Looking puzzled, Luke followed her. “Now what you after, Wilma?” he asked when they were seated opposite one another.
“I’m after telling your wife what it really was you and my father fought about if you don’t do what I want.”
“What you mean what it really were? We fought ‘cause they gonna shut the fact’ry down iffen your pa don’t quit bein’ stubborn.”
“Is that what you told Annie May?”
“Sure ’nuf. It’s true, ain’t it?”
Wilma shook her head. “That’s not the way I tell it. The way I tell it, Pa went after you because you took advantage of me and got me into trouble.”
“That’s crazy! I never went near you an’ you an’ your pa both know it. The whole town knows what the fight were ’bout.”
“Annie May’s a jealous woman, Luke.”
“Suppose she is.” Confusion was written all over Luke Partridge’s face.
“When I go weeping to her about how you seduced me and got me pregnant and then beat up my father, she’s going to believe me, Luke.”
“She won’t neither!” But Luke’s tone was shaky. He knew his wife well enough to know that she was always ready to believe the worst of him. “Anyways,” he grabbed at a straw, “you ain’t with chil’, nor had none. Annie May’s smart ’nuf to figger that out.”
“I had an abortion, Luke. It took all my pa’s savings. Now I want money from you to pay for it.”
“I ain’t got no money!”
“I don’t care. You and Annie May will have to get it somewhere. That’s what I’ll tell her, unless—”
“Less what?”
“Unless you do what I ask you to do.”
“I ain’t gonna do nothin’ you want. Annie May ain’t gonna believe nothin’ you tell her. She maybe ain’t so smart, but she ain't that dumb, neither.”
“She’s religious though, Luke. I cry my eyes out and I’ll swear to it on a Bible, you know she’ll believe me. Annie May knows nobody would swear on a Bible to something that wasn’t so. Why, the way she looks at it, if they did, they’d be struck dead on the spot.”
“You jus’ might be!”
“I’ll take the chance. Believe me, Luke, I’m not fooling around. If you don’t do as I want, I’m going straight to Annie May.”
“’Zackly what is it you do want?” Luke’s voice was low, defeated.
“I hear you’re head of the new company union. I hear you’re getting up a petition aimed at driving my father out of business. I want that petition stopped.”
“I couldn’t do that iffen I wanted to, Wilma. More’n halfa the men already signed it. I don’t handle it, they jus’ gonna get another feller to. Feelin’s mighty high ’gin your pa.”
"All right then. Get it all signed. But don’t mail it. When it’s got all the signatures, you bring it straight to me.”
“I do a thing like that, the other men’d scalp me. An’ Continental’d fire me ’sides.”
“You don’t do it, I’ll see to it Annie May scalps you. It will be a long time before anybody realizes that petition never got where it was supposed to go. They may never realize it. They may just think the meat packers’ unions decided not to bother about it. Chances are you’ll get away with nobody knowing about it. Now, are you going to do it the way I say, or am I going to pay Annie May a visit?”
He hesitated, blinking indecision on his face. Then he nodded. “You win, Wilma. I’ll do jus’ like you want.” Luke hung his head.
“Fine. See that you do.” Wilma got up abruptly and left. Luke sat there a long time after she’d gone. There was a mighty hatred building in him. He was a man given to sudden explosions. This hatred was building toward one. Luke Partridge was primed to explode. Luke Partridge’s corner was too tight. Luke Partridge was ready to kill to blast his way out of it!
Such were the events which underlay Don’s certainty of having been used by Wilma. He knew nothing of them, of course. But he did know that somehow she’d managed to thwart him and Universal at every turn. And the knowledge was salt in the wound made by what he’d left behind him at the Morton Motor Lodge. His mind festered with rage.
Back there, Wilma’s mind was racing with still more plans even as her body was responding to the thrill of the mouth beneath her. There were still others to be thwarted before her father would be truly safe. There was Beauregard Barker and Preston B. Dawes and perhaps Vito D’Angelo and Angus Morton, and maybe even the Henshaws and Rafe Proctor, if that proved necessary.
The game was still far from won. She’d taken a few hands, but the big kitty was yet to come. Not that Wilma was sweating it out. Far from it. She was sure of her ability to win. She held all the cards, and she had yet to play her trumps!
CHAPTER TEN
While Glory walked in an unseeing fog of self-conjured, erotic memory images, and Don did nothing because his torture and confusion rendered him temporarily incapable of action, the few days following his visit to the motel were busy ones for Wilma. Unaware as yet that Don had found out about her identity and the relationship between her and Glory, she was following through on the other information she’d pried from Don during their lovemaking sessions. This led her back to the Morton Motor Lodge all by herself one afternoon. Wilma had found out that Vito D’Angelo was staying there.
Knowing Vito and how dangerous he could be, Wilma decided to play it by ear. She let him think her visit was just a case of an old friend hearing he was in town and dropping in to talk over old times. Vito was both surprised and glad to see her. Wilma had mixed emotions.
“This is strictly Squareville.” he told her when they were alone in his cabin. “A guy could go nuts from the boredom. And as far‘ as the women around here are concerned --” He rolled his eyes “Double-ugly each an’ every one. Boy, am I glad to see you, Wilma.”
“I’m glad to see you, too.” She lit a cigarette and relaxed in the armchair. “How are things in New Orleans? Tell me everything that’s been happening.”
“Not much to tell. Same old town. Things settled down after you left an’ nothing much has been happening. Oh!”—he scowled—“except for the beef over Jenny of course.”
“Jenny?”
“Yeah. You remember her—the roly-poly blonde they used to bill as ‘Cuddles Nicely’ at the Peep Show.”
“I remember her.” Wilma closed her eyes for a moment and saw Jenny on her knees in front of her sucking her cunt, at the rehearsal studio. How could she ever forget Jenny? How could she ever forget the first woman with whom she’d ever made love? “What happened with Jenny?” she asked.
“Jeez, it was in all the papers. I thought sure you’d heard.”
“I didn’t. Tell me.”
“The way the papers ran it, or the real story?”
“The truth.”
“Okay. The real lowdown on what happened is this: We get a call from our Detroit branch that some syndicate bigwigs are visiting New Orleans. They’re coming to straighten out a little business, but while they’re in town they also wanna have some fun. By fun, it turns out what they mean is they want some girls to stage a ‘circus’ for them. You know what a ‘circus’ is?”
“I should, after that finishing school you sent me to in Miami,” Wilma told him dryly.
“Yeah. That’s right. Anyway, we assign Rocky Jantzen to set the thing up. You remember Rocky?”
“Sure. He was my boss at the Peep Show.”
“Well, running the Peep Show’s only one of the things Rocky does for the organization. Anyway, Rocky recruits a bunch a tarts to entertain the visiting firemen. But at the las’ minute, one a the broads gets sick -- trench mouth, or somethin’ like that—an’ he’s short a performer for what he considers to be the piece de resistance of the show – you should pardon the pun. Anyway, he asks Jenny if she’d like lo pick up a fast C-note an’ fill in an’ Jenny says yes. He explains jus' what she’s gotta do an’—well, you know Jenny -- it’s pretty far out, but everything’s a kick to her an’ she agrees. Maybe she likes the idea, or maybe it’s the C-note. I don’t know.”