“I suppose you’re going to tell me it was true love.” She tried to be scornful but the tears spoiled the effect she wanted.
“You know goddamn well what it was.” I was going toward her. She raised her hands and cowered back against the wall. “You know goddamn well how I felt. You knew it the first day I looked at you. You know I could have given you what no other woman has ever had from me. And the hell of it is that I know you wanted it. I wouldn’t have blamed you for turning it down if you hadn’t felt the same way. But you did. That’s why I hate you. That’s why I’m going to take you in with the rest of the white-slaving whore-mongers and send you up for a stretch where you’ll have plenty of time to think things over.”
I was close to her. She wasn’t cowering any more. The tears had stopped running and her eyes were shining. She was so goddamned beautiful that it hurt.
She breathed: “Darling.”
“It’s too late for that now. You can’t have your cake and eat it too. Not with me.”
I was leaning over her. She put her hands on my shoulders. Her face was transfigured. That’s the only way I can say it. Her lips were parted and her breath touched my cheek.
She said: “I’m not going to fight it any longer. I’ve tried to hate you. But... I love you.”
I pulled back from her. My guts felt dead and there was a funny buzzing in my ears. “It’s too late for that now.”
“You can’t take me in.” She caught my hand and mashed her throbbing hot lips against it. “You can’t do that to me.”
“No one,” I told her, “has ever said what I can or can’t do.”
Tears came into her eyes again. “You know you love me. You can’t fight that. It’s something that’s happened to us. It’s real.”
I pulled my hand away from her and moved back so she couldn’t touch me.
“All right. I love you. So what? So that makes me into a sap? Nothing doing. I don’t play that way.”
She rocked forward with her hands caught in her hair, moaning:
“It’s all past now. We can forget it. No one will ever know. I must have been crazy. The others hardly know my name. I love you. Isn’t that enough?”
I weakened inside. My mouth tasted fuzzy. It was like I had known it was going to be. I knew if I ever fell for a dame it would be all the way. Sweat was pouring off me. I heard my voice say:
“Get fixed up a little. You’re going in with me.”
“You can’t do it. You’ll hate yourself forever if you don’t save me.” She was sliding off the bed — toward me.
“I’ll hate myself forever if I do.” I looked away from her. At the broken window and at the two gorillas passed out on the floor. Then, slowly, back at her.
She was standing in front of me. She said: “I will make it worth your while... darling. You won’t want me after I’ve been shamed and disgraced in court. And... you do want me now.”
“Yes,” I said thickly. “I want you so damned bad I can taste it. But I’m not having any. Not today. Nobody’s going to say Ed Barlow played sucker for a dame. Let’s get going.”
She was pressing against me. I smelled her. Different from the smell of any woman I ever knew. Clean and fragrant and... compelling.
She cupped her hand under my chin and lifted it so I had to look into her eyes. There was a light there that every man dreams of arousing in the eyes of one woman.
She couldn’t fake that. I knew she couldn’t. Deep inside of me, I knew it wasn’t faked. And I was shaken all the way through.
I stood up and pulled her close. She closed her eyes and lifted her mouth to mine with her lips open. There wasn’t any resistance in her.
She knew she had lost when I put her away from me. She fixed up her dress and hair a little. I took her out to my car and drove down to the police station.
Chapter 27
NOVEMBER 14TH, 1936
MIAMI, FLORIDA
Striking with lightning-like speed, local police last night descended upon the ultra-exclusive gambling salon at 8383 Weston Avenue and amid scenes of unparalleled confusion arrested scores of feminine devotees of Lady Luck.
Striking at a prearranged signal and without warning, squads of police battered their way through supposedly impregnable doors of the infamous resort which has long been a festering blot on the bosom of our community.
Indescribable chaos greeted the intruders. Society matrons rubbed elbows with the demimonde in a mad scramble for the exits where they were led, protesting and weeping to patrol wagons and transported to the city jail where they were booked as material witnesses.
See Page three for names and addresses of those arrested in last night’s raid.
Last night’s raid was the culmination of months of exhaustive investigation by a BUGLE reporter whose copious data concerning the nefarious activities of the vice ring will be placed before the grand jury after appearing exclusively in the BUGLE as a day-today feature presentation.
More important than the raid in far-reaching consequences is the capture of the two female ringleaders of this sordid syndicate which has been preying upon the women of Miami for months. The capture of these two women was solely the work of the BUGLE’S intrepid reporter without whose aid the raid would have been an inglorious fizzle.
The identity of the two women is shrouded in some mystery, although one of them is known as Sandra and the full transcript of the confession extracted from her by the BUGLE reporter will be found on page two exactly as it was taken down from the dictograph by a court reporter in the presence of witnesses.
The second prisoner may be described as the “mystery woman” in the case. As we go to press, her exact status in the affairs of the syndicate is undetermined. She has consistently refused to make any statement except that she is known as “Cherry” and that a full explanation will be forthcoming in good time.
It is indeed a distressing commentary...
NOVEMBER 14TH, 1936
MIAMI, FLORIDA
Readers of an early edition of a local newspaper will be amused to learn that one of the two alleged ringleaders of the gambling syndicate has been released by the local authorities with an official apology after presenting her credentials as an authorized representative of the TIMES in its ceaseless and devoted efforts for the upbuilding of the city.
Orchids to Cherry Malone!
Posing as a weak woman whose crave for gambling had led her into indiscretions, this courageous girl walked boldly into clutches of the gambling syndicate several weeks ago and has played a lone hand in the dangerous game of ferreting out their secrets until a rival newspaperman was so duped by the consummate skill she displayed in playing her role that he took it upon himself to have her arrested as a ringleader in the syndicate and thrown into jail with the true leader.
A newspaperwoman to the very core of her being, Cherry Malone seized upon this opportunity to obtain an exclusive interview with the infamous Sandra with whom she was incarcerated, obtaining damaging admissions from the woman which will be exclusive features in the TIMES as the sordid details of Cherry’s first-hand experiences among the gambling clique are unfolded in an enthralling day-by-day story which no right-thinking citizen of Miami can afford to ignore.