The fantastic music stopped abruptly.

  The sudden silence in the big dance hall was practically deafening.

  And then the hall burst into sound as the dancers and the listeners clamored noisily for more, unwilling to allow the warmth that had been stirred up in their blood to disappear, unwilling to let the savage emotions in their breasts subside back to everyday tranquility. Smiling, radiating back at them their own pleasure, McKay led the band into a slow waltz-time number. He was wringing wet with perspiration, his hair wild across his forehead. He quieted the nerves of the dancers, leading their thoughts into dreamier channels. The music became softer, died away altogether.

  Then he was free for the intermission. He came down from the bandstand to sit by her side and took her hand, holding it in a way that expressed better than words his need for her. His big soft eyes were warm with his love and longing.

  “You’re exhausted, darling,” she said sympathetically. “You refuse to spare yourself up there. It’s too hard that way. You won’t be able to keep it up. You’ll burn yourself out.”

  “I’ve been doing it that way a long time,” he replied with a shrug. “Can’t switch now. I don’t know any other music that’s good. Not for me, anyway. This is my style and I’m stuck with it, like the color of my hair or my eyes or any other thing that can’t be changed without making it look phony.”

  He mopped away the sweat, and then he turned and signaled to a waiter who was standing by, and the man nodded with instant understanding and headed for the bar, returning a moment or two later with a drink. She remembered the almost frightening eagerness with which he downed the drink that was brought him, the flash of fear that swept over her as she saw his consuming need for it, the way it calmed him, made him relax.

  It had gone on like that for a long time.

  It had become a lot worse.

  Work till you drop.

  Drink.

  Work some more.

  Drink some more.

  “Work, work, work,” he had said once to her. “Blow your heart out, your lungs, your brain. Never let up. It’s the only way to live. You can’t be half alive up there. But alcohol is a godsend for guys like me, Terry. Otherwise we’d never manage to stand the gaff, couldn’t stick in the big money.”

  Well, he hadn’t stood it anyway, even with the drinking. She should have known and told him they didn’t need the big money, should have told him anything just to steady him and keep him from going off the rails. Terry hadn’t done it. She had let him take that fast rocket to nowhere.

  13

  Now she felt that she was beginning to cry again. Angrily, she sniffed back the tears and poured herself a stiff drink. Bob had been right about drinking, in one way. It settled you down. But after a while the time came when you needed it and yet it still didn’t help you any, and that was when you were finished.

  She picked up a phone book and looked for the number of the Gazette. When she found it, she dialed the paper’s office and asked for Lowry.

  He picked up and said, “Lowry here.”

  “Hello. This is Terry Stafford,” she said nervously. “Perhaps you remember me—”

  “Of course I remember you, Terry,” Lowry said. “It’s part of my job never to forget a thing. Not that it would have been easy to forget you. It’s awfully nice hearing from you. How has everything been?”

  She ignored the unfortunate question.

  “Could you come over here now, Ned? I’d like to talk to you. I think you can do me a lot of good.”

  At the other end of the wire, Lowry beamed. “I’ll be over in a jiffy, Terry,” he said. “Just tell me the address.”

  She gave it to him. She knew that he had understood what it was she wanted to see him about. That was why he hadn’t even bothered to ask.

  He was there in a jiffy, just as he had promised, smiling, hearty, unworried, unless you happened to look at him closely. If you did, you discovered that there was a restlessness in his eyes, a fidgety impatience that meant he was thinking about an innocent man who was cooped up behind bars.

  “Tell me the truth, Ned,” she said anxiously. “Is it really as bad for him as all the papers are saying? I mean—that they’re certain to convict him—is it as bad as that—”

  “Yes, Terry,” he replied in a solemn voice. “It’s rotten bad.”

  “Can’t anything at all be done? Oh, Ned, isn’t there any way at all—”

  “I’m trying to dig up some evidence in his favor, Terry. But I can’t say I’ve been having very much luck so far. I was down in El Centro today. I thought I might possibly find somebody who remembered having seen him down there.”

  “Did you?”

  He shook his head dispiritedly. “I didn’t. Not a soul. That’s his alibi and there isn’t a blessed thing with which he can support it. I talked with over a hundred truckmen who cover that route. What I had in my mind was that I might possibly find the man who had given him a lift. Normally I’d have stood a chance. It shouldn’t be that hard to track down a witness or two. But as it is everything I try in this case seems to turn to ashes. It just seems as though it isn’t meant that he should stand even the ghost of a chance. The cards are stacked against him.”

  Her thoughts ran riot. She clutched desperately at something.

  “Must he stick to that alibi?”

  “It’s the truth.”

  “But if he can’t prove the truth, couldn’t he prove something else?”

  “What do you mean?”

  Color came to her face. She took a deep breath, and her breasts rose steeply. It was a moment before she said, “He could say that he spent the night with me. I’d swear to it right in court. I’d say he came here before midnight and stayed in bed with me until breakfast time. I don’t give a damn what people will say about me, so long as what I do saves Bob’s life.”

  Lowry took her hand in his. “You’re a little nuts about the guy, aren’t you, Terry?”

  She smiled faintly. “I guess he’s kind of hard to get out of your system.”

  Lowry shook his head. “It wouldn’t do any good your saying a thing like that. Even if his story could be changed there’s still the problem of the landlady who saw him leave the house at four in the morning.”

  “He could have left it to come here. That would still give him an alibi for the time of the murder.”

  “It isn’t likely. It wouldn’t hold water. They’d see you were going to bat for him, and there are plenty of girls who might be willing to lie away their reputations in court to save the life of the man they love—once loved. They’d feel sorry for you, not for him. But they wouldn’t accept your testimony. No, it will have to be another way, if it’s anything.”

  “If.”

  They sat down opposite each other, lit cigarettes, and groped feverishly for some valid idea. But ideas wouldn’t come.

  “They’ve been soft-pedalling Carrol himself,” Terry remarked after a while. “That is, if I’m reading between the lines in the papers correctly.”

  “Very correctly,” Lowry said. “Places like the kind Carrol runs can’t do business without official sanction. First because they sell lousy liquor, second because of the girls they keep, third because they run a racing book. As a matter of fact, that place has an involvement in almost every angle that would make it necessary for Carrol to pay the cops off and for them to leave him be. Even so, the likelihood that Carrol killed the girl isn’t very great.”

  “Why not?”

  “Well, for one thing, Carrol’s a lot too smart and a lot too hard to have gotten himself entangled with one of the girls who worked for him. Maybe he takes a grab at them now and then, but he doesn’t get mixed up seriously with them. They were strictly business.”

  “But this one was supposed to be pretty, wasn’t she? A lot more than most.”

  “Rather.”

  “Then mightn’t he have forgotten his business principles just this one time?”

  “What are you getting at, Terry?”

  “I’m not sure I know. I’m just punching in the dark. What about the Filipino? Do you think maybe he did it?”

  “Not a chance.”

  “Positive? He was on the spot.”

  “He’s innocent and he’s scared silly. That’s how he happened to identify Bob, I’m sure. He’s just anxious to say anything that’ll take the spotlight off him, because he doesn’t know what the hell this whole thing is all about.”

  Terry puffed rapidly at her cigarette. After another few moments of silence, during which she considered and rejected several wild ideas, she said, “You couldn’t find out anything at Carrol’s when you were there, could you, Ned. They know you too well at places like that.”

  “That’s right. They shut up like clams when I come in.”

  “But I might hear something.”

  “You mean—”

  “Exactly. I’m at least as attractive as the girls who work there, or don’t you think so?”

  “Much more.” Lowry shook his head. “But it’s a nasty job, baby. It’s like swimming through a cesspool to spend an hour in a place like that. Do you think you’ll make it?”

  “I’ve got to,” she answered evenly. “We can’t let them execute Bob for a crime he didn’t commit. Do you think Carrol will give me a job?”

  “It’s likely. You work on a percentage there, you know, so he has nothing to lose on your lack of experience.” He tightened his jaws unhappily. “I don’t like the idea, though. Are you sure you want to do it, Terry? It might become very unpleasant.”

  She shrugged. “Not any more so than it is right now. I’ll mingle with the girls. They’re bound to know something about Doris Blair. I’ve never heard of any woman who could remain a complete and absolute mystery to a group of women she saw every day.”

  Lowry nodded. “I thought of that slant. But of course there was no way I could get at them. They trust me about as much as they would the tax collector.”

  “I’ll go to see Carrol tomorrow, then.”

  “Good luck, Terry. I hope you make it. Let me know how it’s going.”

  “I will.”

  “Oh, and one thing you’d better remember. If I happen to walk into the place, you don’t know me from Adam, of course. Otherwise we’ll give the whole thing away and close up what may be our only remaining source of help.”

  “I understand.”

  Lowry stood up to go. As he walked to the door he stopped, turning around and smiling at the lovely girl. “It looks as if the crack I made in today’s column doesn’t go for you, Terry,” he said. “I’m glad to know there are at least a couple of unselfish people left in this rotten world of ours.”

  In a quiet voice she said, “Your newspaper column applies to me as much as to anybody who ever knew Bob McKay. But they say that love is a selfish business. Otherwise I’d be stringing along with the others, I’ll bet.”

  “I doubt it,” he said with a casual grin. “So long, Terry. And watch out for yourself. Be careful.”

  14

  Early the next evening, Terry put on a tight-fitting dress, very high-heeled shoes, and a heavy makeup which she felt gave her the requisite hard look. She folded a good evening gown into a tiny bag.

  Boarding a downtown bus, she arrived at Carrol’s half an hour later, and strode into the bar affecting the brisk, challenging manner she associated with the part she meant to play.

  Only a few early drinkers sat at the bar, hunched over their drinks. The bartender, a sullen, bag-eyed fellow, swabbed down the counter and looked at her with chilly disdain.

  “What’s yours, Miss?”

  She shook her head. “No, I’m not a customer. I’m—looking for Carrol.”

  “He expecting you?”

  “No. But I’d like very much to see him.”

  The barkeep shrugged and nodded his head toward the back, without further explanation. Losing interest in her, he began polishing a chromium mixer with elaborate care.

  Terry made her way toward the direction he had indicated. The place stank of stale beer. She went down a narrow corridor past the washrooms and came to a small room at the back with its door ajar.

  Carrol was sitting near the window with his legs up on an ancient desk, reading a newspaper. He didn’t put the paper down, just looked at her over the top of it. Terry experienced a shaky moment as she felt Carrol’s heavy, penetrating eyes boring through the clinging dress she wore, running over her body from head to foot. She had a wild sensation of being stark naked in front of this man. His eyes seemed to strip away her clothing in order to rest lasciviously on the curves of her breasts and her tapering white thighs.

  “Are you Mr. Carrol?” she asked nervously.

  “Yeah,” he said. His tone promised nothing and carried an implied suggestion that she had better get to the point in a hurry.

  She moistened her lips.

  “I’m looking for a job,” she said simply.

  Carrol shrugged. “There’s an employment agency around the corner.”

  It was a rebuke, she felt, because she hadn’t made her meaning clear enough.

  “I meant a job here,” she said nervously.

  “Who told you we needed anybody?”

  “No one. I’ve been going from door to door.”

  “Done this before?”

  “No.”

  “There’s a lot of angles, kiddo. I ain’t running a goddam kindergarten here.”

  “I could manage it,” she said quickly. “I can take care of myself.” She walked up and back before him, chest inflated, breasts thrust out. He signaled for her to turn around, and she did. She felt ridiculous—but Carrol seemed to be impressed. He gave her another deep, searching look, and she felt queasy and dirty all over from the unblushing intimacy of the glance.

  “It ain’t bad,” he said finally. “But the customers here don’t know a good one from a bad. You gotta know how to talk to ’em.”

  “I’ve been talking a long time.”

  A faint smile broke through the crustiness of his face. But he wiped it off quickly.

  “Got a dress?”

  She held up the little bag in answer.

  “Seven a week and a nickel on each drink they buy with you,” he said. “That sound okay?”

  “Y-yes.”

  “It damn well better, on account of that’s all you’re gonna get out of me,” he said. “You stick around till closing, too. Any invites look good to you, you forget ’em. They spend whatever they spend right here, you understand? You walk off with some Johnny one night, just don’t bother to come back. Everything okay?”

  “I understand.”

  “Good. Put the dress on and you can go out.”

  She looked uncertainly around the room, waiting for him to show her where she could change. He said nothing, just looked expectantly at her. After a moment she said, “Will you tell me where the dressing room is?”

  “There ain’t none. The girls show up for work dressed. You put your clothes on right here.”

  “In front of you?”

  “This ain’t no job for a lady, kid,” he said indifferently. “You change right here or you might as well scram the hell out of here.”

  Terry bit her lip. But there was no choice. If she didn’t do as Carrol said, she would never accomplish what she had come here for. She hoped he didn’t push her too hard…

  Nervously she unzipped her skirt and stepped out of it. She was wearing a bra, panties, garter belt, and a half slip. Carrol eyed her with interest. She fumbled with the bag, taking the gown out. But just as she was about to put it on, Carrol drawled slowly, “Hold it, baby.”

  “What is it?”

  He pointed to her straining bra. “Tell me are those goodies real or do you have cotton in there?”

  Terry’s face flamed. “I don’t see where that’s any of your business!”

  “Listen,” he said, his face growing ugly. “Everything that goes on around here is my business, get me? Including whether my girls wear falsies or not.”

  “You said yourself that the customers can’t tell a good one from a bad—”

  “Maybe they can’t. But I can.” He leered at her. “Kid, this town is full of girls who want to work in jobs like this. If you want to work here, you gotta be nice to me sometimes. I don’t go for no insubordination. Take the bra off and let me have a look.”

  “And if I say no?”

  “Then you can pack up and clear out.”

  Terry hesitated, her face crimson. She told herself that she would go this far, but no farther. If Carrol wanted her to strip completely, or to make love to her, she would refuse and try some other way of getting the information she wanted. There were limits…

  She walked over and closed the door of the little room. Then, quickly, she unsnapped her bra. The cups fell from her breasts. A cool breeze travelled past her nipples.

  She was conscious of Carrol’s lustful gaze on her young flesh. The man was practically drooling. In her imagination, she saw him rising, coming toward her, ripping away her clothes. Saw him removing his clothes, forcing himself upon her. The idea of it all nearly sickened her. His gaze did not waver. She stood there, her face an icy mask, waiting for him to finish his disgusting inspection, praying that he would not want to handle and squeeze, as well as to see…

  After perhaps thirty seconds he muttered, “Nice, baby. Damn nice.”

  She hooked the bra on again. Carrol was still smiling.

  He seemed to be satisfied with a brief look, at least for now, because he made no further attempt to interfere with her as she hurriedly donned her evening gown. It was low-cut and daring, but what did that matter now that he had seen her bare breasts?

  She fastened it. Carrol put the paper down and surveyed her again, moistening his thick lips and nodding approvingly.

  “Nice rags,” he said. “You was doin’ all right for a while, huh?”

  “It’s been some time.”

  “I figured. Girls don’t come here when they’re making it good somewhere else.”