“The moments pass into hours—”
Gee, if there’s one thing I hate it’s a guy with a ring that holds your mitt in a strait-jacket! And he didn’t know the first thing about waltzing. Three funny little hops to the right, over and over and over. It was getting my nerves on edge. “If you’re gonna jump, jump!” Julie’s voice came back to me from long ago. She’d run into the same kind of a—
“I just must die, poor butterfly!”
Suddenly I was starting to get a little scared and a whole lot excited. I kept saying to myself: “Don’t look up at him, you’ll give yourself away.” I kept my eyes on the knitted tie that had one tier unravelled. The lights went white and the stretch came on. We separated, he turned his back on me and I turned mine on him. We walked away from each other without a word. They don’t thank you, they’re paying for it.
I counted five and then I looked back over my shoulder, to try to see what he was like. He looked back at me at the same time, and we met each other’s looks. I managed to slap on a smile, as though I’d only looked back because he’d made a hit with me, and that I hoped he’d come around again.
There was nothing wrong with his face, not just to look at anyway. It was no worse than any of the others around. He was about forty, maybe forty-five, hair still dark. Eyes speculative, nothing else, as they met mine. But he didn’t answer my fake smile, maybe he could see through it. We both turned away again and went about our business.
I looked down at my hand, to see what made it hurt so. Careful not to raise it, careful not to bend my head, in case he was still watching. Just dropped my eyes to it. There was a red bruise the size of a small strawberry on it, from where his ring had pressed into it the whole time. I knew enough not to go near the box. I caught Duke’s eye from where I was and hitched my head at him, and we got together sort of casually over along the wall.
“What’d you play ‘Poor Butterfly’ for that last time?” I asked.
“Request number,” he said.
I said, “Don’t point, and don’t look around, but whose request was it?”
He didn’t have to. “The guy that was with you the last two times. Why?” I didn’t answer, so then he said, “I get it.” He didn’t at all. “All right, chiseler,” he said, and handed me two dollars and a half, splitting a fiver the guy had slipped him to play it. Duke thought I was after a kick-back.
I took it. It was no good to tell him. What could he do? Nick Ballestier was the one to tell. I broke one of the singles at the orangeade concession — for nickels. Then I started to work my way over toward the phone, slow and aimless. I was within a yard of it when the cats started up again!
And suddenly he was right next to me, he must have been behind me the whole time.
“Were you going any place?” he asked.
I thought I saw his eyes flick to the phone, but I wasn’t positive. One thing sure, there wasn’t speculation in them any more, there was — decision.
“No place,” I said meekly. “I’m at your disposal.” I thought, “If I can only hold him here long enough, maybe Nick’ll show up.”
Then just as we got to the ropes, he said, “Let’s skip this. Let’s go out to a laundry and sit a while.”
I said, smooth on the surface, panic-stricken underneath: “But I’ve already torn your ticket, don’t you want to finish this one out at least?” And tried to goona-goo him for all I was worth, but it wouldn’t take. He turned around and flagged Marino, to get his O. K.
His back was to me, and across his shoulder I kept shaking my head, more and more violently, to Marino — no, no, I don’t want to go with him. Marino just ignored me. It meant more money in his pocket this way.
When I saw that the deal was going through, I turned like a streak, made the phone, got my buffalo in. It was no good trying to tell Marino, he wouldn’t believe me, he’d think I was just making it up to get out of going out with the guy. Or if I raised the alarm on my own, he’d simply duck down the stairs before anyone could stop him and vanish again. Nick was the only one to tell, Nick was the only one who’d know how to nail him here.
I said, “Police headquarters, quick! Quick!” and turned and looked over across the barn. But Marino was already alone out there. I couldn’t see where the guy had gone, they were milling around so looking over their prospects for the next one.
A voice came on and I said: “Is Nick Ballestier there? Hurry up, get him for me.”
Meanwhile Duke had started to break it down again; real corny. It must have carried over the open wire. I happened to raise my eyes, and there was a shadow on the wall in front of me, coming across my shoulders from behind me. I didn’t move, held steady, listening.
I said, “All right, Peggy, I just wanted to know when you’re gonna pay me back that five bucks you owe me,” and I killed it.
Would he get it when they told him? They’d say: “A girl’s voice asked for you, Nick, from somewhere where there was music going on, and we couldn’t make any sense out of what she said, and she hung up without waiting.” A pretty slim thread to hold all your chances on.
I stood there afraid to turn. His voice said stonily, “Get your things, let’s go. Suppose you don’t bother any more tonight about your five dollars.” There was a hidden meaning, a warning, in it.
There was no window in the dressing-room, no other way out but the way I’d come in, and he was right there outside the door. I poked around all I could, mourning: “Why don’t Nick come?” and, boy, I was scared. A crowd all around me and no one to help me. He wouldn’t stay; the only way to hang onto him for Nick was to go with him and pray for luck. I kept casing him through the crack of the door every minute or so. I didn’t think he saw me, but he must have. Suddenly his heel scuffed at it brutally, and made me jump about an inch off the floor.
“Quit playing peek-a-boo, I’m waiting out here!” he called in sourly.
I grabbed up Mom Henderson’s tab and scrawled across it in lipstick: “Nick: He’s taking me with him, and I don’t know where to. Look for my ticket stubs. Ginger.”
Then I scooped up all the half tickets I’d accumulated all night long and shoved them loose into the pocket of my coat. Then I came sidling out to him. I thought I heard the phone on the wall starting to ring, but the music was so loud I couldn’t be sure. We went downstairs and out on the street.
A block away I said, “There’s a joint. We all go there a lot from our place,” and pointed to Chan’s. He said “Shut up!” I dropped one of the dance checks on the sidewalk. Then I began making a regular trail of them.
The neon lights started to get fewer and fewer, and pretty soon we were in a network of dark lonely side streets. My pocket was nearly empty now of tickets. My luck was he didn’t take a cab. He didn’t want anyone to remember the two of us together, I guess.
I pleaded, “Don’t make me walk any more, I’m awfully tired.”
He said, “We’re nearly there, it’s right ahead.” The sign on the next corner up fooled me; there was a chop-suey joint, there, only a second-class laundry, but I thought that was where we were going.
But in between us and it there was a long dismal block, with tumbledown houses and vacant lots on it. And I’d rim out of dance checks. All my take gone, just to keep alive. He must have worked out the whole set-up carefully ahead of time, known I’d fall for that sign in the distance that we weren’t going to.
Sure, I could have screamed out at any given step of the way, collected a crowd around us. But you don’t understand. Much as I wanted to get away from him, there was one thing I wanted even more: To hold him for Nick. I didn’t just want him to slip away into the night, and then do it all over again at some future date. And that’s what would happen if I raised a row. They wouldn’t believe me in a pinch, they’d think it was some kind of a shake-down on my part. He’d talk himself out of it or scram before a cop came.