“His kind of money is never harmless, Hank. I’ve learned that with lots of money you can hire people to be unpleasant for you.”
“Why you old cynic, you! And so young, too.”
The rest of the evening was uneventful until, at quarter to one, Roger Blate came in with a small party of sharpies. Roger gave me a look of pure hatred and I knew that it hadn’t been his idea to come to the Staccato. I finished my number and went back to the table. I pointed out Roger to Kim.
“There, my boy,” I said, “is what too many people think of when they think of showbusiness.”
“How so?”
“Roger Blate was my agent. I was getting a hundred and seventy-five a week and I’d made one recording and I was just beginning to catch on. Roger came to me all excited and told me that he had a new spot for me at a hundred dollars more a week, singing with Jerry Jerome and his band. I took the job and Jerome’s business manager thought I was pretty nice. One night he got tight and told me that Blate had asked Jerry Jerome for five hundred a week for my services, which would have given Blate fifty a week as his commission. But then, after the price was decided on, Blate told Jerome he could have me for two seventy-five, provided he’d kick back a hundred cash each week to Blate. Of course Jerome agreed, as it saved him a hundred and a quarter a week, and Blate was happy because it meant he made one hundred twenty-seven fifty a week off me instead of only fifty. And little Hank was the babe in the woods.”
“What did you do?” Kim asked. “Sue him?”
“Are you crazy? Some of the little boys on my street in Brooklyn grew up to be on the rough side. They like to help a gal from the old neighborhood. One of them went to see Blate and Blate nicely canceled our contract. The doctors took eight stitches on the inside of Blate’s mouth. Then I hooked up with Carl Hopper, who is straight.”
Most rats look like anything but what they are. Not Roger Blate. He has a flat face, like some kind of a snake. I knew that he had Johnny France, who also sings with the band, all hooked up with an airtight agreement. It wasn’t my style to warn Johnny. Let him find out for himself. It isn’t comfortable to be hated the way Roger Blate hated me.
I finished the last turn a few minutes after two and went from the floor up to the dressing room. Betty never stays, of course, to help after the evening’s over. I wouldn’t want her to stay. Usually she leaves the small light on the dressing table on.
I opened the door and frowned because the dressing table light was off. I started through the darkness and suddenly stopped. Had it not been for the three close calls, I would have walked to the dressing table and reached blithely for the lamp switch.
A draft caught the door and banged it shut and I stopped breathing and began to tremble. The expanse of tanned skin exposed by the dress suddenly turned into a rodeo for goose bumps. I was a little girl again, standing in the dark — and afraid.
The room was so dreadfully dark that I felt as though someone had their hand over my eyes. I backed cautiously to the door, found the latch and opened it, backing out into the hall.
Bud Mitch, trumpet, just coming by, grinned at me. “Got mice in there?”
“Lend me some matches, Bud,” I said.
He handed me a packet of matches and went whistling down the hall. The open door let a little light into the room. I walked cautiously across the floor to the dressing table, lit a match and looked. The bulb from the lamp was on the top of the table. One of those screw-in plugs had been put in where the bulb had been. A six-inch length of insulated wire protruded from the plug. It was bent down and at the end, the insulation was peeled off the two naked wires and they were right where my hand would have touched them as I reached for the switch.
It was then that the moisture soaked through my thin slippers. Somebody had spilled water on the floor. Perfect! Hank walks into her room, stands in the puddle and electrocutes herself.
The match singed my fingers and I dropped it. It hissed faintly when it struck the water on the floor. I lit another match, pulled the wall plug out. When the lamp was dead I unscrewed the thing out of the bulb socket and replaced the bulb. It was only after I had thoroughly smeared it up that I thought of fingerprints. And me the daughter of Joe Ryan!
I shut the door, unzipped my dress, and took my first really deep breath of the evening. I slipped out of the thin sandals, dried my damp feet and hurried into street clothes. I put the socket arrangement in my purse, wondering whether the shock would actually have been sufficient to kill me.
I was able to get out of the place quickly because I have the sort of coloring that in a club the size of the Staccato doesn’t demand showgal makeup. My thick black eyebrows and lashes came that way, making what I think is an interesting contrast with the silver hair. I looked in the mirror as I was ready to leave. Hank was okay, except for a haunted look in the gray eyes and a certain tightness around the lips. I practiced a smile, clicked out the light and left.
I had told Kim to wait five minutes after my number, then pay the check and go around to the side door. He was standing in the shadows waiting for me.
As I walked toward him, smiling, he said, “Fatso seems to be awaiting his princess.”
I remembered then that Donald Frees hadn’t returned to the club. Sam, my boss, had probably noticed it also and would have a few barbed words to say the next day.
“Where is he?”
“His big fat black car awaits at the end of this charming alley. He’s practicing having money by being parked by a hydrant. What is my line?”
“Polite, but firm,” I said.
He nodded. “Polite but firm it is.”
We walked down the narrow alley.
Chapter III
Our heels made echoing noises in the narrow alley and we came out of the mouth of it into the lesser darkness of the street. It was twenty of three. Donald’s car was a — black mass that caught highlights on the roof and the hood. He was leaning against it, his hands in the pockets of his dark topcoat.
“Laura!” he said hoarsely as I appeared with Kim.
“Yes, Donald?” I said lightly.
“I want to talk to you!” he said.
“Call me up like a good boy, Donald. We’ll have a nice talk tomorrow afternoon over the phone.”
We started to walk up toward a cab. Donald Frees took two quick steps behind us and clamped my arm, spinning me around. His big pink face was twisted with anger.
Kim chopped down on Donald’s forearm with the edge of his hand. Donald let go of my arm.
“You heard her tell you to call her tomorrow,” Kim said. “Now go away and stop annoying us.”
Donald swayed and I realized for the first time that he was very drunk. His meaty pink fist floated up toward Kim’s face. It seemed to be properly aimed, but somehow it floated right over Kim’s shoulder.
There was a small thud and Donald sat down on the sidewalk holding his fat tummy with both hands, breathing hard. The chauffeur came out of the car as though he had been shot from a gun.
I had never particularly noticed the man and remembered vaguely that he had a broad flat face and always looked as though his seams were about to split.
There was a sharp crack and Kim was bent like a bow, his knees sagging. I screamed as he went down. Kim was shaking his head from side to side.
The chauffeur helped Donald up, pushed him roughly toward the car. The wonderful sound of a whistle blasted the night as running footsteps came toward us.
The big black car roared off with Donald, and the lights didn’t flash on. The cop, a young one, peered hard at it.
“Got the last number of the license and that’s all,” he said.