Ladies of Chance

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.