“I got a feeling something’s going to happen tonight,” I said, hunching my shoulders.
“Sure,” said Mom. “Maybe you’ll get fired.”
I thumbed my nose at her and turned the other way around on my chair. She went back to her paper. “There haven’t been any good murders lately,” she lamented. “Damn it, I like a good, juicy murder wanst in a while!”
“You’re building yourself up to one right in here,” I scowled into the mirror at her.
She didn’t take offense; she wasn’t supposed to, anyway. “Was you here when that thing happened to that Southern girl, Sally, I think, was her name?”
“No!” I snapped. “Think I’m as old as you? Think I been dancing here all my life?”
“She never showed up to work one night, and they found her— That was only, let’s see now... ” She figured it out on her fingers. “Three years ago.”
“Cut it out!” I snarled. “I feel low enough as it is!”
Mom was warming up now. “Well, for that matter, how about the Fredericks kid? That was only a little while before you come here, wasn’t it?”
“I know,” I cut her short. “I remember hearing all about it. Do me a favor and let it lie.”
She parked one finger up alongside her mouth. “You know,” she breathed confidentially, “I’ve always had a funny feeling one and the same guy done away with both of them.”
“If he did, I know who I wish was third on his list!” I was glowering at her, when thank God the rest of the chain gang showed up and cut the death-watch short. The blonde came in, and then the Raymond tramp, and the Italian frail, and all the rest of them — all but Julie.
I said, “She was never as late as this before!” and they didn’t even know who or what I was talking about. Or care. Great bunch.
A slush-pump started to tune up outside, so I knew the cats had come in too.
Mom Henderson got up, sighed. “Me for the white tiles and rippling waters,” and waddled out to her beat.
I opened the door on a crack and peeped out, watching for Julie. The pash lights were on now and there were customers already buying tickets over the bird cage. All the other taxi-dancers were lining up — but not Julie.
Somebody behind me yelled, “Close that door! Think we’re giving a free show in here?”
“You couldn’t interest anyone in that second-hand hide of yours even with a set of dishes thrown in!” I squelched absent-mindedly, without even turning to find out who it was. But I closed it anyway.
Marino came along and banged on it and hollered, “Outside, you in there! What do I pay you for anyway?” and somebody yelled back: “I often wonder!”
The cats exploded into a razz-matazz just then with enough oompah to be heard six blocks away, so it would pull them in off the pave. Once they were in it was up to us. We all came out single file, to a fate worse than death, me last. They were putting the ropes up, and the mirrored tops started to go around in the ceiling and scatter flashes of light all over everything, like silver rain.
Marino said, “Where you goin’, Ginger?” and when he used your front name like that it meant he wasn’t kidding.
I said, “I’m going to phone Julie a minute, find out what happened to her.”
“You get out there and goona-goo!” he said roughly. “She knows what time the session begins! How long’s she been working here, anyway?”
“But she’ll lose her job, you’ll fire her,” I wailed.
He hinged his watch. “She is fired already,” he said flatly.
I knew how she needed that job, and when I want to do a thing I do it. A jive-artist was heading my way, one of those barnacles you can’t shake off once they fasten on you. I knew he was a jive, because he’d bought enough tickets to last him all week; a really wise guy only buys them from stretch to stretch. The place might burn down for all he knows.
I grabbed his ticket and tore it quick, and Marino turned and walked away. So then I pleaded, “Gimme a break, will you? Lemme make a phone call first. It won’t take a second.”
The jive said, “I came in here to danst.”
“It’s only to a girl friend,” I assured him. “And I’ll smile pretty at you the whole time.” (Clink! Volunteer 8-1111.) “And I’ll make it up to you later, I promise I will.” I grabbed him quick by the sleeve. “Don’t go way, stand here!”
Julie’s landlady answered. I said, “Did Julie Bennett come back yet?”
“I don’t know,” she said. “I ain’t seen her since yesterday.”
“Find out for me, will ya?” I begged. “She’s late and she’ll lose her job over here.”
Marino spotted me, came back and thundered: “I thought I told you—”
I waved the half ticket in his puss. “I’m working,” I said. “I’m on this gentleman’s time,” and I goona-gooed the jive with teeth and eyes, one hand on his arm.
He softened like ice cream in a furnace. He said, “It’s all right, Mac,” and felt big and chivalrous or something. About seven cents worth of his dime was gone by now.
Marino went away again, and the landlady came down from the second floor and said, “She don’t answer her door, so I guess she’s out.”
I hung up and I said, “Something’s happened to my girl friend. She ain’t there and she ain’t here. She wouldn’ta quit cold without telling me.”
The goona-goo was beginning to wear off the jive by this time. He fidgeted, said, “Are you gonna danst or are you gonna stand there looking blue?”
I stuck my elbows out. “Wrap yourself around this!” I barked impatiently. Just as he reached, the cats quit and the stretch was on.
He gave me a dirty look. “Ten cents shot to hell!” and he walked off to find somebody else.
I never worry about a thing after it’s happened, not when I’m on the winning end anyway. I’d put my call through, even if I hadn’t found out anything. I got back under the ropes, and kept my fingers crossed to ward off garlic-eaters.
By the time the next stretch began, I knew Julie wasn’t coming any more that night. Marino wouldn’t have let her stay even if she had, and I couldn’t have helped her get around him any more, by then, myself. I kept worrying, wondering what had happened to her, and that creepy feeling about tonight being a bad night came over me stronger than ever, and I couldn’t shake it off no matter how I goona-gooed.
The cold orangeade they kept buying me during the stretches didn’t brace me up any either. I wasn’t allowed to turn it down, because Marino got a cut out of the concession profits.
The night was like most of the others, except I missed Julie. I’d been more friendly with her than the rest of the girls, because she was on the square. I had the usual run of freaks.
“With the feet, with the feet,” I said wearily, “lay off the belt-buckle crowding.”
“What am I supposed to do, build a retaining wall between us?”
“You’re supposed to stay outside the three-mile limit,” I flared, “and not try to go mountain climbing in the middle of the floor. Do I look like an Alp?” And I glanced around to see if I could catch Marino’s eye.
The guy quit pawing. Most of them are yellow like that. But on the other hand, if a girl complains too often, the manager begins to figure her for a trouble-maker. “Wolf!” you know, so it don’t pay.
It was about twelve when they showed up, and I’d been on the floor three and a half hours straight, with only one more to go. There are worse ways of earning a living. You name them. I knew it was about twelve because Duke, the front man, had just wound up “The Lady is a Tramp,” and I knew the sequence of his numbers and could tell the time of night by them, like a sailor can by bells. Wacky, eh? Half-past — “Umehouse Blues.”