Ladies of Chance

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.