Ladies of Chance

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.