Ed Lacy - The Woman Aroused
Lee was wearing a simple print I remembered buying her a long time ago, and both she and the house had a slightly hot, bad odor. The place was a mess, ashes and cigarette butts all over, and I could see unwashed dishes on the kitchen table and in the sink.
She said rather abruptly, George, you have my money?
I gave her twenty five-dollar bills, which she immediately crumpled and shoved down between her breasts. I asked, “Lee, would you like a whole lot of money?” I went through the motions of piling up a lot of bills.
She didn't answer and I said, “Much money for Lee. You give me the note, the paper, and I will give you lots of money. Okay?”
“Papers?” she repeated.
“You know what paper,” I said, motioning toward the wall panel.
She looked at me blankly and I wondered how much of that blankness was a poker face. I dug a dollar bill out of my pocket, went through the pantomime of making a big pile of ones. “All this money for the paper. Understand? Everything be fine.”
She didn't say anything and I said, “Give me the note and I'll give you a lot of money. Okay?”
“Yes.”
I held out my hand. “Now give me the paper.”
“Nein.”
I thought she smiled as she said it. I put the dollar down as I picked up my hat and turned to leave. She quickly snatched up the buck, deposited it in her bosom savings bank, said, “You like, you stay.”
I said no and for one frightful moment I thought she was going to come over and make me. But she merely shrugged and I went out, saying I'd see her the following Monday.
For the next month or so, I saw her each Monday night, to give her the money, and nothing much happened. Once she had cleaned up the place thoroughly, in one of her rare bursts of energy. Sometimes she was fairly talkative, and once she blocked the doorway, so I handed her the money and left without stepping inside my own house. I tried several times to bribe her to give me the note, but she refused. She understood that, all right.
I didn't care for living in a hotel room and I missed my dancing terribly, but all in all, there wasn't much of a change from my old manner of living—before I “outsmarted” Lee. Things went along on an even level, but even that came to an end: I ran out of money, or rather I should say I ran out of Lee's money.
It certainly was more than a rude shock to realize that if I went on giving her a hundred a week—and I didn't see any way of getting out of it at the time—I'd have exactly twenty-five dollars of my salary to live on per week.
The first thing I did was to move out of the hotel. After much tramping of the streets and reading want ads, I learned it was impossible to get even a crummy room for less than ten a week, and of course a private bath was out. Most of the rooms smelled of insecticide and I expected bedbugs to open the door for me—although I never did see a bug in any of the rooms I had. And I moved around quite a bit, going to a cheaper room each time, borrowing a few bucks from Joe on and off, and once, for the first time in my life, I hocked a suit. (All I received was ten dollars for it.) I finally found a small room on 31st Street, east of 3rd Avenue. The house, an old brownstone, looked like hell from the outside but my room was neat, if tiny, and if the bathroom wasn't any place to linger and read, at least it was clean, or a reasonable facsimile thereof.
I spent much of my time alone. I was not only upset, but I couldn't afford dollar lunches and five-dollar suppers and cocktails with Joe, nor poker games with Mr. Henderson. I only bet on the horses once.
I knew I'd have to have some money damn soon, and thinking back upon it, my luck with the horses had been excellent the past six months—playing my daily two-buck hunch bets. The night I hocked my suit I noticed a horse called Outsmarted running the next day, at 10 to 1. The more I thought about it, the more it seemed like a sure hunch. I took out my last fifty dollars from the bank, and with what I raised on my suit and some dough I borrowed, I had a hundred to bet.
The following morning I stopped in for my orange juice, which had become my entire breakfast—along with a hooker of cheap whiskey. When the counterman asked, “Anything else, Mr. Jackson? You haven't been ordering much these days,” I put the money under the menu on the counter before me, said, “A hundred to win on Outsmarted.”
“That's a big order, Mr. Jackson,” he said, his face deadpan. “Tell me true, Mr. Jackson, you know something?”
“You know me—a hunch player. Merely a hunch.”
“Sure I know you, but that's a lot of folding money to pay off, Mr. Jackson. I'm a small joker in this racket. I can't take the bet, but I can place it for you. Only if this is a sure thing, don't give it to me.”
“Only a hunch.”
“Yeah?” He hesitated for a moment, staring at me with sad eyes. Then he went over to one of the phone booths. He talked to somebody for a few seconds, then came back and took my money, said, “Okay. That's to win. Correct?”
“Right. You'll pay off at track odds?”
He nodded.
I was so nervous during the day I kept going into Joe's office to nip at a bottle he kept in his desk, till he asked, “What you got the shakes about?”
“Nothing. I... eh... didn't sleep much last night.”
I had coffee and a sandwich for lunch at an orangeade stand, and at three I went into Jake Webster's office to learn if I had a thousand dollars.
The radio said Outsmarted had closed at 12 to 1. The horse didn't win, but showed, and if I had played the nag across the board I would have won about two hundred dollars. Now I was flat-busted and that was that. When I needed my luck it wasn't there, or maybe I had outsmarted myself again.
Jake asked, “Lose a big one, Mr. Jackson? Look sick.”
“I was playing a long shot.”
He grinned. “You got no kick, been booting them home for a long time. Got to expect a loss now and then. I remember once....”
I went back to my office and I felt lousy. There were about half a dozen ways I could raise money. I could easily borrow a thousand from any bank, only what would happen when that was gone and I had to pay off the bank and Lee? That would be a mess I couldn't get out of—there's no arguing with a bank. Of course I could go from bank to bank, kite a loan for about a year, only sooner or later they would catch up with me and that would mean the end of my job, and now the job seemed the only thing in life I had; I couldn't chance losing that. I might try asking for a raise. I was due one and I could certainly use the extra five or ten bucks each week, but at the moment I didn't feel up to buttering anybody.
Flo would lend me money, but somehow I couldn't ask her. She'd start prying, and even though it wasn't important at the moment, it would be the final defeat in our marital tiffs. I'd be in debt to her or, I suppose, beholden to her is the better phrase, for the rest of my life. And I didn't want to cast off Flo, I wanted her back. I wanted (and so badly) everything I had in my old life, even my monthly fights with Flo.
Joe would be good for a few hundred, he and Walt seemed to be prospering in their racket. But I already owed Joe nearly a hundred, borrowing a dollar or two, here and there. Besides, I'd have to explain too much to him, too.
Marion Keating might lend me money, but that would be embarrassing—I never had been that friendly with her.
Then there was Mr. Henderson, but I kept dismissing what I was thinking about him. It was an ugly thought.
(And the strange part was, that of all the ways I had of raising money, and I had to have more money, I was so afraid of offending convention, I finally tried the one, impossible, absolutely wrong way of raising the dough)
Not being able to dance left me restless as the devil and I suddenly wondered why I didn't try dancing for money? The idea excited me. I was sure my mixed dance routine was some-thing never seen before, something really different. In tails, with a band playing bebop, rumba, corn, and a dash of classical music, I would wow 'em with my combination tap, ballet, and ballroom dancing. I was tall and thin, looked sophisticated—on the style of Clifton Webb. With the right lighting, I had the sort of routine that would go over big in a smart night club. The first thing was to interest an agent. I went through my files. Before the war we'd held a big sales convention in New York and had booked a band and several acts through a Danny Alberts. I called him and he said of course he remembered me. (What he remembered was Sky Oil, Inc.) I told him, “This is a sort of personal favor. Friend of mine has a dance act, a high class single, and he's looking for an agent.”
“Be glad to give him a try-out, Mr. Jackson,” Alberts said, his voice friendly over the phone.
“I... eh... thought you might recommend somebody who books dancers exclusively. This is a serious type of dance, suitable only for a certain type of night spot.” I couldn't use Alberts, he might remember me.
“Gotcha, Mr. Jackson, only don't think I don't handle high class acts. I....”
“I'm sure you do, Mr. Alberts, but this fellow needs a dance specialist.”
“Know what you mean, perfectly. Tell you, there's a Dennis Coles up on 50th Street. He handles lots of long-haired stuff. I'll make an appointment. What's this guy's name?”
“Lee Henderson,” I said promptly.
“Swell. Call you back in a few minutes. You fellows having another convention here soon?”
“Nothing on the fire at the moment, but when we do, I'll know who to call,” I said.
He called me back within ten minutes and then I—or Lee Henderson—called Dennis Coles. I had heard of Coles and was pleased he was to handle me. I arranged to rent a studio and show him my dance that afternoon in Steinway Hall.
Borrowing ten bucks from Joe, I took a cab up to the house to get my dancing shoes and sweat suit. I rang and rang and didn't get any answer. Finally I let myself in, Lee wasn't home and the house was a mess, it actually stunk. My blue sheets were a dirty gray. It took me a moment to get my things and pick up a dozen records. I knew Lee must be out shopping and I wanted to be gone before she returned.
But that gave me another idea—one I should have had from the start.
I hailed a cab and had him wait across Park Avenue. I sat in the cab, watching the house and my watch. Exactly twelve minutes later Lee came swinging up the street, a bag of groceries in her arms. I grinned—to myself—and told the cabbie to drive to Steinway Hall.
I ran into trouble there—they didn't have an automatic phonograph. The slinky-looking blonde in the renting office was listening to a small portable radio, and for a few bucks I rented that.
Coles was a short slender man, with a homely, pointed, sensitive face, and an absolutely bald head. I explained that I usually danced to records but I'd have to use a disc jockey due to the lack of a phonograph. I explained how I'd dance in tails, with the proper lighting, the type of audience I was aiming for, and all that.
He listened patiently, and we talked about dancing for a while and I dropped a few names to tell him I knew my dancing. Then he lit a cigarette and sat down. I tuned in a couple of records shows and they were all playing corn. When I heard one of Duke's numbers I nodded to Coles and started dancing, and God it felt wonderful to be dancing again. I had expected to be a bit rusty, but I found myself dancing at my best, moving smoothly, my taps clean and clear. When the disc jockey read a commercial I did a soft shoe routine, and then I was in luck—they played an Afro-Cuban number I knew and I really went to town. I kept praying they wouldn't play any hill-billy numbers. The next record was a fast jazz number which I did as a modern dance, using my hands a lot. I was doing some tricky tap steps when I glanced at Coles. There was a faint smile on his face.
I stopped dancing and he merely shook his head. I turned off the radio, took it back to the blonde. When I returned, Coles was gone. I dressed quickly. That smile told me everything—I was a middle-aged man making a pitiful fool of himself.
I guess it was a bad blow, not only to my plans, but to my vanity. But I didn't take it hard, I was too full of my other plan, my new one, to be depressed. That night, after I had washed my socks and underwear, hung them on the line I'd rigged across my room, I took a pencil and paper and sat on the bed.
The two things I should have done from the start I had stupidly neglected. I certainly should have advertised in the German papers while I had the money to do it. Relations—if Lee had any—would take her off my hands. But more important, if I had played it smart, I would have searched the house—while she was out—till I found the note.
There wasn't anything I could do about hunting for her relations now, but I did make a sketch of the house, listed all the possible places where she might hide the note. I kept thinking of the layout of the rooms so hard, seeing them in my mind, that my head hurt. But before I went to sleep, I had a list of 22 likely places where Lee might have hidden the note. I'd have to be fast and careful; if Lee ever found me hunting for the note she'd certainly kill me. The very thought of her finding me made me shake. I considered the possibility of borrowing one of Jake Webster's guns, but ruled that out. He wouldn't lend it to me without a long explanation, and suppose I had to use the gun? Killing or wounding her would only mean bringing everything out in the open, give more credence to her story that I killed Hank. If I wanted to chance all that I could tell her to go to hell now.
But I had to get that receipt.
During my lunch hour the next day I went up to the house, walked in on Henderson, The old man was fixing lunch—some lettuce, cream cheese, and black bread swimming in a bowl of light coffee. He asked me to join him, and although I was actually hungry, I couldn't go that mess. I took a cup of coffee, asked, “Francis, does she go out of the house every day? I mean, shopping? I want to get some things, and not have to argue with her.
