CHAPTER NINE

An hour later, as they sat in a 58th Street restaurant together sipping cocktails, Laura quietly retraced in her mind the pattern of events that had brought them together. There had been the moment of mutual surprise, first, there on the busy street corner as they stared at each other, she surprised that she had spoken, he that he had been spoken to. Then the nervous laughter from both of them, breaking the awkwardness between two strangers on a Manhattan street, and his sudden grin and his admission, "No, you're right—she isn't worth getting excited over."

They might have parted at that moment and remained strangers forever, but they let the conversation continue, and within seconds they were no longer strangers, but Dan to her and Laura to him, and in a wild exhilarated way he was inviting her to have dinner with him and go to the show in Ruth's place, and she was telling him that she was free that evening and would be delighted to accept, and that was how it began.

And over drinks he told her about the quarrel and why it had been.

"Ruth's my fiancée," he explained. "Anyway, she was—up till about three weeks ago, when we decided to call the whole thing off. We both knew all along that we weren't right for one another but we just didn't have the guts, or something, to admit we'd made a mistake."

"Until three weeks ago."

"Until three weeks ago, yes. Then we had a big hassle and decided to nix it. Only we had these theater tickets for tonight, and we agreed we'd have one last date after a cooling-off period and see if we couldn't put things back together again." He let his shoulders slump. "So she met somebody else during the three weeks. Hell, I wanted her to. And she did. But when I phoned her about the theater date, she said she'd come anyway. And then she kept changing her mind, and I kept phoning her. It wasn't so much that I was afraid of wasting the tickets, as that I wanted to see her one last time, sort of get everything wrapped up neatly. So she met me in the city, but right away she started to back out—she said hello and goodbye practically in the same breath. I kept arguing with her, telling her at least we could have the one last date, but she didn't want to—"

"And that's where I came in," Laura said.

"Right."

"How long had you gone with her?"

He smiled sadly. "Two years and some," he said. "But it was all a mistake, all wasted time. Dope that I am, I would have gone running after her, too, if you hadn't spoken up then."

"I'm not in the habit of butting into other people's quarrels," Laura said quietly. "I don't know why I talked up just then."

"I'm glad you did."

"Are you really?"

"Really. Because otherwise I'd have gone after Ruth and we'd still be quarrelling. And I'd never have met you."

He reached out across the table and squeezed her hand warmly. She smiled at him. It made her feel good all over to think that there was one man in New York City who was actually spending some time with her simply because he wanted to, not because he had bought her for the night and had to get his money's worth out of every minute.

Using the skill she had acquired in her new profession, she drew him out as they sipped their cocktails. His name was Dan Bittner; he was twenty-eight, a bachelor, a design engineer for a big industrial firm. Although he was seven years older than Laura, she regarded him inwardly as practically a child. He gave off an appearance of innocence. She suspected he might even be a virgin, improbable as it was to consider it.

He had never been married. Apparently there had been an unsuccessful romance before the Ruth affair, and between the two affairs he had simply used up the past four years without finding the warmth and security he was looking for. He seemed terribly lonely.

Two lonely people meeting on a street corner in Manhattan, Laura thought. And he's so shy, so gentle. I wonder what he'd do or think if he found out how I earn my living.

Eventually, as she knew it would have to, the conversation came around to her. When he asked her what she did, she replied glibly, "Oh, I'm a minor editor on a fashion magazine."

"Oh? Which one?"

Just as glibly, she said, "You wouldn't know it. It's a trade-journal kind of thing that doesn't have newsstand circulation. It pays well, anyhow."

"What kind of work do you do?"

Laura had soaked up plenty of new information from her clients in the magazine field. She said without hesitation, "I'm a kind of high-salaried flunky. I do pasteups and write captions and check copy, and stuff like that. All very very dreary."

"Do you ever pose for the magazine?"

"Oh, no, never."

He smiled. "You should. You're prettier than any of the slabjawed models that get into all those magazine advertisements."

Laura tried to look confused. "By my boss' standards I'm hideous. My face is too full, my figure is too big, I've got too much behind—"

"Your boss is out of her mind."

"My boss knows her audience," Laura said. By this time she had conjured up a complete picture of the magazine where she allegedly worked, complete with the chic offices on upper Madison Avenue and the grimfaced bachelor-lady editor in the severely tailored mannish suits. "You don't sell lady's fashions using girlie-magazine models. You use walking skeletons. Don't ask me why."

"Suppose I ask you what you want for dinner, instead. We're going to miss the first act if we don't start stepping things up."

It was a show that Laura had seen twice before—she had no control over what kind of plays her clients picked to attend—but she hid that fact from Bittner, and tried to act as though it was the first time she had heard the songs or laughed at the gags. When they left the theater at eleven, they were walking hand-in-hand.

"I'd suggest a nightcap," he said, "only I don't know how late I'm allowed to keep you out."

"Don't worry. I sleep till all hours of the morning," Laura said. She realized at once she had made a mistake, even before he reacted.

"Doesn't your boss mind that?" he asked.

She forced a brittle laugh. "Oh, I mean I can sleep till eight or so. The office is just a couple of blocks from my apartment. And I only need a few hours' sleep to keep me going."

They stopped in for drinks, and, about midnight, Bittner took her home. He seemed surprised that a mere sub-editor should be living in such a handsome building in such a costly neighborhood, but he said nothing about it. They rode upstairs in the elevator. Laura wondered whether or not to invite him in. She wanted him desperately, but he did not seem to be the sort of fellow who would want to go to bed with a girl on a first date. Besides, if she kept him outside he might get the idea that her apartment was only one or two rooms, which would be within the budget of someone with her kind of job.

They paused hesitantly outside the door. He was smiling down at her from his height, not knowing what to say, and after a clumsy pause he managed to get out, "Well, it's been a wonderful evening, Laura."

"I'm glad, Dan. Maybe the day didn't start out so well for you, but at least it ended well."

"Will I be seeing you again?"

"I hope so," she said, meaning it more than anything she had said to anyone for a long time.

"Is your number in the book?"

She shook her head. "It's unlisted. Here, I'll write it down for you. The best time to call me is—oh, around three or four in the afternoon."

"At home?"

Another slip, she thought. Retrieving the fumble, she said, "Yes, I'm only at the office two-thirds of the day. I leave at three and finish my work at home."

"Nice work if you can get it. Can I have the office phone too?"

Laura tensed. "Sorry, no. The boss is death on personal calls during working hours."

"Okay. I'll phone you here." He hesitated again. "Goodnight, Laura."

"Goodnight, Dan."

He made no motion toward leaving. He teetered for a second, and then she moved toward him and he took her in his arms and put his lips to hers, and she kissed him hard, with tongue and breasts and thighs, and she felt his body jerk back in surprise at the passionate hunger of her kiss. But she did not release him, and he joined in her fervor. Only after a long moment did they separate. He looked dazed and shaken and bewildered.

"Goodnight," he whispered, and darted toward the elevator.

Smiling, Laura let herself into her apartment. She laughed out loud in sheer happiness. It had been a splendid evening, she thought. No sex, no groping under her skirt, no hands kneading her lust-stiffened nipples. Just pleasant companionship, two lonely people making each other less lonely.

She thought of Spinelli then, and it made her uneasy. Spinelli would be furious if he knew. His girls weren't supposed to carry on little flirtations of their own. They were supposed to reserve all of their affection for the paying customers. Spinelli would hit the ceiling if he found out that on her day off Laura had indulged in a little innocent hand-holding with an unhappy young man.

But I'll keep on seeing him, she told herself determinedly. He's the only decent man I've met since I came to New York, and I want to see more of him. Spinelli can't stop me. He doesn't own me. As long as I keep his customers happy, why can't I have a little happiness myself?

She began to construct a little daydream. Dan Bittner was obviously on the verge of falling in love with her, she thought. Perhaps he would ask her to marry him. And she would accept, and would tell Spinelli the end of her employment had come. She would go to live with Dan in his little apartment, somewhere, and they would have children, and he would never know or need to know of her past. She would simply stuff the experiences and sins of the past several months into a compartment of her mind that she would never open.

It seemed pretty enough—the little apartment, the babies, the domesticity. He needed someone to love him, and she needed love too. They were meant for each other, or so it looked.

But it's not fair, she thought. He's a good kid. And what am I? I used to be a cheap whore, and now I'm an expensive one, but I'm still a whore. And someday maybe we'll go dancing and one of my old clients will recognize me, and while I'm in the powder room he'll go over to Dan and ask him if I'm still as good a lay as I used to be. Or maybe Spinelli will be angry because I'm leaving him, and to get even he'll send Dan a copy of his photograph album a week after the wedding. If Dan ever found out the truth about me, his whole world would collapse. And if I married him I'd live in constant fear that the truth would somehow be exposed.

All the same, when he called her a few days later, she greeted him warmly. It was four in the afternoon, and she was just beginning to dress for a dinner date she had that evening with a bachelor wheat magnate from Iowa, in town for a week and anxious to whoop things up with one of the bustier of Phil Spinelli's girls. She was going to wear the deep-cut dress, and the half-bra that seemed not to be there at all when she wore it.

"When are we going to see each other again?" Dan asked. "I'm free every night from now on."

Laura thought fast. "How about Tuesday? That's a good night for me."

"Why not Saturday?"

"No, sorry, Dan. No can do. I'm—busy."

He sounded hurt. "Well, Tuesday will have to do for me, then. Suppose I pick you up at your place and we'll take a drive out into Connecticut for dinner and a show?"

"Sounds fine," she said. "You make all the arrangements and anything you get will be great with me."

They talked a little while longer; he seemed unhappy about what he assumed were other dates she had, but she eluded any direct questioning. How can I tell him that I'll be working a convention over the weekend and serving as a bedwarmer for twenty or thirty middle-aged lechers? Let him think what he wants. At least he won't ever know the truth.

She arranged with Spinelli to take the following Tuesday off, and Dan picked her up at six. She was dressed a little daringly, that night, in a provocative off-the-shoulder blouse, and in his shy way Bittner goggled at the exposed square inches of bosom without making any specific comment. Laura smiled and kissed him as she got into his little foreign car.

"I've got reservations at a restaurant just off the Merritt Parkway," he told her. "And tickets for the Village Playhouse in New Canaan. They're doing Shaw tonight, Man and Superman."

"Fine," she said. "I've never seen it."

She nestled close to him as he drove. The little car clung bumpily to the road, going up and down with every tar-line or pebble. They talked as he drove, mostly about him, his work, his impatience to have a second date with her.

He was definitely more forward than he had been on the first date, letting his hands rest lightly on her bare shoulders for a moment as he helped her off with her jacket, and holding her hand during the play and even slipping his arm around her. Considering how most of her escorts behaved, though, Laura could only regard him as almost comically reserved. It was a novelty, though, to have her body respected. A very pleasant novelty.

On the way home, though, there was a nasty jolt for her, one that nearly wrecked everything.

It was eleven o'clock, and Bittner had tuned in the news broadcast. The commentator, droning along, said suddenly, "Police are continuing to probe the so-called Hotelroom Murder Case, and several suspects are being questioned as a result of the discovery of the strangled body of Marilyn Rivers, twenty-two, in a hotel room on West 57th Street early this morning—"

"Oh, God!" Laura gasped.

"—informants suggested that the dead woman, allegedly a prostitute, was strangled by a customer after a quarrel over payment. Residents of the hotel heard shouting coming from the room shortly after midnight, and a 'tall, heavy-set' man reportedly was seen in the hotel just afterwards. Meanwhile, in juvenile court this afternoon—"

Laura reached out and snapped the radio off. She was shaking uncontrollably.

"What's the matter?" Bittner asked, startled by her behavior.

"That—that news bulletin. The murder in the hotel room—" Laura sobbed without tears. She could not speak.

Growing more astonished, Bittner said, "Didn't you hear about it before? It was in all the afternoon papers, and on the radio—"

"I didn't see them."

"Well, anyway, why are you so upset? Honestly, Laura, you look like you've just lost your best friend or something."

The savage, if unintentional, irony of his words struck home deeply. Laura looked away, burying her face in her arm, and fought her way back from the edge of hysteria inch by inch, telling herself that she had to regain her self-control, had to, had to....

After a moment she said in a hollow voice, "I don't know what happened to me. I guess I was just struck with pity. Some poor girl trying to scrape up a living taking men to a hotel room, and one of them strangling her because it was easier than paying her the five dollars she wanted from him—"

"It happens all the time, sweet. These streetwalkers never know when they're likely to get slashed or strangled or beaten up. There are some men who actually enjoy beating them up, you know." He slipped one arm around her shoulders, driving with the other. "Don't be so upset, though, honey. After all, people die every day. And this girl wasn't anything society needed. She was probably full of disease, and stupid and ugly besides, and—"

"Stop it."

"But—"

"Stop it! Stop it!"

Bittner was growing more and more confused. "Honey, I wish I knew what got into you all of a sudden. Sure, I feel sorry for that girl too, but you're carrying it a little too far, aren't you?"

"Maybe I am," Laura forced herself to say. "I—I'm very tired, that's what it is. Overstrung."

"We'll be home soon. A good night's rest and you'll be as good as new."

They lapsed into silence. Laura heard the steady pounding of her heart, and gradually her mind accepted the awful words. How could I tell him? she asked herself. How could I explain that she WAS my best friend, that she picked me up off the street when I was sick, that she slept in the same bed with me, that she was good and kind to me? How could I let him know that the girl he loves had been a friend of a skinny little whore who was murdered in a dirty hotel room?

There was no way she could explain to him the reason for her outburst—no way that he could accept, at any rate. She grew calmer, and a feeling of pity replaced the earlier horror at the news.

They parted quickly at Laura's door. Bittner made no attempt to come inside. They kissed, but it was without the fervor of their first. Then he smiled and was gone, and she let herself into the apartment.

Switching on the television set, she picked up a late newscast. They were going over the murder story again. They showed a tattered snapshot of Marilyn, her own photo from her wallet. She looked thin and harried in the photo; it was a good likeness. They showed a photo of the room, with the sheet-covered body on the bed. They discussed the various suspects who had been rounded up. That was all. By tomorrow, the suspects would be released, the murder forgotten. The law did not waste much energy solving the murders of whores.

Laura shut off the set and poured herself a stiff drink. She felt overwhelmed with sorrow and guilt, guilt for having failed to keep her promise to Marilyn. They had not spoken since the first week of her employment by Spinelli. And now they never would again. It had been almost inevitable, Laura thought, that Marilyn would end this way, snuffed out, her troubles over. She was so fragile, the night so dark, her clients so brutal.

And now she was dead. Laura downed her drink and prepared for bed. It had been awkward, then, when two of her worlds had impinged, when her grief for Marilyn had startled the man who thought she was innocent. Confusion made Laura's head buzz. She realized now that she was in love with Bittner—who quite probably thought she was a virgin.

I'll destroy him if I don't break up with him now, she thought. If he ever learns how I've strung him along, he'll be crushed. It's a cruel world. A cold, nasty world where people set traps for themselves, themselves and each other. Some people sell themselves, others buy—and the good people, the innocent people, somehow they get caught up in it all and are ground to bits.

God help us, she thought. God help us all.