CHAPTER THREE

Sleep finally came, what seemed like hours later. When Laura woke, it was only a little past nine. Her head throbbed; her loins were swollen and hurt. Marilyn was still asleep. Laura quietly drew a bath for herself, and spent half an hour soaking in a hot tub.

She felt better after the bath. Marilyn was beginning to stir by the time Laura came out, and she was fully awake by the time Laura was dressed. Marilyn prepared a light breakfast for them, and then they went out. It was a warmer day than yesterday, fresh and clear and springy. The two girls walked down Broadway to Fiftieth, turned west, and headed for the Y.

Laura stopped off at the desk. The matron eyed her suspiciously, because she had been out all night.

"I'm checking out," Laura said. "I've found a roommate, Miss Rivers here."

"Very well," the fat, dowdy woman said coolly. "What time will you be out of your room, Miss Haynes?"

"As soon as I can get packed. Half an hour at the most."

"I'll make up your bill." She turned and snaked a fleshy hand into the row of mailboxes behind the desk. "There was a call for you yesterday afternoon, and another one last night. No one knew where to reach you, so we took down the phone numbers."

Laura accepted the slip and looked at it in puzzlement. It told her that Mr. McCarten had called at three o'clock, and Mr. Spinelli had called at half past seven. Laura frowned. Why would McCarten phone her? To apologize for his brutality, perhaps. But he didn't seem like the kind who would worry much about apologies. And who was Spinelli? The name meant nothing to Laura, and the phone number, a Plaza one, rang no bells. Shrugging, she filed the paper away in her purse and headed toward the elevator with Marilyn.

"Who were the calls from?" Marilyn asked.

"The guy who made all the trouble for me yesterday, McCarten. And later on somebody named Spinelli called. I don't know any Spinellis."

"Phil Spinelli, maybe?" Marilyn suggested.

"Who's he?"

Marilyn laughed. "Not the sort of fellow you usually find making phone calls to the YWCA, I'm afraid. He's a bigshot racketeer. Dope, organized vice, stuff like that. Supposed to be a real slick operator."

"Hardly the kind of phone-call I'd expect to get."

"Are you going to call him back?"

"I don't know," Laura said. "I can't imagine who he is or what he wants. For all I know he is Phil Spinelli."

"What's so bad about that?"

"Plenty," Laura said. The elevator stopped at her floor, and they got out. "I'm just going to forget all about these phone-calls. That's the safest thing to do. I'm not looking to get into any more trouble."

It didn't take very long to pack Laura's few belongings and leave. At Marilyn's insistence, they took a taxi for the eight blocks back to her place; the suitcase was heavy, and, Marilyn argued, they could afford to splurge on a fifty-cent taxi ride.

It was almost noon, now. Laura unpacked while Marilyn, sprawled out on the bed, devoured page after page of the movie fan magazines. About one, they had lunch.

"What are you going to do this afternoon?" Marilyn asked.

Laura shrugged. "Look for work, I guess. What else is there to do?"

She had not completely given up the idea of getting into show business. Getting the classified directory, she made a new list of theatrical agents in the neighborhood—taking care to select only those whose listings had display boxes or were in dark type. She wanted nothing more to do with any one-man agencies.

She dressed with care, in her best clothes, a tight skirt that outlined the curves of her hips and buttocks, a clinging blouse against which her breasts jutted like swollen melons. At two o'clock the girls left, Marilyn to take her position near the entrance to Central Park, Laura to make the rounds of the agencies.

It was a discouraging afternoon for Laura.

Her first stop was at an agency whose glossy offices took up an entire floor of a building at Fifth Avenue and Fifty-Fifth Street. An equally glossy receptionist behind a curved marbled counter asked what Laura wanted and whether she had an appointment. When Laura explained that she was a novice looking for any sort of singing or dancing work, she was practically laughed off Fifth Avenue. "This agency handles only professional talent," she was told curtly. "We don't have any openings for beginners."

It was the same story at the next place, two blocks further down. They demanded to see a list of her credits, and, having none, she had to leave. The third agency, on 49th Street near Sixth, was less brusque; she was called in for an interview, was questioned for about ten minutes, and finally was asked to leave her telephone number. "We'll call you if anything comes up that looks like a promising slot for you," they told her solemnly. "You don't have to bother checking with us at all—we'll get in touch the moment we have anything."

Laura left smiling bitterly. She might be a hick from the sticks, but she was clever enough to see through the Don't-call-us-we'll-call-you routine. It was a smooth way of brushing her off without making enemies. In this business, you never could tell when a raw novice blossomed unexpectedly into an important star, and it didn't pay to do things crudely when you could be tactful about it.

Brushoff number four was a quickie, though. "Sorry, nothing for novices," the receptionist said. At number five, it was the same story, even if she did get another interview first. And at the sixth place on her list, she was told without enthusiasm that interviews were held only on Mondays from three to four in the afternoon, and that she could come back at that time next week if she cared to.

And then it was five o'clock and doors were beginning to close at offices all over the city. Laura had worked her way down as far as 43rd Street and Seventh Avenue. Rush hour was under way, and the streets were full of people streaming into the subways. A northbound bus passed, crammed to the bursting point. Her legs were aching, but she turned around and began to walk back uptown. The day had grown cold again, and Laura felt tired, chilled, discouraged. McCarten had been right: the other agencies were not looking for beginners. There was a vast oversupply of pretty girls who could sing and dance. Girls just as good-looking as she was, and with a great deal more professional training and experience, were going without work. Only a momentary fancy had aroused McCarten's interest in her.

For a dismal moment she pondered going back to McCarten's office and asking for the job. After all, he had taken something valuable from her; she had every right to demand something in return. And, probably, if he had a job available he would give it to her. He had to have that much of a conscience at least, she thought.

But the whole idea was repugnant. She did not want to enter that shabby, cluttered office again. She did not want to have to look into those deep, intense, hungry eyes. She did not, above all, want to be reminded of what McCarten had done to her, or to run the risk of his doing it again. No, she thought. She would not go to McCarten at all, not even as a last resort. If she ever got that desperate, there would always be other alternatives. Return to Kansas. Suicide. Prostitution. Anything, she thought. Anything would be better than begging that man to do me a favor.

Wearily she plugged on toward 57th Street. It was half past five by the time she reached the third floor of the dingy little rooming-house. She took out the duplicate key Marilyn had given her that morning and let herself into the little apartment.

She got out of her clothes, hanging them up with care, and filled the bathtub with hot water. For twenty minutes she soaked her aching feet. Getting out, she caught sight of herself in the cracked full-view mirror along the back of the bathroom door.

Marilyn's right, she thought. With my figure I could go places.

She admired herself for a moment: the twin peaks of her bosom, high and firm, the nipples small and flawless in their little fields of dark red skin; the flat but yet feminine softness of her belly; the sleek firmness of her thighs; the satiny globes of her buttocks. It was a lush body, a magnificently-endowed body. Nature had been good to her. Her breasts were not scrawny, like Marilyn's, nor did they hang pendulously the way they did on some women. They rose straight upward and outward, needing only the barest minimum of support. Her high cheekbones, strong jaw, and finely sculpted nose gave her face an aristocratic look that belied her farmland birth.

She wondered about the phone-call from the mysterious Mr. Spinelli. Suppose it was Phil Spinelli, she speculated. No matter how a vice king could have found out about her; just suppose. Perhaps he could offer her the wealth and affluence she yearned for. What difference did it make if you got paid $95 a week for letting men look at your body on stage, or $500 a week for letting men slake their desires on your body? Plenty of girls sold themselves for less. Here was poor thin Marilyn, creeping along hoping to turn four or five $5 tricks a night. While a call-girl could claim vast sums, if only she had the sort of sleek, elegant body that a man might pay fabulously to possess.

A body like mine, Laura thought.

She left the bathroom and curled up on the bed with a towel around her body, and gave the matter some hard thought. Oh, she had heard plenty of things from her grandparents about sin, and the pastor had thundered in church every Sunday morning. But Kansas and Kansas morality seemed ten thousand miles away right now. She was in New York. And New York was very different from Kansas.

What do I want out of life? she wondered.

Happiness, she answered herself. And happiness meant mink coats and trips to Paris and lovely clothes and a fine home and a long, shiny limousine. Happiness meant handsome men and dim candlelight and champagne.

Marilyn Rivers wasn't happy. Marilyn was having revenge against men, but it was a petty revenge, a five-dollar-a-trick revenge. How much finer it would be to grow wealthy and soft at the expense of male lust. Why wring $5 from them when other men will pay $500?

Laura laughed. She had all but convinced herself to sign up for the nearest call-girl syndicate, but she had built an entire lacy tower out of nothing at all. Someone named Spinelli had called her. Perhaps he was an encyclopedia salesman; perhaps he wanted to sell her dance lessons. And she had assumed immediately that he was Phil Spinelli, the vice overlord, and that he was eager to sign her up for his chain of high-priced girls. How silly can you get? Laura asked herself. When you start building plans out of daydreams, you know you're going too far.

She opened a few cans and fixed a light dinner for herself. This was a lonely life, she thought, with her roommate out on the streets all afternoon and evening. It meant she would always be eating dinner by herself, spending the evening alone. She was grateful to Marilyn for having taken her in, but, still, she wished she didn't have to stay by herself all evening in this drafty little room. With eight million other people in New York, it was terrible to have only one friend.

After dinner, Laura went down. She strolled around 57th Street, going eastward. There was a concert at Carnegie Hall that night, and Laura paused, watching in envy as the Rolls-Royces and the long black Cadillacs pulled up in front, as the gleaming men and women in their tuxedos and mink wraps got out and disappeared into the concert hall. What a wonderful life it must be, she thought, to be able to drive up to Carnegie Hall and stroll in and take your seat in the row of boxes! Laura had been to only one concert in her life, once on a visit to Topeka, and that had been tremendously exciting. How much more exciting it must be, she imagined, to sit in Carnegie Hall listening to the New York Philharmonic or the Boston Symphony or one of the other famous orchestras, with famous people sitting all around.

She walked on, down 57th Street, past the fancy store-windows, still lit, with their dazzling displays of china and imported silver and furs and rare books and furniture. Each window was a peephole to an alien universe, for Laura—the universe of money, of elegance, of fine things. She wanted to enter that universe. Suddenly, that night, as she stared into the glowing shops of 57th Street, she felt a powerful thrust of ambition; I must have these things, she thought. Give me a mink coat and a new dress and you couldn't tell me from the prettiest socialite in Carnegie Hall. And I want to be on top! I want to have things!

She walked down 57th Street as far as Madison Avenue, then turned around and came back along the other side of the street. The concert had started, by that time, and the only people in front of Carnegie Hall were a few doormen, a couple of waiting chauffeurs, and a wizened little beggar playing a screechy violin. Laura dropped a dime in his cup, and he thanked her without missing a note.

There you are, she thought. Some people play in the Philharmonic, others stand outside and cadge dimes. You make your own chances. And if you're lucky, you get into the diamond horseshoe. If you're not, you end up out in the cold, like Marilyn, like this little fiddle-player.

There was a movie-theater next to the concert hall. It was showing a British comedy; Laura decided it was as good a way of killing time as any, so she went in. The ticket cost $1.80, which was three times as much as it cost to see a double feature back home. She realized, as she paid for the ticket, that she was running low on cash. Her savings, before paying the train fare from Kansas, had amounted to less than a thousand dollars. Now she had only a few hundred left. If she didn't find work soon, she'd be forced to borrow from Marilyn, or to wire home for cash. Neither idea appealed to her.

It was half past eleven when Laura returned home. Marilyn had not yet come in. Laura washed up, got into bed, turned on the lamp, and read, getting deeply absorbed in Marilyn's magazines. At quarter after one Marilyn came in, looking tired and disheveled.

"How'd it go tonight?" Laura asked.

"Five tricks—no, six. Thirty bucks. God, am I tired! You get a job?"

"Not even a nibble," Laura said. Briefly, she told Marilyn how agency after agency had brushed her off with greater or lesser degrees of tact.

"What are you going to do? Keep trying?"

Laura shrugged. "It's like batting my head against a stone wall. I could keep going around to agency after agency and get nowhere."

"You could get some other kind of job."

"What kind? I can't type, I don't know short-hand, I don't know how to operate a switchboard—"

"You could be taught. It doesn't take long to learn how to run a switchboard," Marilyn said, peeling off her clothes and heading for the bathroom. "I bet a lot of companies would be glad to have a receptionist who looks as good as you do."

"Maybe," Laura said wearily. "I'll give it a try tomorrow."

After breakfast the next day, she left Marilyn and went out to pick up a copy of the New York Times. Taking a seat on a bench along the southern border of Central Park, she looked over the Help Wanted—Female section of the classified ads.

There were plenty of jobs available, that was certain. But a lot of them required experience of one sort or another—typing, short-hand, professional knowledge. Laura eliminated them at once.

The others were almost all offered through employment agencies, which meant that the first week's salary would go to the agency. And the salaries were nothing fantastic, either. Laura circled some of the ads. Receptionist-Monitor Board, No Typing, Appearance Important. $65. Gal Friday to Interior Decorator, no exp., Mostly Reception, $70. Personnel Trainees, no exp., attractive type, $75.

Plenty of jobs—but, probably, plenty of people applying. And the salaries weren't great by any means. The best Laura could find for a trainee or inexperienced girl was $80 to $90 a week. Most of the jobs offered were in the $60-$75 range.

$75 a week was $15 a day, before taxes. Even on her poorest days, Marilyn took in at least that much, and paid no taxes on it. True, it was sordid work, but at least her time would be her own, she could take a day off whenever she pleased, and there was the chance of much greater income on any given day.

No, she thought. Don't slide straight into whoredom, Laura. Look for a decent job first.

Times in hand, and without much enthusiasm, Laura began to make the rounds of the employment agencies. At the first three she went to, the jobs advertised had already been filled, and dozens of other girls turned away. The fourth place was impressed with her good looks, and sent her across town to apply for a receptionist's job. But three other girls had already been interviewed, and all of them knew how to type. Laura got a "Sorry—we'd like to use you, but the other girls have better qualifications."

The day dragged on. It was the same story everywhere.

Everyone wanted a good-looking girl on their job. But what they didn't want was an utter green-horn just fresh from a Kansas farm. They wanted a girl who could type, who knew her way around a switchboard, who was familiar with New York.

Laura didn't qualify.

From agency to agency, interview to interview, until her feet throbbed mercilessly. Twelve o'clock, one o'clock, two o'clock, three. Always other girls applying for the job, and always the other girls were better qualified than she was.

"How about domestic service?" one agency suggested. "Midtown hotel looking for attractive white chambermaids. $42.50 a week plus tips."

"No thanks," Laura said, repressing a shudder. Better no work at all than work like that.

Another place had a page-girl job for her. $52 a week, first week's salary to the agency. In desperation, Laura let herself be sent over for an interview, but the personnel manager turned her down. "You're too imposing for the job, dear. What we have in mind is a high-school type, not a glamor queen. Sorry."

Sorry.

Sorry.

Sorry.

Everyone apologized. McCarten was sorry; the theatrical agencies on Fifth Avenue were sorry; the employment agencies were sorry; personnel managers were sorry.

You couldn't eat sorrow. You couldn't spend it. You couldn't even feel happy about it. Everyone was sorry, and you were sorry too.

At half past five Laura gave up, dumped the Times in an ashcan, and headed home. It had been another wasted day. Her legs hurt fiercely, she was hollow inside, and she had accomplished nothing.

In the apartment, she stared at herself in the mirror. Her loins no longer ached from the rape, and she told herself that she was starting to forget about it. She was no longer a virgin; what of it? She looked no different. Her face had not changed. She looked tired, now, but otherwise there was no difference. A man's body had entered her body and had withdrawn. She was a woman now instead of a girl. But the fact made no difference. No difference at all, except that now she no longer had to worry about guarding that meaningless thing, her virginity.

She fixed dinner. Afterward, while waiting for Marilyn to come home, she considered the alternatives.

Suicide was silly, a coward's way out. And going back to Kansas was an admission of utter defeat.

What else was there? Calling McCarten? That was defeat, too. Taking one of the $42.50 jobs? That was worse than defeat; it was humiliation. Going to secretarial school? A waste of time, she thought. She would have to study for six or ten weeks to become qualified to take a miserable $60-a-week job. You didn't get to wear minks on $60 a week. You didn't sit in a box at Carnegie Hall.

With your body, you can go places, Marilyn had said. Well, why not? Why not?

Why not?

Marilyn came home at two o'clock, with earnings of thirty-five dollars. Laura was still up.

"You get a job?" Marilyn asked.

"Nope."

"Not even a near miss?"

"There wasn't anything," Laura said. She smiled. "I'm not licked, though. I've made up my mind about what I'm going to do. And you can help me, if you want to."

"Just tell me what I have to do, honey, and I'll help you every bit I can."

Laura's smile was bitter. "I've decided to go on the street, Marilyn. Teach me how to be a whore."