Gertrude Schalk
The dressing room was in an uproar. Mazie vainly trying to make herself heard, finally waved the telegram over her head and shouted:
“Willya shut up for one minute!”
Gradually the voices softened while six wide-eyed girls gathered around.
“Honest, Mazie, did the High-Flyer really marry that foreign millionaire?” The girl from Chicago begged for an answer. “I saw it in the papers, but you can’t believe…”
“If you’ll wait a minute while I read her telegram…” Mazie said witheringly. Flora shut up, her lovely brown skin tinted with pink from the excitement. “Bobbie says, ‘Sorry I couldn’t give notice, but Juan is so impatient. Married this morning. Love, Bobbie.’ Then,” Mazie grinned faintly, “she added a P.S. ‘Who said I wouldn’t touch the sky!’”
There was an undercurrent of excitement all through the Yellow Parrot that evening. Even the patrons were thrilled with the romance of the little chorus girl who had nabbed the hitherto girl-shy millionaire. Every time the girls came out there was an extra round of applause.
Jinks, the manager, was part angry, part pleased. Angry because Bobbie had left an empty space in the chorus. Pleased, because it had given extra publicity to the Yellow Parrot to have her elope with Juan.
And the girls… of course they were filled with envy. Not badly but just enough to make them wistful. Only Flora, the kid from Chicago, took it hard.
“Hot Damn!” she swore softly to herself once while she was repairing her make-up between numbers. “I’m better looking than Bobbie. I can dance better. I got more personality. Why couldn’t I have married that guy?”
It began to gall her horribly. Why hadn’t she seen him first? Believe it or not, if she had seen him first, he’d never have even sneered at the High-Flyer! Why her figure could beat that bean’s stringiness any day of the week!
It did something to her native cautiousness, this coup of Bobbie’s. So that later in the evening when a loud party of down-towners spilled into the night club and began getting wise with the girls, Flora dimpled demurely and smiled back. They spelled money to her knowing eyes. That older man with the gray eyes and iron-gray hair… well, you just know he owned a couple of banks and a flock of apartment houses.
It was Jinks, unknowingly, who put the final dot to the decision that had been forming slowly behind Flora’s curly head. He came into the dressing room between numbers and gave a “pep” talk.
“Listen, girls,” he rubbed his hands together (denoting good business) and beamed. “There’s our first real big money party out there now! What I mean BIG money! John Martin who owns half the land in New York state and a couple other states besides… anyway, he’s out there with a party. And I want you kids to do your stuff!”
Flora narrowed her eyes thoughtfully and grinned. Here was her chance made to order. Other chorus girls landed rich white men, why shouldn’t she? Why, look at the girls who drove their own Packards and who had three or four coats! They didn’t get them off no measly fifty per week. Huh!
Flora was easily the best looker in the chorus. But this evening she was twice as hot looking. Her eyes sparkled overtime; her lips were too luscious and red; her bare shoulders gleamed softly brown under the changing lights. And behind all that lay a great purpose.
John Martin wasn’t as drunk as the rest of his party, but he was gay enough to try and flirt with Flora. In fact whether he knew it or not, it was Flora who paved the way for the little byplay that came about at the end of a certain number.
To all appearances it was just an accident, but Flora knew that by giving an extra wide turn at the end, she could make herself half slide into John Martin’s lap! She did, and of course, he held her tight for one little moment.
Just long enough for her to melt softly into his lap in a sort of velvety bundle that sent tiny prickles of feeling darting thru his body…
Then she was gone, her lovely legs twinkling across the floor, her arms outstretched, an audacious twinkle in her dark eyes.
Back in the dressing room Flora nodded to her reflection in the mirror. “That ought to bring him, baby!” she told herself softly.
The next time she danced out into the spotlight, a demure, holier-than-thou expression in her wide eyes, Flora didn’t even glance John Martin’s way. Not even when he pursed his lips and made a soft hissing sound. She merely danced past, eyes straight ahead and let him whistle.
But once back in the dressing room, Flora scuttled to where she could peep unseen into the club proper. John Martin was looking around arrogantly, his eyes seeking…
Jinks came over bowing profoundly. Martin beckoned him closer, whispered in the manager’s ear.
Flora shivered with excitement. If Jinks headed for the dressing room, she’d know for sure that she had attracted John “Million-bucks” Martin!
And while she jiggled there nervously, Flora saw Jinks straighten up, grin knowingly and then wheel to march straight toward her!
None of the girls knew just why Flora flew to her chair and proceeded to be very busy making up when Jinks walked in. But they did know something was up when he bent over Flora’s chair and did a powerful lot of whispering in her ear.
“He wants to meet you, kid,” Jinks told her.
“Nothing doing,” Flora pretended indifference.
“Ah, say… give him a play for the night anyway. He means money!”
“Sorry,” Flora patted a bit more powder on her nose. “I didn’t know we were supposed to be nice to the customers…”
“Hell, yes! What you think…” Jinks was mad now, growing red in queer patches around his neck. “You treat him nice, get me? I mean while you’re working. Outside, ’taint none of my business, see?”
Flora nodded shortly. Inwardly she was gloating. Just what she wanted. Jinks’s approval. With a casual air she sauntered out into the club, ignoring the curiosity glowing in Mazie’s eyes.
This was one doll that Mazie wasn’t going to have any hand in her business!
John Martin was very polite when Jinks introduced them. He complimented her on her dancing and then, on the verge of leaving, he shook hands and in shaking… left a card lying in Flora’s palm.
Later, in the semi-privacy of the dressing room, she read the two lines of writing.
“I’ll be expecting you for dinner tomorrow at seven.”
And below, his address on Park Avenue!
Flora was thrilled, triumphant. Who said she wouldn’t get herself a millionaire! She mightn’t get a wedding ring with him—but who wanted one of them halters in these days and times! People got tired of seeing the same folks around day after day, year after bunk anyway. But money… having that was all to the good! And she was on her way.
The next morning Flora woke early. She just couldn’t sleep for thinking about John Martin and the dinner date. He must like her a lot to ask her to dinner in his own apartment! Park Avenue… cripes!
She fussed and she fumed getting ready. She changed from the black satin dress to the dark blue crepe and then back again, until finally when the clock pointed to six o’clock, Flora dabbed once more at her face with the powder puff and dashed madly down the street.
She got into a taxi and then seeing the time, realized that she’d probably be too early for her appointment—and got out at the next corner. Ran over to Lenox and caught the “L.” That would give her plenty of time to walk down Park Avenue…
It was just ten minutes past seven when Flora strolled nonchalantly into John Martin’s dimly lighted, gorgeous penthouse.
“My dear!” Martin himself came eagerly forward to greet her, his finely kept hand held out to grip hers. “I’m so glad you could come.”
“Thank you for having me,” Flora smiled sweetly, let her lids droop, and then lifted them with bewildering swiftness. “But isn’t it just grand… just lovely here!”
John Martin’s hands quivered with some inner emotion, removing her coat, lifting it from her smooth, bare brown arms. Just two thin black satin straps in an expanse of velvety skin…
Flora pretended not to notice his nervousness, of the way his eyes kept wandering from her face…
After all it wasn’t so different from half a hundred other little dinners Flora had enjoyed in her brief life. Only the men in those cases had been just ordinary boys who worked around Chicago.
John Martin for all his money was an ordinary man as far as Flora could see. He laughed at the same jokes, pulled the same dumb line, even tried to hold hands under the table and play footy-footy!
Brothers under the skin, Flora thought humorously, remembering a yellow boy who had done the same thing not many moons ago. What was color, money, position when a girl is involved!
After dinner—Flora knew it was coming then—the proposition. No doubting it after getting a good look at Martin’s twitching lips. He was off the deep end already. And of course she knew what she was going to say and do. Drive a bargain, her brain told her shrewdly. Don’t trust to chance or promise. Get something definite and hang on to it!
Martin drew her down on one of those modernistic, backless divans so deep and soft, Flora grew breathless from sinking down, down into it. And then suddenly he had her in his arms and his damp, loose lips were slipping over her face, her neck… his hand was sliding the little strap down over the golden brown shoulder…
Flora endured it, holding her breath, closing her eyes. A bit worse than she expected, but then… you can’t have everything. You can’t expect a perfect lover and a millionaire daddy to be rolled up in the same package.
“You beautiful little thing…” he was whispering huskily. He pressed closer, his hands almost burning her with their heat. His hands… hard not to shudder when they passed so intimately over her scantily clad body. But remember the millions…
And then when it seemed most anything might happen… when a scream was just bitten behind her tongue… Flora heard another woman’s voice, thick with anger, shouting loudly!
John Martin started, sat up and then tried clumsily to jump to his feet. Difficult to do when the divan was so low and so downy. After two ludicrous efforts he made it and turned to face the door.
“You thought I wouldn’t know, you two-timer!” The woman who had been standing in the door advanced into the room. Flora, sitting up now, recognized her as one of the party of the night before. A tall blonde, rather hard faced, but pretty. “Listen,” she went on harshly, “you old coot, who do you think you are double-crossing anyway? Not little Peggy!”
John Martin stammered, hemmed and hawed, tried to look dignified, failing each time. Flora, for the moment unnoticed, edged over until she could drop lightly over the edge of the divan onto the floor. For she had seen what she had seen! Nothing less than an automatic in the determined hand of Peggy!
“Now, Peggy my dear,” Martin was saying, “There must be some mistake. I wouldn’t double-cross you…”
“Not much!” Peggy retorted. “Every time you think my back’s turned, you dig up another dame. And now you’ve gone shady on me. Got to have you a tanned mama—oh yeah?”
And then she whirled, faced Flora. “Hey you, come here and step on it!” She sneered then. “Lemme look at you.”
And that’s where she made her mistake!
Until then Flora had been scared. But when blond Peggy had said those few words…
Flora got up, sauntered over, her hands on her hips. No one to tell Peggy that when the kid from Chicago put her hands on her hips it was time to be pulling out. Anyway, Flora was half a head shorter than Peggy and Peggy had a gun.
“Listen, Harlem.” Peggy seemed to be enjoying it now. “This bozo happens to be my meal ticket and rent money. So lay off, get it? Not that there’s much chance of him picking you…”
“Just a minute—” Flora took another step forward. “Before I flatten that skinny nose of yours, who do you think you’re talking to?”
Flora’s voice as silky as a baby’s, but behind it… boy!
Peggy brought her hand up, holding the gun tight. “Getting tight on me, baby?” she hissed, narrowing her eyes.
“Oh yeah!” Flora’s hand flashed out. There was a scream, a scuffling of two sets of silk encased limbs… a scrambling of hands and arms combined with John Martin’s gasping:
“Girls… please, girls… stop… don’t… you mustn’t!”
Ten minutes later Flora shrugged into her coat, dabbed a bit of powder on her nose and kicked one of Peggy’s shoes sky high. Behind the divan the blond beauty shivered and cried, the while trying to hold together the pieces of what had once been an exceedingly pretty… and expensive… gown.
“And let this be a lesson to you,” Flora remarked calmly as she walked out. And there beside the elevator stood John Martin, admiration glowing in his eyes.
With a hasty look over his shoulder at the door of his house, he took Flora’s reluctant hand, pressed something in the palm.
“Baby, it was worth lots more, but that’s all I have with me now!” he whispered. “I’ve been wanting to do that for months!”
He tiptoed back into the penthouse, closed the door, leaving Flora staring wide eyed at a fat wad of bills that lay in her hand.
It wasn’t until she was in a taxi going back up town that Flora really came out of the daze that had come over her. With eager fingers she hid the roll of bills, her eyes glistening, thinking of all the pretty things she could buy now… No millionaire to buy them for her though. At least, not at present. Millionaires, it seemed, weren’t to be had just for the taking, even when they were willing to be taken:
“Hasn’t been such a bad night,” Flora told herself, patting the lump that was a wad of greenbacks. “Pretty profitable to say the least. Only…” A tinge of regret showing for a moment in her eyes. “If I had known he was going to pay me for beating her up, instead of sending for the cops… I’d have socked her another couple on that skinny nose!”