The woman shrugged. “How would I know?” she whined. “They didn’t move anyplace much in particular, if you ask me. Mrs. Wilson told me they were going off to Orange County someplace to look for work. Picking peas, I think she said. They might be most anyplace by this time. Folks move around a lot.”

  Lowry did not dare follow up with any further philosophical conclusions about the craftily laid plans of the three wrinkled sisters. The combination of events and circumstances conspiring against McKay was so overwhelming that he did not dare think about it at all. He knew by now that whatever other information he might be able to secure would only serve to make everything look a good deal blacker than it did already, if that were possible.

  “Tell me,” he said, as she began to show signs of impatience with him. “Do you know whether they’re likely to be coming back here?”

  She gestured with her shoulders. “No, I don’t, mister. But I kind of doubt that they will, you know. He had a pretty tough time around here, that fellow Wilson did. I mean, being an exconvict and all, he just couldn’t manage to get a lick o’work. People just wouldn’t take him on.”

  Lowry took this one in his stride, even though it was an overpowering blow.

  “An ex-convict, you say?”

  “Sure, didn’t you know?”

  “I wasn’t—a very close friend of his.”

  “Hey, you after him to collect some money from him, maybe?”

  “No. Nothing like that. You see, one of Mack Wilson’s friends is in very serious trouble, and Mack could be of some help if I could find him. What was he convicted of, do you know?”

  “Did two years at San Quentin for robbery, that’s what they said.”

  “I see,” Lowry said weakly. “And you don’t have any idea—”

  “Afraid not.”

  “Okay,” he said. “I guess that’s all, then. Thanks a lot for your help.”

  “Thanks for nothing, mister.”

  The door slammed. Lowry walked away, his shoulders drooping in a defeated slump.

  Chalk off one possibility for an avenue of defense.

  It looked bad for McKay.

  Very bad.

  There were so few leads that could help him. And this one had fizzled completely and absolutely. Let alone the improbability of ever being able to locate any given migratory worker in as broad an area as Orange County, it would do hardly any good at all even if the man were to be found in time for trial. Hadn’t the lawyer stressed the point that the witness for the defense would have to be absolutely reliable? What hope would there be for the acceptability of testimony from a witness who had served two years at San Quentin? He would be laughed off the stand, if Reynolds ever brought him up to testify, which Reynolds would never do. So he had to cross off the Mack Wilson avenue.

  11

  Depressed, Lowry drove back to his office. Phone calls and press releases had piled up in his absence, and he attended to them for a while, letting the routine and meaningless work take his mind off the sour feeling of defeat that oppressed him.

  Finally, his desk clear, he began to write his column for the next day. The words flowed rapidly as his nimble fingers leaped over the keys of his ancient typewriter. When he had finished turning out the daily quota, he leaned back in the swivel chair and read the column through to see the feel of it. As he came to the last paragraph, he smiled with satisfaction. The last item he had written read as follows—

  If you’re on top in this town—and for all I know in every other town—make good and sure you stay there. And if you ever need a better reason for this sage bit of advice than just my say-so, I suggest you look through the papers of the past few days and learn a lesson from the experiences of Bob McKay.

  Did any lad ever have more fair-weather friends than this one? And did any lad ever find himself more completely alone when the breaks turned bad for him? I know. Platitudes, everyone says when stuff such as this is gotten off. Everybody knows that the flies swarm around the sugar bowl and not the vinegar jar. I don’t pretend to be a philosopher, but it seems to me that the case of Bob McKay is a sad and embittering commentary on our so-called civilization. If this is the way it is with human beings, will somebody please tell me what it’s all worth?

  Among the many thousands who read this bit was Terry Stafford, an ever-lovely Terry Stafford, but for the past few days a little pallid, a little tense and jumpy, torn between conflicting desires. A world, a whole phase of her life, had seemed to tumble down in fragments about her well-shaped head when she had first read in the newspapers that a seamy derelict named Bob McKay who had once been a personality in the entertainment world was charged with the brutal murder of a Main Street B-girl named Doris Blair.

  Terry’s first impulse had been to rush to the prison where McKay was being held, fall on her knees and weep with her lover for the miserable wreck they had made of their lives and of the love that once had been. But the mood passed quickly as she came to the realization that it wouldn’t do any good whatsoever if she did go to McKay…even if she could somehow make herself forget that he had stubbornly refused to compromise a little, even for the sake of their mutual happiness…even if he would forget that she had been the one to cast him adrift as hopeless and beyond redemption because his strength, the drive that had put him where he was, seemed to have left him for good.

  Visiting him could do him no good…poor, helpless Bob, she thought. And although she hated and despised herself for thinking it, she knew that the visit could do her a lot of harm. Why should she allow a thing that was better left in the discard heap, the battered and castoff love she had had for McKay once in the past, to stand between her and a driving ambition that alone might be able to serve as a substitute for what she had once wanted?

  Jack Colin would put her across. She knew it for a fact. All she needed to do was to play her hand properly, and Colin would do anything she wanted him to do for her. He would build her up into the glittering star she craved to be. To allow her name to get mixed up in a sordid and brutal murder case at this stage would be to finish the career she wanted even before it had a chance to get started.

  That was the way Terry Stafford reasoned. What couldn’t be dealt with by reason became torture.

  She smoked cigarette after cigarette and paced about her little apartment. Colin hadn’t called in several days, and that had been worrying her. But now the telephone rang. Terry sprang to it.

  It was Colin, at last.

  He didn’t say a word about the few days that had gone by in silence. But she detected an undercurrent in his tone that conveyed to her the fact that he was forgiving her for the callous way in which she had ignored his feelings the other night.

  She hated him for his patronizing manner, and at the same time she wanted him to act quickly on her behalf, to start her along that gleaming road from which there would be no turning back, not ever, to the crushing heartbreak of the past.

  “Are you free tonight?” he asked hopefully.

  “I might be.”

  “What is that supposed to mean?”

  “It’s supposed to mean that I’ve got some tentative plans, but I could break them if something really important came up in a hurry.”

  “Do I rate as something really important, darling?” Colin asked.

  She found the darling highly offensive. But it was necessary, she thought, just as the touch of Colin’s lips on her lips was necessary, just as the grasping of his hands for the warm peaks of her bosom was necessary. Just as perhaps she might have to go to bed with him and endure his hands on her naked body and feel the pressure of his gross form above her, his weight on her, the sudden grunting as his animal lust satisfied itself—

  It might all be necessary to get her to her goal. After that she could spit at the Jack Colins of the world. But first she had to reach the top.

  “Yes,” she said after some hesitation. “I’ll get rid of my other arrangements. Come over tonight, yes, by all means.”

  “What’s a good time?”

  “Whenever’s convenient, Jack.”

  “Let’s make it seven, then. And I’ll have dinner served. You won’t have to do a thing.”

  The hours ticked away. Terry fidgeted about the small apartment, waiting for his arrival. The newspaper, which contained the impassioned column Lowry had written the day before, lay unopened on the table.

  She did not dare to look through it now, yet she had been unable to keep herself from buying it. The compulsion to know what was happening to Bob had overwhelmed her at the newsstand, and she had quickly dropped her dime and snatched up the paper. Sooner or later she knew she would read what was in it.

  She fought with herself to put off the moment. She told herself sternly that she must forget everything but Jack Colin, everything but what a man in Colin’s exalted position could do for her. She forced herself to remember that she must never lose sight of what she wanted now. What she had left behind could only have led to ruin, could lead to ruin still.

  Seven o’clock came.

  Five after.

  Ten after.

  The doorbell rang. Terry, clad in a provocative low-cut dress, ran to answer it, her full breasts bobbing with every step she took.

  “Jack!”

  “Good evening, darling.” Colin greeted her with his greasy smile, with an enormous cascade of flowers, and with a bottle of the very best Scotch. He set flowers and liquor down and held out his arms expectantly. Terry came to him, but the kiss that she gave him was a sisterly one, and she slid deftly away before he could turn the embrace into something more passionate. If he had noticed her coolness, he said nothing.

  “You shouldn’t have bothered with the flowers, Jack. They’re lovely, but I’m always so sad when they wilt.”

  “You musn’t be sentimental. Grasp beauty while it’s here, and don’t mourn when it fades.”

  “Is that the way you feel about women, too?”

  He shrugged. “Could be. But a smart girl will prepare for the time when she isn’t the sexiest thing on earth any longer. A bunch of roses can’t invest in the stock market, you know.” He laughed. “Mind if I use your phone? I want to get dinner up here.”

  He phoned down to a restaurant nearby, telling them it was time to deliver the meal, and an elaborate dinner, already prepared, was brought up to the apartment within a few minutes. A bowing headwaiter opened covered trays of sizzling rare steak and delectable vegetables, and before he left he opened a bottle of fine imported Burgundy to go with the meal. Colin tipped him handsomely, the size of the bill making Terry’s eyes pop.

  They ate and chatted, and Colin tried to be his witty best and almost succeeded, but that wasn’t much. The wine gone, the dishes cleared away to be done some other time, they sat around and drank the Scotch he had brought. Terry suspected that Colin was hoping that the Scotch would react with the dinner wine to make her more susceptible to his advances, so she deliberately made her drinks weak and sipped them slowly.

  Neither of them wanted to go out. It was cozy and warm in the apartment, and with the good dinner and the fine Scotch one could become expansive and loosen one’s tongue to say what mattered. The problem that obsessed Terry was how she was going to overcome the unavoidable overtures he would make. She hoped for once that she would handle him successfully, regardless of what that might mean. She was resigned to surrendering herself to him ultimately, but then only once, after her career was assured.

  12

  Terry sat on the divan and Colin sat on the floor, bohemian fashion. Before settling down that way he had taken the precaution of drawing up his trousers at the knees, thus preserving the crease. Terry wondered how many years of wealth it took to make some men lose the habits they had cultivated in the days when pennies counted. Colin looked up at her, filling his eyes with adoration like a worshipful St. Bernard.

  “You look a little tired, darling,” he said in what he thought was a suavely sympathetic voice. “It can’t detract from your loveliness, though. It makes you look like a Madonna.”

  “Really, Jack?”

  “Really. But—you know something? I think I like you just a little less spiritual.”

  She forced a laugh. “I’ll try, Jack,” she said. “How would a handspring or two do to revive the spirit of youth in me?”

  He smiled obscenely. His eyes twinkled. “I know some better ways.”

  “I’ll bet you do.”

  “They involve two players.”

  “Count this one out.”

  “Why don’t you want to play my games?”

  “I guess I’m a spoilsport at heart.”

  He looked at her reproachfully. In a hurt, whining voice he said, “I don’t understand. Is there anything wrong with me, Terry?” Was she really important to him to make him come down from the heights of his egotism that way, she wondered, or was this only a routine part of the act, a bit of business to bring into play when the more high-handed methods failed?

  “Something wrong with you?” she said quietly. “Not that I know of, Jack.”

  He got up from the floor and sat down on the divan beside her. They were on dangerous ground once again, she knew.

  “Then why do you give me the runaround this way?” he asked softly. “I’ve had a hell of a time over you, you know.”

  “I’m sorry, Jack.”

  “It doesn’t have to be this way. It’s like there’s a wall between us. An invisible wall that I bang my head on every time I try to get near you.”

  She made no reply. He took her hand, then put his arm around her and drew her close to him. He kissed her, then hugged her tightly so that her chin rested on his shoulder. His hand stole up her side, coming to rest in its accustomed place over her breast, the fingers contracting nervously to tighten around the nipple. The other hand roamed down her back, over the tautness of her buttocks, then began to scoop under her dress and seek the waistband of her panties. He pressed hard against her to demonstrate the urgency of his desire, and she felt his heavy fingers against the skin of her belly, questing downward. Terry made no immediate attempt to resist him, even as his hand came to rest on her body, and his harsh breathing sounded in her ear as he prepared to fulfill his conquest of her. He was fumbling with her clothes, now, trying to undress her…

  But as he held her, she looked out into space…across the room and to the picture on the table…and she remembered another time when a man had caressed her breasts, this time in love and not just in lust. The fair, boyish face smiled back at her from the picture, seemed to be laughing at her, and then it saddened right before her eyes.

  She saw his face now looking worn and haggard, battered and bruised from beatings, with swellings along the jaw. She closed her eyes, but it was too late to shut out his image. He was walking hemmed in between two guards, a slow horrible walk such as Terry had seen in pictures, in the tabloids with somber captions underneath. He was walking to his death…to a meaningless death that nobody could explain.

  She uttered a sharp cry.

  Colin tensed in surprise. “What’s the matter, Terry?” he asked anxiously.

  Only then did she remember that she was still in the man’s arms, that he had been caressing her body, trying to stimulate her into wanting to go to bed with him. The sickening realization that it was futile to try to live by her brain alone burst upon her with fierce savagery. She pushed Colin brusquely away from her and began to sob. Colin looked puzzled. “What—?”

  “Leave me alone.”

  “What’s wrong?” he demanded. “What’s gone wrong this time?”

  She shook her head, sobbing wordlessly.

  The bewilderment in his face became anger. “Hell, Terry,” he said, “I can’t make you out at all. One minute you’re a mature woman of the world, and the next you act like a silly high school girl out on a stupid necking party. What the devil’s the matter with you, anyway? Will you tell me that?”

  She stopped crying, the tears drying up as suddenly as they had begun.

  “Go away, Jack. Please,” she begged.

  “Good God, Terry,” he said in irritation. “Is it me or is there something wrong? Really wrong? Perhaps I could do something to help you.”

  “No, Jack. Just go away. I’ll be all right. I just want to be alone.”

  He rose in a huff, shaking his head angrily. “And I thought you were one of the few real ones,” he said. “That prima donna stuff doesn’t impress me. I’ve seen too much of it. I’m not a schoolboy, you know. Hell, put on an ‘I wanna be alone’ act if that’s what you want to do, but please don’t think I’ve got nothing to do but wait around in between your moods.”

  She didn’t answer him. He left without looking back at her.

  She dried her eyes, then touched up her face with fresh makeup. Her eyes were large with grief but her mouth was drawn straight now in a firm determined line. She picked up the newspaper which she had been unable to touch earlier in the evening.

  There was a news story, describing an interview with the District Attorney regarding the McKay case. Terry read quickly through it, but the story contained nothing that she hadn’t already seen before.

  She turned the pages rapidly, coming upon Lowry’s column. His little sermon stared out at her from the bottom of the page. I don’t pretend to be a philosopher but it seems to me that the case of Bob McKay is a sad and embittering commentary on our so-called civilization. If this is the way it is with human beings, will somebody please tell me what it’s all worth?

  Memories flew through her mind.

  She sat at the table at the Lafayette, alone, watching while Bob McKay led his orchestra into the swing frenzies that made him famous. Everyone else was watching him, too, but she had that special feeling of knowing that he was playing not for them but for her. She saw Bob weaving around in circles as he blew his heart out on saxophone, trumpet, clarinet, anything that would respond to the dynamic, rhythmical power of his lungs.

  And at the height of a number’s wildness, at the peak of the bacchanalian ecstasy, he reeled around to face her and without taking his lips from the tightly held instrument he bared his teeth in a warm smile that told her he would be down as soon as he possibly could.