Urge to Kill

15

Hettie liked bars at night.

She particularly liked the bar at Chico’s, a tiny restaurant on West Forty-sixth Street that was handy for the theater crowd. It was dim yet bright enough to show off her good skin and strong bone structure. And every now and then somebody from one of the Broadway or near-Broadway shows wandered in.

Not that Hettie hadn’t already been discovered, just not by the theater world. Since moving to New York, she’d had small speaking parts in half a dozen TV series, and was the voice of Dubba the Mermaid on a Saturday morning cartoon show that had lasted five weeks three years ago but was still in reruns. She wished adults would watch things over and over the way kids did. It was simplistic things that sold to kids again and again, and it didn’t necessarily have to be quality stuff.

She wasn’t knocking Dubba. Maybe it was her part in that show that had landed her the detergent products commercial spot she was scheduled to shoot next week, wearing the skimpiest of bikinis.

Good clean work, she thought, like she’d promised her mother back in Idaho.

From the potato state or not, Hettie had a kind of wicked sexiness about her. She was five-ten and slender but curvaceous, and had those much sought and envied finely chiseled features with high cheekbones, bright dark eyes, and a full-lipped wide mouth that easily slipped into an arc of disdain even when she was thinking nice thoughts. She knew that men read all sorts of things into her, most of them carnal. That was fine. It meant she could play almost any role that came her way, from Gidget to black widow killer. Trouble was, not enough roles were coming her way.

So here she sat sipping a Cosmopolitan, having just come from an acting lesson, when she should be standing on a Broadway stage.

A guy down the bar gave her the look. Average height and weight, maybe well built inside the expensive blue suit. Wearing a white shirt and red and black tie with the knot slightly loosened as a concession to the heat outside. He was handsome enough to be an actor, with his thick black hair and symmetrical features. And just sitting there, he had a way about him. The kind of guy who seemed intelligent, viewed life with cynical humor, and took no shit. The kind of guy looking for a one-night romp but maybe more.

Hettie shifted on her bar stool and crossed her legs so her skirt hiked up another inch or so, putting on a leg show while sipping her Cosmo and studiously ignoring the guy.

He caught her eye in the back bar mirror and somehow gave her a smile without rearranging his features. Neat trick. Movie close-up stuff. He knew how to underplay, so maybe he was an actor.

She watched him in the mirror as he slid down off his stool and moved toward her with a casual grace, idly spinning empty bar stools as he advanced. He got up smoothly onto the stool next to her. It was almost as if they’d been playing some kind of game with the stools and now it was his turn on that stool.

That was when Hettie pretended to first notice him, but she held her silence. Whoever spoke first would be initiating the pickup, if that’s where this was going.

“What are you doing here?” he asked, as if he knew her and was mildly surprised to have come across her tonight.

“Drinking.”

He glanced at an oversized gold watch peeking from beneath his white shirt cuff. “You belong a few blocks downtown,” he said, “acting, singing, or dancing on stage.”

Amazing! Is he a mind reader?

She gave him a smile, trying to keep it low key as he had in the mirror. “Nobody’s where they’re supposed to be.”

“Charles Manson.”

“No,” she said, “he should be in hell.”

“Your point.” He’d brought his drink with him. Looked like scotch rocks. He took a sip. “Really, if you aren’t an actress, you should be.”

“You say that to all the women you try to pick up?”

“Pretty much so.”

She laughed. Couldn’t help the way it just bubbled out of her. There was something about this guy. The word disarming came to mind.

He cocked his head to the side as if to examine her more closely to satisfy his curiosity. “But with you it’s the truth, right? You really are an actress.”

“Well, yeah.” Like half the women in this place. “But I’m between roles right now. Except for a TV commercial shoot coming up. I’m gonna be in a bathtub full of detergent packages and bottles.”

He grinned. “I can visualize that.” Another sip of scotch, though now she noticed it smelled like bourbon. Another smile. Handsome guy. “Then you actually are in show business,” he said.

“Sure am.” The Cosmo was making her a little lightheaded. Overconfident. And in this kind of game it was okay to exaggerate a bit. She decided to let herself go a little and find out where it might lead. “I’ve done quite a lot of TV work.”

“Really? I’m impressed.”

“You don’t seem that impressed.”

“What’s your name?” he asked. “Let’s see if I’ve heard of you.”

“Hettie Davis.”

He pretended to think. “It really does sound familiar. Especially to a guy who likes old movies.”

“That’s the idea,” she said. “And it’s better than my real name, Angela Obermeir.”

He gave a little shrug without shrugging. You’re the one who should be an actor.

“Oh, I dunno,” he said. “They’re both kind of glamorous names.”

She smiled.

“For a woman with a glamorous smile,” he added, leaning toward her. “I don’t mean to sound flip, or too much like I’m some lounge lizard who does this all the time. Truth is, I looked at you and something clicked.”

“Now, that’s not very original.”

“Well, I warned you. I’m not good at this. You know what I worry about now?”

“What’s that?”

“That I might work this kind of shallow chatter too hard because I don’t know how to really get through to you.” He toyed with his glass, regarding the amber liquid. “That I might lose you when I’ve just found you.”

“Kind of like yanking too hard on a fishing pole and breaking the line?”

“Kind of like,” he admitted. He aimed those dark and deep eyes at her, at the center darker than her own. Becoming darker the longer she looked into them. “I’m trying to be honest with you, Hettie. I’d be dishonest if I thought it would help my cause.”

“I like a little dishonesty now and then.”

“Sure. But only now and then.” He seemed absolutely serious.

“The object of your game,” she said, “is for us to leave here together and go to your place or mine.”

“Or to a hotel.” He rotated slightly on his stool so he was facing her. “Listen, Hettie, half the men in here—no, more than half—would gladly cut off any appendage but one if they could leave here with you.”

“I’m not crazy about hotels,” she said.

“Neither am I.”

She was liking this guy more and more. And the way he could look deep into you…

She had to think about this, but she was already 90 percent sure of her conclusion.

He must not have liked the way the conversation was flagging.

“Maybe I’ve seen you on TV or somewhere,” he said. “What have you been in?”

She placed both elbows on the bar and leaned toward him and to the side, so their heads were almost touching and she could speak softly and directly.

“Ever heard of Dubba the Mermaid?”

“I might have,” he said. “Refresh my memory.”

Hettie smiled at him.

Maybe tomorrow when we wake up.