The guys in the detective bureau office were licking their lips and whining a little inside when I got in the next afternoon at five. They were whispering as I passed their desks.
“Sweet Jesus.”
‘And I got to go home to my old woman.”
“Just one night with that and let me die.”
Lupe Valdez was sitting rigidly in the chair beside my desk so filled with her woes and indrawn she had no idea of the commotion she was causing. I couldn’t blame the guys. Even with woes she lighted the place up like a torch.
She saw me and tried to smile.
I sat down behind my desk, my swivel whistling dryly at her. “Hello there,” I said. “Long time. I’ve been looking for you to show around here.”
She sighed, “Why? Did you want to help me?”
I shrugged. “Let’s just say I had you pegged as a girl who wouldn’t give up easily.”
“I can’t give up,” she said. “And you’re the only one who can help me. I’ve stood out in front of this place—and in front of the Greek’s bar—every day, trying to get up my nerve to talk to you again.”
“And now you’ve made it?”
“Or else.” She glanced at the clock. So did I. It was ten past five. She tried to smile again. “Shall we go to the Greek’s and get you a drink while we talk?”
I didn’t bother to ask her what she thought we still had to talk about. “This is all right. I can live without a drink.”
She inhaled deeply, glanced about the room. She still didn’t see the hot eyes melting and running all over her.
“You’ve thought over—what we said last time?”
“Yes.”
“You know I’m right, don’t you?”
“All I know is just what I told you before. You’re fooling with a powerful man—the son of a powerful man.”
“It’s for my baby.”
“Yes. That’s what you said.” I shook my head, stared at my knuckles. “Let me get it straight. You’re willing to let Morgan Carmichael off the hook, but you think he ought to be forced to make some kind of settlement on you”
“Not on me. On—his baby.”
“Okay. On his baby. What kind of settlement do you think would be right?”
Her mouth twisted, she sat straighten “His father owns a huge corporation, is director of a bank. I don’t know what else—”
“Never mind that. I do.”
“What kind of settlement do you think would be—right?”
I grinned at her. “We’d never get that much.”
For the first time, hope glimmered in her black eyes. She pushed her hand through her thick hair. “I thought you said the police couldn’t help me.
“Technically, they can’t.” I shrugged, and she almost smiled again. I glanced at the clock. “But I’m off duty. Maybe we could work out something.”
“Have you forgotten how powerful you thought Morgan’s father is?”
“No. I remember all that. Clearly.”
She did smile now. “Thank heaven I met you, Mr. Ballard.” She gathered up her purse, started to get up.
I touched her arm. “What’s the matter with you? Where are you going?”
“Maybe you’ll be fired, blacklisted—even killed. I don’t want that—not after you said what you just did.” Her voice quavered. “I’ve changed my mind, Mr. Ballard. Thanks anyway.”
“Dammit,” I said. “Sit down. You came back here. I didn’t come looking for you.”
“I know But I—”
I stood up. “If you’re going to learn to think about your baby, the first thing to learn is to admit you’re not the only one with problems. Maybe I’ve got my own reasons now for playing on your team.” I took her arm, led her out. “Come on.”
She did not say anything until we were downstairs in the parking lot. We got into my car. When I parked in front of my apartment house, Lupe was paler than ever.
“Where are we going?”
“Up to my place. Come on.”
She breathed in deeply. She was very pale under her olive skin. “All right—if that’s what you want.”
We were on the walk. I grabbed her shoulder, heeled her around. “Look, kid. Don’t get ideas about me. If I want a lay, I can get women.”
She looked as if I’d backhanded her across the eyes. She took a step backwards. Her voice was low “All right, Mr. Ballard.”
I turned and strode ahead of her into the apartment building. I fumbled through the bills in my mail box for a moment, letting her get used to the idea of going up to a man’s apartment. We went up in the elevator in silence. I wondered how Morgan Carmichael ever got her in this interesting predicament if she were so afraid of being alone with males.
I let us in, went around opening up the apartment. A breeze off the river riffled the curtains.
She sat down on the divan, knees together, looking at me.
The phone rang. It was Ernie Gault, “You busy, Mike?”
“Right now I am.”
“Another blonde?” His voice sounded troubled.
I glanced down at Lupe who had leaned back on the divan, trying to relax. “A brunette this time.” She looked up, startled, met my gaze, then smiled. She relaxed again.
“Well, I’ll call you later.”
“What is it, Ernie?”
“Nothing. Just wanted to gab. Hell, there’s no hurry.”
I replaced the receiver. I went into the kitchenette, found a glass, filled it with milk, brought it back to Lupe.
She smiled. “I don’t like milk, Mike.”
“You should.”
“I’m all right.”
I went to my small bar, poured myself a drink. “Sure you are. That’s why you’re here. Drink your milk.”
Obediently she took a drink of milk, made a face. She watched me over the top of the glass. “You—drink liquor quite a lot, don’t you, Mike?”
“I do a lot of things quite a lot, lad.”
She was looking me over. “Yes. I guess you do.”
I pulled over a straight chair for her, sat down and sipped my whiskey, studying her. “How would you like to see lover boy again tonight? Say for one last time?”
“Morgan?” Her mouth trembled. “I never want to see him again.”
“You want some money though, don’t you?”
“I—I’ve got to have it.”
“Then get on that phone. Call your lover boy and don’t take no for an answer. If he hangs up on you, call back. Tell him you’ve rented an apartment. This apartment. Tell him he’s right about the things he said to you. Tell him—hell, tell him you’ll call it quits, never bother him again, if he’ll come over here tonight. One last time.”
“Must I?”
I shrugged. “What made you think I was kidding?”
She sat there for a long time, long enough for me to finish the bourbon and get dry. While I was making a fresh one, she put through the call. It wasn’t easy. At the Carmichael house, they tried to give her the runaround. It was easy to see Morgan had put her name on a list, even with the servants.
When she finally got through to Morgan, he was too busy to yak with her. She stared at me in desperation. I just kept looking at her, nothing in my face. She hung on.
She kept talking, whispering, wheedling, promising, dealing. I began to see how she got in this predicament after all. There was more sex in her voice than most women project with their whole bodies. I remembered Naomi Hyers, looking along her nose, and I grinned to myself. If young Carmichael passed up Lupe for Naomi, he deserved what he got. Hell, I could feel a stirring in myself just listening to Lupe.
Finally she glanced up, eyes stricken, but giving me a wan smile. She had heated young Carmichael past his boiling point—he was coming over.
She replaced the receiver and sank back against the couch, spent.
“Fine,” I said. “Now get out of that dress.”
She started to protest. Then her eyes touched mine and she changed her mind.
She gave me a scared smile, nodded. “All right, Mike.”
She slipped out of the dress. I walked to the window to let the breeze touch me. I did not make a point of not looking at her—and she was even lovelier than the boys in the bureau had imagined she would be out of that dress. Her full curves looked swollen, as if they needed to be loved. She was lush and dark and beautiful.
I finally looked away. “Now take off that bra and your pants,” I told her across my shoulder. I stared out at the darkening river. Lights winked, reflected in it. I winked back.
At last she said, ‘All right. I’ve done it.”
I glanced across my shoulder. I caught my breath. “For hell’s sake, kid, I meant leave your slip on.”
She blushed and wriggled into her slip, pulling it down over her head and undulating up into it. I thought how tough it was remembering why she was here at all.
I drew in a deep breath and turned around, trying to keep everything natural and easy. Her slip didn’t help matters. It only seemed to accentuate her desirability.
“Now, when he comes in,” I said, “act as if you’re hot as a rivet. You can’t resist him. No matter what you think about him now, no matter what he says, get him down on that couch.”
She looked miserable and forlorn, as if she wished she had never started this. “I’ll try,” she said.
I laughed at her. “Hell. It’ll be the easiest thing you ever did.”
“I feel so low,” she said, shivering. “So vile.”
“Good. If you feel vile, then Morgan Carmichael has finally dragged you down to his level. So just keep that thought in your mind—that and the way you want your baby to be taken care of.”
We waited forty minutes, during which I kept coaching her; then we heard him at the door. I stepped into the darkened bedroom.
Lupe crossed the apartment in her slip, and I heard castanets. She hesitated. Carmichael rang again, an impatient sound. He was in a hurry to walk into our little trap.
She opened the door and Morgan strode in. I studied him through the partly open bedroom door. Even at twenty-six he looked like a spoiled lost kid who had no idea of the score, who had not even bothered to figure out the rules of the game. I failed to see what about him had excited Lupe.
His breath caught when he saw her. His headshake was unconvincing.
He said, “It’s no good, Lupe. I told you. It’s no use. I’m marrying Naomi Hyers. It’s all over. God knows you’re lovely. But—it’s all over, baby. Why don’t you be a nice kid—and forget it?”
All this time, judging by his eyes, he was not forgetting a damned thing.
Lupe breathed raggedly. Her breathing did something to the front of that slip. The castanets started again in my mind. I was pretty sure young Carmichael was hearing them, too, by now. Lupe managed to keep smiling.
“All right, Morgan. That’s exactly why I wanted to see you. I wanted to tell you—you were right.”
“You could have said that over the phone.”
But something had happened to his voice. Lupe moved closer to him and the violins were coming in under the castanets. She was getting to him. It must have been easy—she had done this before. “I wanted you here—” her voice poured down over him like Cuban syrup—”because I had to see you—one more time.”
“Okay then, baby.” Big shot, he was doing her a favor. “That’s the way it’s got to be, then.”
He got her sprawled on the couch almost before I could get my camera set up. He knew what he wanted, and she knew what she was doing. It was in her blood. She was still crazy about him, too, no matter how terribly he had made her hate him.
I had to act fast. I didn’t give them any time together. I had worked up a real dislike for this boy. When my flashbulb went off, Morgan Carmichael sprang up from Lupe as if he had been shot. He moved fast, but not fast enough. I beat him to his clothes.
He was shaking all over. Typically, like a spoiled brat, he turned away from danger. What he needed was someone to blame.
“You damned little Cuban bitch! A blackmail trick won’t buy you a damned thing.”
Lupe jumped up from the couch but before she could speak he backhanded her across the face so hard he knocked her to the floor. He stood over her. His face was wild and frantic—and sick. I threw him his clothes.
“Put ‘em on,” I said thickly. “Then get out of here—fast.”
When he was gone I went to Lupe. She was still on the floor. Her slip was pulled high above her hips. I knelt beside her, pulled it down. She was crying softly into her hands.
“Don’t worry, querida mia.” I kept my voice as low and soft as possible, the way my mother had crooned to me when I was a kid and hurt—hell, a hundred years ago. Lupe needed to be reminded of all the things her mother should have told her—of her baby, and everything she needed for it.
After a while she said, “Oh, how this is going to cost that pudrise. Oh, how it’s going to cost him.”
She sobbed for a moment, then turned and hurled herself against me where I was hunkered beside her. She struck hard against me, throwing her arms around me, thrusting her face against my chest, sobbing. I held her and let her cry it all out, the weeks and months of it when she had wanted to cry and had had no one with whom to share her tears.
I felt not the least ashamed—not even when I realized that being a young girl’s idea of a strong man can be the hardest thing in the world.