Yes, Mike thought, she's a good wife. She kept an immaculate house, cooked food that was better than anything you could get in even the most expensive restaurants, always looked after his needs. She was constantly in good spirits, had a keen sense of humor, and was always ready to give her full attention to Mike's problems, listening with enthusiasm even though she never quite understood the real dangers of his job, never quite believed in its terrors.
In fact, their only point of disagreement had to do with Mike's job: Mike was a lieutenant, assigned to the vice squad, and he was perfectly content with his position – as a lieutenant he had enough authority to take part in decisions of policy and approach, yet he was not removed by rank from the real heart of any cop's job, the streets. The pay was good, and although the work was always difficult and sometimes dangerous, Mike enjoyed every minute of it. He would not have traded places with anyone.
Lisa thought that Mike should be interested in trading places, with one of the captains, for instance, or even an assistant chief. In the beginning of their marriage she had kept quiet while Mike had struggled up through the ranks, from patrolman to sergeant, and finally to lieutenant. It was only after Mike had been a lieutenant for five years that she had begun to ask why he didn't seem interested in promotion. Even at that, she asked only rarely, she didn't want to annoy him, because she knew that would only make him more stubborn.
"… and the well-known night-club owner, Jay Snyder," said the newsman, interrupting Mike's reverie. He sat forward to watch, all attention now. Jay Snyder was the object of Mike's personal crusade – he knew that Snyder controlled almost all the prostitution and illicit white slavery traffic in Los Angeles, and even if no one else believed him, he was going to put Snyder behind bars, put him behind bars or die trying.
Lisa came downstairs, saw Mike leaning forward in his chair, a look of intense concentration on his face. "Snyder again?" she said. Lisa thought Mike's crusade against Snyder a little ridiculous. How could Jay Snyder be a crook? She saw his name in the newspaper nearly every week, and always associated with some charity or other, or with the names of the wealthiest and most respected citizens of Los Angeles. Jay Snyder a criminal? Hardly.
"Yeah," said Mike, "Snyder again. I'm going to get that bastard one of these days."
"Mike," she said, "I know you know a lot more about this than I do, and I know you're sure you're right, but…"
"But what?" snapped her husband. He knew what was coming next; they had talked about it several times before. Lisa was simply too naive to believe that anyone who seemed so respectable could be involved in crime, particularly in prostitution.
"Well," she said, "are you really sure?"
"Yes, dearest," he said sarcastically, "I'm really sure." The only thing he disliked about his wife, the only fault he could find with her, was her naivete – she had grown up in a middleclass dream world, isolated and sheltered by her parents from the harder, meaner world of the streets, and he knew, although he tried to educate her, that she would never be capable of understanding the way organized crime worked. She simply refused to look at the facts.
It wouldn't be so bad, he thought, if she'd just keep her nose out of it, keep her head in the clouds where it seemed to want to stay and stop needling him about Jay Snyder. If she couldn't face the facts, then she should just forget it and leave him alone to do his job. But then again, she was his wife, and she bad a right to her opinions, even if they were naive and based on illusion instead of reality. When you got right down to it, Mike was secretly glad that she was at least concerned about him, about his work. Sometimes, though…
She kept at it. "I just can't see," she said, "how Jay Snyder could be involved in anything like prostitution. I mean, he doesn't even need the money, not with all those night clubs he owns. His clubs are famous, Mike. People come from all over the world to see his shows."
"You don't have to tell me his clubs are famous," Mike said. He was getting angry; she just wouldn't shut up about this. "But where in the hell do you think he got the money to buy those lousy clubs in the first place? Do you know anything about Jay Snyder's history? No, you don't. Well, I'll tell you a few things: Jay Snyder came out here from Chicago in 1940, without a penny to his name. You know what he'd been doing in Chicago?"
Lisa shook her head. "No, but…"
"Just listen for a minute," Mike interrupted. "Listen and maybe you'll learn a thing or two. In Chicago, Jay Snyder was a pimp, a scrounging, two-bit pimp who couldn't get anyone to work for him except old barflies and teenage girls. He got into trouble with the syndicate, big trouble, and they forced him out of town. Tie came out here without a dime, like I said, spent his time snatching purses and hanging around the track. He'd still be doing it now, if it hadn't been for Carolyn Ames."
"Carolyn Ames," said Lisa, frowning. "The actress?"
"The actress," said Mike. "She wasn't in such good shape herself – drank too much, took too much dope, and she'd lost her looks. She did have a lot of money, though. Snyder met her one day at the track and somehow managed to get friendly with her. Maybe he was the only thing she could find to screw."
"Mike!"
"OK, OK," he said. "Anyway, they got to be friends. Somehow Snyder talked her out of a lot of money, went out and set himself up in business again. But this time, with Carolyn's money behind him, he was able to buy some good girls, pretty ones, the kind who get a hundred dollars or more a night. So instead of being a low-class pimp; Snyder became a high-class pimp. His business kept on expanding – this was right after the war, when money was loose – and finally he got enough to buy his first club. From there, it was just a matter of time. The first club was a hit, mostly because Carolyn Ames helped him put his show together, so he bought another one, then another one. Carolyn kept introducing him around in high society – everybody thought his southside Chicago accent was cute, you know? – and that's how he made his contacts. What do you think about your Jay Snyder now? Still think he's 'respectable'?"
Lisa shook her head. "Oh, Mike," she said, "I just don't know what to think. It all sounds so incredible."
"True, though," he said. "Listen, Jay Snyder is a scummy bastard. As long as he's around, this is a scummy city. You want to raise kids in a place where people like Jay Snyder are running things? What if we had a daughter? What if our daughter got into trouble and figured she couldn't get help from anyone but Jay Snyder? What if she went to Snyder? You know what would happen then?" Mike didn't think any of that was very likely, but he had to get through to Lisa somehow, and maybe these shock tactics would work. Nothing else seemed to, that was certain.
Lisa was quiet. Mike's mention of children had made her stop thinking about Jay Snyder, had turned her mind to their own problems, hers and Mike's. They had been married for ten years and still had no children. They both wanted kids, Lisa as much as Mike, but they just couldn't seem to get together sexually. Lisa bad been a virgin when she and Mike were married, had never even experimented with sex, and she still remembered the shock of their wedding night, of seeing Mike's crude, massive prick underneath all that fuzzy hair, of feeling that thing come into her like a knife, tearing at her insides, hurting her, torturing her, making her writhe in pain. Her secret passages had hurt for days afterwards, and now she could not even think about sex without feeling the pain and shame of that night. She had a fine body, she knew that, with perfect ripe breasts and full rounded hips, and she kept her body in good shape, but somehow she could almost never bring herself to submit to Mike's urgings. Occasionally they made love, particularly when Mike fingered her while she slept, got her excited before she could realize what was happening, but the occasions were rare, and they never talked about it.