She’ll Hate Me Tomorrow

Chapter VIII

At a quarter of four, just before the club opened, Bix Lawson phoned. Ross took the call in his office.

“George Mott and Bull Hatton caught the seven a.m. plane to Chicago,” Lawson said. “Thought you’d like to know.”

“Good for them,” Ross said. “Bull Hatton is Beanhead’s name, eh?”

“Huh?”

“Just a little private joke between Bull and me. How’d they feel?”

“Roaring mad. Whitey Cord won’t take a slap like this, Clancy. If you don’t back down at least part-way, he’ll move fifty guns into town to take that girl.”

“What do you mean, back down part-way?”

“Well, if you won’t give the girl up, will you at least ship her out of town so I can tell Cord she ain’t being harbored in St. Stephen? We’d have to come up with some kind of proof that she’s really gone. Maybe rig a clear trail to, say, Kansas City, then have it go cold there. Whitey is still going to be mad, but I don’t think he’d move in on the town. He’s businessman enough not to waste guns on revenge. All he wants is the girl.”

“Sort of let her skip from town to town for the rest of her life, you mean? With one eye over her shoulder all the time?”

“For Christ’s sake, Clancy!” Lawson exploded. “She can’t mean that much to you. According to Mott, she can’t have been in town more than ten or eleven days.”

“Stella hasn’t done a thing to anybody,” Ross said, “except learn something — unfortunately and accidentally — which could put Whitey Cord in the chair. She has the right to walk down the street without fear. She stays right here.”

“Is that your final word?” Lawson demanded.

“Uh-huh.”

“You’ve got a head like a brick,” Lawson said, and hung up.

For the next few days Stella left the club only when escorted by Ross. She continued to work at her cloakroom job, spending her nights in Ross’ apartment.

On the Monday morning four days after the departure from town of George Mott and Bull Hatton, Stella and Ross were breakfasting in the third-floor apartment when she said tentatively, “You think it would be safe to move back to my room now, Clancy?”

His black eyebrows raised. “Getting bored here?”

“Oh, no,” she said quickly. “I love it every night when—” She broke off and blushed a furious red.

“When what?” he asked with delighted amusement.

“I meant to say, I like being here with you,” she said primly. “It just started to come out wrong. I don’t think those men will come back. I shouldn’t impose on you any more.”

“It’s hardly an imposition, the way I’ve been making use of your soft white body.”

Her color had started to fade, but now she blushed again. “You’re making fun of me.”

“No, I’m not. Just building up to making fun with you.”

She had started to raise her coffee cup, but she set it down again and gave him an interested look.

“Any-time Annie,” he said wickedly. “The only time she ever said no, she didn’t understand the question.”

Leaping to her feet, she stood glaring down at him. With a lithe movement he got to his feet, moved around the table and took her in his arms. Momentarily she struggled, her expression angry, then suddenly her arms shot around his neck and her lips came up to his.

“All right,” she whispered. “So I’m a pushover for you. I’m not for just anybody.”

“That’s the way I want you,” he said, sweeping her up into his arms and heading for the bedroom. “I think I’ll keep you around a while longer.”

“As long as you want,” she murmured into his neck. “When I get to be a nuisance, just tell me and I’ll go.”

It was an hour later before they got around to their second cup of coffee.

That same evening, about midnight, Ross was making a tour of the gaming room when a striking brunette in a low-cut black evening gown approached him. Several times earlier he had noticed her at the roulette table and wondered who she was, for he had never spotted her in the club before.

About thirty, she had smooth, dusky skin and sensual lips which pouted as though they had been freshly bitten. A small, attractive but slightly flat nose and almond-shaped eyes gave her a faintly oriental look. Slim-waisted, she had a bosom like a pouter pigeon, a good deal of it exposed by her low-cut gown.

“You’re Clancy Ross, aren’t you?” she inquired in a husky voice.

“Uh-huh.”

“My name is Christine Franklin. I’ve been having a run of bad luck, and they tell me I have to see you to cash a check.”

“That’s right, miss—” Glancing at her left hand, which bore a sparkling diamond and a wedding band, he amended it to, “Mrs. Franklin. How large a check do you want to cash?”

“Five hundred.”

“Hmm. Are you local?”

Shaking her head, she drew a white card from her evening bag and handed it to him. The card read: FRANKLIN REAL ESTATE COMPANY, INC. and gave a Kansas City address and phone number. In the lower left hand corner was printed: GORDON FRANKLIN, PRESIDENT

“Gordie is my husband,” she explained. “I’m vacationing here.”

“I see. If you’ll step into my office for a minute I can probably accommodate you.”

He escorted her out into the foyer and down the hall to his office. Stella, behind the cloakroom counter, gave the brunette an appraising look as they passed.

Inside the office the woman gave a quick glance around, noting the huge mahogony desk, the fireplace in one wall, the small bar along the opposite wall, and the single surrealistic painting over the desk. Her face registered approval at Ross’ decorating taste. Approaching the bar, she placed her evening bag on it and opened it.

“You’ll want some identification other than my husband’s business card, I suppose.”

“Naturally,” the gambler said pleasantly.

Drawing a wallet from the bag, she produced a Missouri driver’s license made out to Mrs. Christine Franklin. Glancing at the physical description, Ross noted that she was five feet five, weighed a hundred and twenty-four pounds, had black hair and brown eyes. Her age was given as thirty-one.

“The description tallies,” he said, handing it back. “But those cold statistics hardly do you justice.”

Her full lips formed into a smile. “Thank you, sir.”

Returning the license to the wallet, she replaced it in her bag and drew out a checkbook. Ross moved over to the desk, lifted a desk pen from its holder and carried it to her.

“Thank you,” she said again. “Shall I make it out to the club or just to cash?”

“Either.”

There was a safe in one corner of the room, but Ross didn’t bother to open it. Instead he drew ten fifty-dollar bills from his wallet as she wrote the check.

When she finished writing the check and handed it to him, he examined it carefully. It was made to cash and was drawn on a Kansas City bank. He noted that she had numbered it “1.”

“First check you ever drew on this account?” he asked.

She looked startled, then smiled. “You mean because I numbered it one? I start numbering over each month.”

Feminine logic in business matters had always rather escaped the gambler, but her explanation was so typically feminine, he lost all suspicion of the check. He was sure no professional check passer would offer such an explanation. He placed the check in his wallet. She tucked the bills into her bag and returned his pen.

She showed no immediate intention of leaving when he returned the pen to its desk holder. With one elbow on the bar, she glanced about the office again.

“This is a very pleasant room,” she said. “However, except for the desk, it looks more like a playroom than an office.”

“Some play takes place here occasionally,” he admitted.

“I’ll bet. I imagine more than one lonely widow has made the excuse of wanting to cash a check in order to become better acquainted with the club’s handsome proprietor.”

He grinned at her. “Is that a confession?”

“Oh, I needed to cash a check. Your wheel had me quite broke. But I noticed you several times tonight and had been hoping for an excuse to meet you.”

“You’re not a lonely widow.”

“In a way I am. I’m a business widow. I see my husband at odd moments when he isn’t showing clients properties. We haven’t taken a vacation together in five years. He’s always too busy making more money.”

“If your hobby’s roulette, he probably needs to,” the gambler suggested.

She shook her head. “Usually I’m more lucky. Roulette has paid for my last several vacations. I’ll probably get even and stick you for some money before the night’s over.”

“You have my best wishes,” he said with a shrug. “Would you like a drink before you start trying your luck again?”

“I’ve been waiting for an invitation,” she said with a smile. “Straight bourbon with water behind it, please.”

The bar was set flush against the wall, with the liquor and glass racks above it and a refrigerating unit with sliding doors beneath it. Without stirring from his position Ross poured her a shot of bourbon, dropped cubes from the automatic ice maker into a pair of glasses, filled one with water, and put soda and a mere dash of Scotch in the other.

“To your improved luck,” he said, raising his glass.

Smiling acknowledgement of the toast, she tossed off the bourbon in one gulp and took a sip of water. Ross took a bare taste of his own drink and offered her a cigarette. When she accepted, he held his lighter to it and then lit one of his own.

“Another drink?” he inquired.

“All right,” she agreed instantly.

He poured the shot-glass full.

“I probably drink too much,” she said, toying with the glass.

He made no comment.

“The gypsies call alcohol ‘the little death’,” she said. “Sometimes it’s easier to be only partially alive than to face life with all your faculties alert.”

“You have some gypsy in you?”

“Half. My husband doesn’t know that. He’d turn green if he did.”

“Why?” Ross asked in honest surprise. “Romany blood is nothing to be ashamed of.”

“You don’t know my husband. He traces his family back to the Revolution. They were Tories, of course. No relation to Benjamin Franklin. He thinks anything but Anglo-Saxon blood is tainted. He forgave me for being part French, but he’d never recover from the shock of learning the French is French-gypsy.”

“Doesn’t sound as though you and your husband share many confidences,” he ventured.

“How close can a woman my age get to a man of sixty-three?” she inquired. She tossed off her second drink, took another sip of water and smiled at him. “But I’m sure you’re not interested in my marital problems. That ends my complaints about Gordie. I promise not to mention him again.”

So she was married to a man thirty-two years older than she, Ross thought. It had been his experience that women who made a point of emphasizing a large age difference between themselves and their husbands were usually obliquely announcing their availability.

In most cases he carefully avoided entanglement with married women, but if Christine Franklin was telling the truth, she was married in name only. And she was certainly physically beautiful. He began to generate a little interest.

“Another drink?” he asked.

Killing her cigarette in an ash tray on the bar, she shook her head. “You’ll think I’m an alcoholic. I’d rather go thirsty and keep your opinion of me higher.”

“I don’t care how much a woman drinks, providing she can handle it.”

“Now you’ve put your finger on my problem. I get drunk and maudlin. I’ve really had enough, thanks. I’ll get back to the table and let you get back to work.”

Punching out his cigarette, he took another bare sip of his drink and left the rest standing on the bar. He accompanied her back as far as the archway into the gaming room, then stood watching the seductive sway of her hips as she made for the roulette table.

From a few feet away Stella’s voice said, “Quite beautiful, isn’t she?”

Turning, Ross walked over to the cloakroom counter. “Yes. She’s vacationing here from Kansas City.”

“An old friend of yours?” Stella asked.

“No. Just met her.”

“Oh. You were so long in your office, I thought perhaps you were discussing old times.”

Ross gave her an amused look. “Why, you’re jealous, aren’t you?”

“Of a woman that age?” Stella said with raised brows. “She must be close to forty.”

“Thirty-one. I saw her driver’s license.”

“Oh, you traded vital statistics? I was going to say she was well preserved, because I thought she was older. But if she’s only thirty-one, she must have lived a hard life.”

“Not half as hard as the one you’re going to live if you start getting possessive,” he growled at her, and walked away.