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  Ladies of Chance

  Brett Halliday writing as Anthony Scott

  DEDICATED

  TO

  E. H. LEBEL

  DEAR BILL:

  Here’s the book I’ve been promising you I would some day write. I hope I haven’t bungled the job.

  Chapter 1

  I didn’t have any idea what I was walking into when I knocked on the door of the Meade apartment that afternoon. I had hesitated a long time about accepting Herman’s invitation to drop in on his wife while he was out of town, finally deciding that Dolly couldn’t bore me any more than I was already bored.

  That’s why I was half-way glad there wasn’t any response to my rap. I’d scribble a note and tuck it under the door—and that would be that.

  I didn’t rap again, my sense of duty being placated by the first unanswered rap.

  I heard a woman sobbing while I scribbled the note. It sounded as though it was coming from the Meade apartment.

  A monotonous, dismal sort of sobbing. No shrillness and no hint of hysteria. The sobbing of a woman who’s reached the end of her rope.

  Don’t ask me how I knew. That’s what the sound made me think of. A tabloid reporter gets to be a connoisseur of feminine sobs.

  I stopped scribbling and listened. It was coming from inside the apartment.

  I tried the door and it was locked. I listened to that monotone of sobs and tried to make up my mind that it was none of my business.

  I got far enough in that direction to turn around and take two steps toward the landing. Then turned back and rapped on the door hard.

  I got action this time. The sobs turned to a snuffle. I heard someone moving inside the apartment. The door opened just as I rapped again.

  Dolly didn’t know me at first. She was clutching a silk negligee together and her red eyes stared at me blankly.

  I guess I stared back just as blankly. It was Dolly Meade—but what a hell of a change three years had made. Her blonde curls were mussy and her cheeks were red and puffed. Her curls had been devilishly enticing the last time I saw her, her cheeks pink and plump.

  I stepped in the door and she backed away from me. “What …?”

  “It’s Ed Barlow,” I told her. “Turn off the waterworks and give me the glad hand for old time’s sake.”

  I didn’t know what was happening to her. Her face expressed too many mingled emotions for any of them to be clear.

  She let go the negligee and threw her hot arms around my neck. Her hug and kiss of welcome was stickily enthusiastic.

  I kicked the door shut with my heel and let her hang on my neck, already cursing myself for knocking that second time.

  I untangled her at last, figuring I’d put myself on the spot and might as well take it if I couldn’t like it. Dolly fell back on an overstuffed lounge and watched me with wide-open eyes while I opened the windows wider and pulled the drapes back.

  “Ed.” She said my name as though testing out something when I came back and flopped in a chair not too close to her.

  “The same,” I smiled paternally. “Long time no see, Dolly.” That sort of chatter passes for smart repartee in Dolly’s crowd.

  “It’s been years and years, Ed.” She made it sound as though it meant a lot more than it did.

  “Three, to be exact. I met your husband on Flagler Street by chance this morning. He was on his way to catch a train. Seemed to think it would be all right if I dropped around to cheer you up while he’s out of town.”

  “Of course, Ed.” Dolly was getting her provocative smile in working order. It didn’t go over very big considering the mess her face was in. She reminded me of a street-walking floosie going coy after too much sweet wine. “Are you still working on the Newark scandal sheet?”

  That’s where I had known the Meades three years ago. I lied to her with the same song and dance I’d given Herman that morning:

  “I’ve quit the newspaper game cold. Free-lancing now. Story-writing to you.”

  “How thrilling.” She sounded about as thrilled as a dead codfish.

  “Isn’t it?”

  I lit a cigarette and Dolly held out her hand for one. I saw tears beginning to well up in her blue eyes while I lit it for her. I didn’t have any stomach for acting as the buffer between a misunderstood wife and her hubby, so I muttered some excuse about running on and started for the door.

  Dolly jumped up and grabbed my hand. The tears receded when she forgot about the effect she was trying to make.

  “You can’t run away like this. We’ve got so much to talk about.”

  “Have we?”

  “Don’t be mean, Ed.” She pouted out her lips and pulled me toward the kitchen.

  I felt as though a drink would hit the spot, and weakly followed her. I remembered the grade of liquor Herman used to keep on hand.

  It was just as good as ever and Dolly mixed just as lousy a drink as ever. She’s one of those women who recap a bottle of ginger ale and put it back in the refrigerator for future reference. I almost gagged over my first drink—made her open a fresh bottle of ginger ale for the second one.

  Then we were back in the too-lavishly furnished parlor. I had an uneasy feeling that Dolly was nerving herself to spring something on me. She kept breaking off her sentences in the middle, and whenever I looked away and back quickly, I caught her watching me with strained intensity.

  Then she began crying. I moved over to the couch beside her and patted her hand.

  I asked her what the hell was eating her, and she blubbered something I couldn’t understand. Her head was on my shoulder and I was getting soaked. I pushed her away and got up.

  “To hell with this. If you’re going to put on a crying jag, I’ll beat it.”

  She grabbed my hand and moaned, “No. For God’s sake don’t go, Ed.”

  “Why not?” I pulled away from her.

  She jumped up and got in front of me. Tears were running down her cheeks. She looked like hell. I pushed her aside and started for the door.

  She caught me from behind. “You can’t leave me, Ed. Not … alone here.”

  I turned around and gave her the once-over. There was a funny note in her voice. It didn’t sound like a crying jag. More like incipient hysteria. And not too incipient. I said:

  “Be reasonable, Baby. You know what I came up here for. If you’re not in a mood for it, that’s all right. But I’m not going to stick around and get wept over.”

  She pulled herself together a little. She managed to look coy even with her face blowsy from tears. “Maybe I’ll be in the mood after awhile, Ed.”

  There was something of furtive desperation in her manner that made me keep my hand off the doorknob.

  I stepped close to her and asked: “What the hell’s it all about, Dolly? You act as if you’re scared stiff.”

  “I … I am.”

  “Of what?”

  She wrung her hands and moaned.

  I went over and sprawled out in a chair resignedly. “So this is what marriage has done to you?”

  “It’s … it’s … oh Ed! I can’t tell you.”

  “Take another drink,” I suggested. “The green lizards will chase the white elephants away and there won’t be anything to be afraid of.”

  She mixed us both ano
ther drink, spilling some liquor on the rug. I lit a cigarette while I waited for her to bring mine, flipped the matchstick toward the closed bathroom door.

  It lit with a little sizzle. I saw a dark blur that was just creeping out under the door. I said:

  “Something’s leaking in the bathroom, Dolly. Better take a look.”

  She was coming toward me with the two drinks. She looked toward the door and screamed. Her fingers opened and let the glasses drop.

  I caught her before she followed the glasses, pushed her into a chair and took a better look at the dark blur.

  It was blood. Spreading out under the door. I started toward the bathroom and Dolly began screaming.

  I turned back and slapped her wide-open mouth. She went limp in the chair and her eyes stared at me.

  I opened the bathroom door and looked in. It wasn’t pretty. Herman Meade was an old-fashioned guy who evidently didn’t go in for safety razors. The girl on the tile floor had done the job in one slash. “From ear to ear” had always been just a phrase to me. It’s more than that now.

  I closed the door softly. Went back to Dolly who was gripping the arm of her chair and watching me with tight-clamped lips.

  I stood in front of her and said: “That’s a hell of a place to conceal the body. Suppose it leaks through to the apartment below.”

  She shuddered and moaned: “Oh my God!”

  I sat down. “You’re in a tough spot, Baby. Better spill it.”

  She opened her mouth to scream again. I doubled up my fist and shoved it under her nose. “One yap, and I’ll sock you and beat it.”

  She knew I meant it.

  “It’s June Benton. From the apartment across the hall. Oh my God, Ed! What am I going to do?”

  “I’d suggest calling an undertaker.”

  “She did it right there, Ed. Right in my bathroom. I didn’t know she was going to. I didn’t have the faintest idea. I knew she was upset but not that way.”

  “Probably came on her all of a sudden.” I settled back to get the story from her, not because I particularly wanted a suicide story, but because getting it was second nature to me.

  “Old stuff, I suppose. Stepping out on hubby and he got wise?”

  “No. It wasn’t like that. Not what you think. She was crazy in love with Jim. Jim’s her husband.”

  “He was stepping out, eh? And she bumped herself so as not to stand in the way of his happiness?”

  “You don’t know what you’re talking about, Ed.” Dolly was moaning again. “They were like a pair of love birds. But she … she told me this afternoon she didn’t see any way out. Oh Ed!” Dolly looked at me with a frightened little scream. “I know what she meant now.”

  “Yeh? You always were quick on the pick-up. What didn’t she see any way out of?”

  “The terrible mess she’d gotten into. And it started all so innocently. We didn’t mean any harm. Just something to keep from being bored in the afternoons. It didn’t seem wrong. Lots of other girls went, too. But June was unlucky. Terribly unlucky. She just couldn’t win.” Dolly broke down and sobbed some more.

  I had taken a cigarette out of my pocket to light it. I put it back in my pocket. God what a break! And I had been on the point of turning away from Dolly’s door without knocking a second time.

  I did some fast thinking in a hurry. I’d have to get Dolly straightened out so she could talk coherently. Here was my first break after snooping around the city for a week without picking up the trail.

  I said suddenly: “We’d better do something about the body. You’ll have a lot of explaining to do if the police find her here. They’ll probably arrest you and keep you in jail a week while they check up. And they mightn’t believe your story after all.”

  That hit Dolly like a bucket of ice water. She wrung her hands and begged: “Help me, Ed. Tell me what to do. You know about these things. You’ve got to help me.”

  “If you’ll cut out the hysteria.”

  “I will, Ed. I swear I will. See, I’m calm as anything.”

  She was wringing her hands as though she would tear each finger off. I got up and went to the door, opened it and looked out into the hall. It was deserted. I called to Dolly:

  “Come here. Which is this girl’s apartment?”

  Dolly came close to me and pointed shakily over my shoulder at a door opposite. “That one. That’s the Benton’s.”

  “She and her husband live there alone?”

  “Y-yes.”

  “When will he be home?”

  “Not for … an hour or so.”

  I stepped across the hall and tried the door. It opened into an apartment that was a duplicate of the Meade’s. I stepped inside and got a six-foot throw rug from the kitchen entrance. Dolly drew out of my way with dilated eyes when I brought the rug in.

  I threw it down in front of the bathroom door and said over my shoulder to her: “Better look the other way. This is going to be messy.”

  It was. I rolled up my sleeves and got her on the rug. Made it into a trough to hold the blood in, and carried it across the hall to put the rug back where it had been—with the body laid out as though June Benton had fallen forward when the blood began to spurt.

  Herman’s razor was clenched in her right hand. I got it away from her, ransacked the kitchen for a sharp butcher knife, smeared it with blood and pressed it in her cold fingers.

  Not a nice job. But it looked all right when I was through. There wasn’t enough blood but I figured the dumb cops would think she’d been anaemic. I didn’t leave any fingerprints behind me, threw the nightlatch on the door and locked it as I went out.

  Dolly was crumpled up in a big chair when I went in and closed her door behind us. I didn’t disturb her, but went right to work on the bathroom.

  It wasn’t perfect when I got through, but what the hell? There wasn’t any reason for anyone to look for blood in the Meade bathroom.

  I went out and closed the door behind me. Dolly had snapped out of it some. She had stopped whimpering. She looked at me like a cur dog waiting for a kick in the ribs.

  I sat down and lit the cigarette I had put back in my pocket a little while before. Dolly didn’t say anything. Just watched me.

  “Everything’s all right,” I told her, blowing out smoke. “Keep your mouth shut and pretend to be surprised when you hear the sad news.”

  “Oh, it’s too utterly ghastly. I can’t bear to think about it. She was just sitting here talking to me as calmly as you please … in that very same chair you’re sit.…”

  “You just said you couldn’t bear to think about it. Don’t think—talk. What’s the low-down on it, Dolly? You said she was unlucky.”

  “Terribly unlucky. I used to tell her it proved the truth of the old adage. You know: Lucky at love and unlucky at cards. She and Jim were so happy until.…”

  “Until what?”

  Dolly pressed her lips together and looked secretive. “I … that is … I can’t tell, Ed.”

  I pointed my cigarette at her. “Listen, Baby. I’ve just gone to a lot of trouble getting you out of a mess. You’re not out of it yet. Maybe I’ll decide to tell all I know. It all depends on what sort of explanation you’ve got for the whole thing.”

  She wailed:

  “But I’ve sworn not to tell, Ed. And you’re a newspaper man, too.”

  “Was. I told you I’d quit.”

  “But what does it matter? Why do you want to know?”

  “Call it curiosity.”

  “There’s an awful lot to tell,” she faltered. “I’d have to start back at the beginning to make you understand.”

  “Good. That’s where I want you to start.”

  “I couldn’t bear to tell everything.”

  I said, “Oh hell,” and got up to get my hat and coat.

  Dolly grabbed my hand and begged. “No. For the love of God, Ed, don’t leave me here alone. I don’t know what I might do. I’ve been thinking about June and.…”

  “And what
?” I turned around in the middle of the floor and looked as disgusted as I felt at her playacting.

  Dolly was drawn up in a huddle on the lounge. She buried her face in her hands and moaned: “I’ve been thinking … maybe …”

  Dolly needed a jolt to start her talking.

  “About bumping yourself? Hell! That takes guts.”

  “But I can’t go on after this. I … I want to die.”

  “Okay.” I had a .32 automatic in my coat pocket. I tossed it on the lounge beside her. “Anything to oblige a lady.”

  Dolly raised her head and stared at the gun with bleared eyes. I stood ten feet from her and watched while she groped for it with fingers that were too blunt.

  It was late in the afternoon and dusk was creeping into the room.

  I laughed at her. “Still playing to a gallery, Dolly.”

  I’ll be goddamned if a sort of an animal gurgle didn’t come from her throat. She lifted the gun to her forehead and held it there.

  She wasn’t crying any more. Her hand had ceased trembling. She pulled the trigger and went down to the carpet in a limp heap.

  I walked over to her and laughed. “Very pretty.”

  She looked up at me without understanding, too dazed to argue with me. And the hell of it was that I realized she hadn’t known it wasn’t loaded.

  I kicked the pistol out of the way when I saw her eyes slide around toward it. “Okay, Baby. Get off the floor and unload your secret sorrow.”

  She got up. Caught hold of my hand and pulled herself erect. She acted like a sleepwalker. As though the power of active thought had deserted her.

  Watching her, I had a funny feeling in the pit of my stomach. It wasn’t pity. I don’t go in for that. Something else. I wanted to walk out of there and never come back.

  I mixed her a heavy drink and poured it between her lips, bracing my arm about her shoulders to hold her up.

  Her negligee was sagging open in front. She didn’t care. I tried not to care. But it was getting darker in the room. And she had quit her weeping.

  That made a lot of difference.

  And something had happened between us when she put that gun to her head and pulled the trigger.