: “Don’t you know?”

I sat down a safe six feet from her. “The only reason I can guess doesn’t jibe very well with the charge against me.”

“That you tried to take another girl last night after leaving me?” She laughed scornfully. “I’m flattered by it. But why did you leave me like that?”

“Your time is coming.”

“You’re awfully sure of yourself, aren’t you?”

I was leaning over her. My fingers were eating into her shoulders. She breathed a little faster but didn’t move.

“You came to me. Isn’t that the answer?”

“Some other things are going to be answered first.”

“Swell.” I let go of her and sat down.

She put out her cigarette and asked between her teeth: “Who is this Cherry?”

“You know more about her than I do. She works for you... for your gambling layout.”

“I never saw her nor heard her name before last night.”

“What the hell? Aren’t you tops in your racket? Aren’t you the syndicate?”

“I don’t know how you found out so much or what difference it makes... but I am... the whole show.”

“Don’t you know the people that are working for you?”

“Of course not. Stormy takes care of that.”

“All this isn’t getting us anywhere.” I looked at my watch. Eleven o’clock. An hour before the Times’ raid was scheduled.

Sandra stood up. She seemed to flow out her chair in one smooth feline movement. She said: “Come. We’ll talk it over at home.”

I didn’t get up. “We’ll talk it over here.”

“Perhaps there isn’t anything to talk over.” She turned from me toward the door.

I was in front of the door before she got there. I told her I was afraid she had made a mistake.

She nodded. “I think so too. I find that you bore me.”

“Then you’ll stay here and be bored.”

She had a large beaded handbag looped over her wrist. She slid it open and fumbled inside. I knocked it away from her and a small automatic clattered to the floor. Her eyes blazed with the fires of hell. She twisted and clawed and bit at me as I picked her up and threw her on the bed. She crouched there while I locked the door and threw the key over the transom.

I felt a little bit sick at my stomach as I went toward her. She cowered and seemed to enjoy cowering. It’s hard to put into words. I had a feeling she hoped I’d beat her.

I didn’t. I stood over her and told her she was a bitch. I told her I’d rather live with a skunk than with her. I told her what I thought of her filthy racket of driving decent women to prostitution and on to suicide.

She spat at me and kicked me in the face with a high-heeled pump when she found out I wasn’t going to bed with her. I caught her ankle and sent her slamming against the wall. She went crazy and began screaming at me.

I didn’t know so many filthy phrases could be locked up in one mind. I’ve heard four whores squabbling over a bottle of gin, but I’ve never heard such an outpouring of vileness as came from Sandra’s mouth.

I slammed the transom down to try and hold it all in the room, and kept at her until she was so wild she didn’t know what she was saying.

Mixed in with cursing me, she spilled the whole sordid story of the woman gambling racket from beginning to end. Names, dates, places. The entire history of it spewed from her while I stood over her and goaded her on. I didn’t know whether Pete was getting it from the dictograph or not, but he was sure as hell missing the revealment of a lifetime if he wasn’t.

Through it all there ran the tenuous thread of hysteria. I don’t suppose any man had ever taken Sandra’s number before. She boasted that no man had — even while she was mouthing obscenities at me thinking I could do it and get away with it.

When she had run out of damaging testimony, she began on Cherry.

“She’s going to pay plenty. When I’m through with you, she comes next.” Sandra’s voice was worn down to a hoarse whisper. “The screws I put on her to get you out of jail won’t be anything to what she’ll take when I get to her again.”

“What did she have to do with getting me out of jail?”

“How do you think you got out? She withdrew her complaint. She swore out an affidavit that her information had been a malicious lie.”

“That must have taken a lot of persuading.”

“Not so much. Not half what you and she have both got coming when I get out of this room.”

“Where is she now?”

“She’s safe. Where I can get hold of her when the time comes.”

I sat down and began laughing at her. “When you go out of this room, it’ll be with handcuffs on. You’re headed for the same cell you so conveniently got me out of.”

Her lower jaw sagged in dazed uncomprehension. I went on in words of one syllable:

“Your joint is being raided tonight. I’ve been gathering dope for the Bugle for weeks. A dictograph picked up everything you spilled tonight. If it’s not enough to hang you, I don’t know the temper of a Florida jury.”

She didn’t have anything to say. She sat in the middle of the bed and looked at me. Stripped of all her front, she was just another frightened floosie on a one way trip to the jailhouse.

I called into the dictograph: “All right, Pete. The session is over. Bring a cop and unlock my door with the key you’ll find outside the door.”

I waited a minute, trying not to think what a hell of a jam I’d be in if Pete weren’t there.

But he was. I might have known he wouldn’t have missed a bet. His voice came over the transom: “Keep your hell-cat in hand until I can get a couple of flatfeet to make the pinch official.”

“Go on,” I told him. “But don’t be long. There’s a raid coming off that I don’t want to miss.”

I was standing near the door, facing away from Sandra. I caught a movement in the corner of my eye. I got to her just as she smashed through the window and was halfway out.

She was bleeding from a dozen cuts and scratches as I dragged her back. “No you don’t. Other women have gotten out of it easier than you’re going to.”

The fight was all gone out of her. She collapsed on the bed and began moaning. I sat down beside her and said brisky:

“Where’s Cherry? I don’t want to miss her in the dragnet tonight.”

“She’s...” Sandra began. Then clapped her hand over her mouth and rolled her eyes. “My God! She’s clear if you don’t get her. As soon as they hear of the raid they’ll all clear out.”

“Who’s they, and where are they?”

Sandra grabbed my arm with fingers like claws. “You won’t have the guts to bring her in. You’ll let her go.”

“Try me.”

“You’re nuts about her. She made a sap out of you once, and you’ll go sappy again the next time she shakes her finger at you.”

“Try me. I’m not forgetting that she turned me in for assault after trying to knife me twice.”

Sandra’s fingers were tearing at my arm. Her eyes glittered. “She’s in as deep as any of them.”

“I thought you didn’t know her.”

“Stormy’s been telling me what a go-getter she is. If she gets away now, she’ll bob up with an organization of her own in another city.”

“She won’t get away if you’ll tell me where to find her.”

I made Sandra believe me. She gave me the address of a house in the Northwest district.

“Two men have got her there. They took her away after I persuaded her to sign the affidavit.”

There were voices outside the door. The key grated in the lock and Pete barged in with his eyes shining. A couple of uniformed cops were behind him. Sandra snarled at them as I brushed past Pete and said to him:

“You make the charge against her and write up the story.”

“Where are you going?” Pete yelled after me.

“I’m on my way to gather up the odds and ends.”

I was on my way, all right. Hell-bent to pick up Cherry before she had a chance to make a getaway.

Chapter 26

It was a secluded stucco house on Forty-eighth Street. I drove past slowly. Lights shone from the two front windows of the single story. I parked half a block away and started walking back the grass-grown sidewalk. A bleared street lamp two blocks away did little to dispel the blackness of the night.

I went through the fifty feet of palmetto and briars as quietly as I could without wasting any time.

Everything was quiet. I slithered onto the stone porch and took time out to look through the uncurtained windows.

There wasn’t anyone in the front room. I tried the door and found it locked.

I waded through palmettos to a window in the rear with the shade pulled down to within an inch of the sill. A dim glow came under the shade. A muffled laugh came from inside the room. I went through the window with my arms protecting my face, carrying the shade with me and landing in the middle of a mess.

There were two men and Cherry in the room.

I kicked one man in the jaw as he dragged out a gun. He went to the floor with a thud and stayed there. The other fellow was a big bruiser and I didn’t have time to do any dodging.

He got a couple of ape-like arms around me in a rib-crushing hold, and my face was jammed up against his bristly chin. He had been drinking rotgut and eating garlic. That’s probably what saved my life. The stench of his breath gave an added impetus to my efforts.

I got in a kick on his shin and we went round and round the room. I got an arm loose and began punching his beefy face with mechanical, short-arm blows. I felt his hold loosen, and squirmed enough to bring my knee up between his legs where it would do the most good. He grunted with pain and let go of me.

I dropped to the floor and he reeled about the room, clutching his crotch with his hands. The other man’s gun was lying on the floor. I picked it up and bounced the butt of it off the reeling guy’s head. He fell on top of his pal and they lay there as though clasping each other in brotherly affection.

Cherry was crouched on the sagging mattress of a slat bed. She showed signs of a terrific beating, and her hair was down. She looked as though she’d bite if I ventured near. She panted:

“So it’s you again.”

I cracked at her, “Don’t I get any words of thanks for my rescue stunt?”

“I don’t know that I’m any better off.” She was still glaring at me like a wild animal.

I sat down in an unbroken wooden chair and wiped the blood out of my eyes from some shallow gashes cut by the window.

“You needn’t look at me like that,” I told her. “I’m not in any mood to argue with you.”

“Why did you come here?” she flared at me.

“To get you.”

“How did you know I was here?”

“Sandra.”

“Sandra?”

I nodded. “She spilled everything when I gave her the works. She’s in jail and the police are raiding the gambling joint. You’re the only loose end.”

Cherry sank back on the bed and gasped:

“Sandra... in jail!”

I told her all about it, keeping my voice level and unconcerned. “...so I came out to bring you in and finish the job,” I ended.

Cherry shivered and her belly muscles went taut. She said between her teeth: “I knew you were a phony. I knew it all the time. Getting a story for your lousy scandal sheet.” There was a sneer in her voice.

“Don’t try to put me on the defensive. My hands are clean.”

“A nasty, sneaking reporter!” Her voice got shrill. “Playing up to me just to get your filthy story.”

“It’s a filthy one, all right. No one knows that better than you.”

“Not as filthy as your maggoty mind will make it. It makes me sick to think that I almost fell for your line.” Her voice was shaken and reedy. There was real pain in her voice. Hurt dismay. It cut right through to my soul or what-have-you. Her eyes looked as though they’d never trust a man again.

I stood up and said: “Listen, Baby. You know that isn’t so.”

“What isn’t so?” Tears began dripping down her bruised cheeks.

“That it was all a line. That I just went for you for the story I could get.” My voice sounded unfamiliar in my own ears. Husky and sort of pleading.

“I suppose you’re going to tell me it was true love.” She tried to be scornful but the tears spoiled the effect she wanted.

“You know goddamn well what it was.” I was going toward her. She raised her hands and cowered back against the wall. “You know goddamn well how I felt. You knew it the first day I looked at you. You know I could have given you what no other woman has ever had from me. And the hell of it is that I know you wanted it. I wouldn’t have blamed you for turning it down if you hadn’t felt the same way. But you did. That’s why I hate you. That’s why I’m going to take you in with the rest of the white-slaving whore-mongers and send you up for a stretch where you’ll have plenty of time to think things over.”

I was close to her. She wasn’t cowering any more. The tears had stopped running and her eyes were shining. She was so goddamned beautiful that it hurt.

She breathed: “Darling.”

“It’s too late for that now. You can’t have your cake and eat it too. Not with me.”

I was leaning over her. She put her hands on my shoulders. Her face was transfigured. That’s the only way I can say it. Her lips were parted and her breath touched my cheek.

She said: “I’m not going to fight it any longer. I’ve tried to hate you. But... I love you.”

I pulled back from her. My guts felt dead and there was a funny buzzing in my ears. “It’s too late for that now.”

“You can’t take me in.” She caught my hand and mashed her throbbing hot lips against it. “You can’t do that to me.”

“No one,” I told her, “has ever said what I can or can’t do.”

Tears came into her eyes again. “You know you love me. You can’t fight that. It’s something that’s happened to us. It’s real.”

I pulled my hand away from her and moved back so she couldn’t touch me.

“All right. I love you. So what? So that makes me into a sap? Nothing doing. I don’t play that way.”

She rocked forward with her hands caught in her hair, moaning:

“It’s all past now. We can forget it. No one will ever know. I must have been crazy. The others hardly know my name. I love you. Isn’t that enough?”

I weakened inside. My mouth tasted fuzzy. It was like I had known it was going to be. I knew if I ever fell for a dame it would be all the way. Sweat was pouring off me. I heard my voice say:

“Get fixed up a little. You’re going in with me.”

“You can’t do it. You’ll hate yourself forever if you don’t save me.” She was sliding off the bed — toward me.

“I’ll hate myself forever if I do.” I looked away from her. At the broken window and at the two gorillas passed out on the floor. Then, slowly, back at her.

She was standing in front of me. She said: “I will make it worth your while... darling. You won’t want me after I’ve been shamed and disgraced in court. And... you do want me now.”

“Yes,” I said thickly. “I want you so damned bad I can taste it. But I’m not having any. Not today. Nobody’s going to say Ed Barlow played sucker for a dame. Let’s get going.”

She was pressing against me. I smelled her. Different from the smell of any woman I ever knew. Clean and fragrant and... compelling.

She cupped her hand under my chin and lifted it so I had to look into her eyes. There was a light there that every man dreams of arousing in the eyes of one woman.

She couldn’t fake that. I knew she couldn’t. Deep inside of me, I knew it wasn’t faked. And I was shaken all the way through.

I stood up and pulled her close. She closed her eyes and lifted her mouth to mine with her lips open. There wasn’t any resistance in her.

She knew she had lost when I put her away from me. She fixed up her dress and hair a little. I took her out to my car and drove down to the police station.

Chapter 27

NOVEMBER 14TH, 1936

MIAMI, FLORIDA

THE MIAMI BUGLE

VICE RING CRUSHED

DEATH BLOW IS DEALT LADY GAMBLING SYNDICATE-BY-BUGLE-EXPOSÉ OF SORDID MACHINATIONS IN THIS AREA

Striking with lightning-like speed, local police last night descended upon the ultra-exclusive gambling salon at 8383 Weston Avenue and amid scenes of unparalleled confusion arrested scores of feminine devotees of Lady Luck.

Striking at a prearranged signal and without warning, squads of police battered their way through supposedly impregnable doors of the infamous resort which has long been a festering blot on the bosom of our community.

Indescribable chaos greeted the intruders. Society matrons rubbed elbows with the demimonde in a mad scramble for the exits where they were led, protesting and weeping to patrol wagons and transported to the city jail where they were booked as material witnesses.

See Page three for names and addresses of those arrested in last night’s raid.

Last night’s raid was the culmination of months of exhaustive investigation by a BUGLE reporter whose copious data concerning the nefarious activities of the vice ring will be placed before the grand jury after appearing exclusively in the BUGLE as a day-today feature presentation.

More important than the raid in far-reaching consequences is the capture of the two female ringleaders of this sordid syndicate which has been preying upon the women of Miami for months. The capture of these two women was solely the work of the BUGLE’S intrepid reporter without whose aid the raid would have been an inglorious fizzle.

The identity of the two women is shrouded in some mystery, although one of them is known as Sandra and the full transcript of the confession extracted from her by the BUGLE reporter will be found on page two exactly as it was taken down from the dictograph by a court reporter in the presence of witnesses.

The second prisoner may be described as the “mystery woman” in the case. As we go to press, her exact status in the affairs of the syndicate is undetermined. She has consistently refused to make any statement except that she is known as “Cherry” and that a full explanation will be forthcoming in good time.

It is indeed a distressing commentary...

NOVEMBER 14TH, 1936

MIAMI, FLORIDA

THE MIAMI TIMES

NEWSPAPER MYTH EXPLODED

“MYSTERY WOMAN” OF VICE INVESTIGATION REVEALED AS TIMES REPORTER ON ASSIGNMENT

Readers of an early edition of a local newspaper will be amused to learn that one of the two alleged ringleaders of the gambling syndicate has been released by the local authorities with an official apology after presenting her credentials as an authorized representative of the TIMES in its ceaseless and devoted efforts for the upbuilding of the city.

Orchids to Cherry Malone!

Posing as a weak woman whose crave for gambling had led her into indiscretions, this courageous girl walked boldly into clutches of the gambling syndicate several weeks ago and has played a lone hand in the dangerous game of ferreting out their secrets until a rival newspaperman was so duped by the consummate skill she displayed in playing her role that he took it upon himself to have her arrested as a ringleader in the syndicate and thrown into jail with the true leader.

A newspaperwoman to the very core of her being, Cherry Malone seized upon this opportunity to obtain an exclusive interview with the infamous Sandra with whom she was incarcerated, obtaining damaging admissions from the woman which will be exclusive features in the TIMES as the sordid details of Cherry’s first-hand experiences among the gambling clique are unfolded in an enthralling day-by-day story which no right-thinking citizen of Miami can afford to ignore.

As ever before, the TIMES leads in...

Content

Anthony Scott
Ladies of Chance

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Chapter 19

Chapter 20

Chapter 21

Chapter 22

Chapter 23

Chapter 24

Chapter 25

Chapter 26

Chapter 27