“Sure you do, boy,” Rufus said, setting him back on the floor and removing his hands. “Sure you do. Well, then, it’s all settled. And the faster we have the weddin’, the better.”
“But I don’t want to marry him,” Llona said quietly.
“What’s that? Whadda you mean you don’t want to many him? You gotta marry him!”
“Why?” Llona said. “Why do I ‘gotta’? Nothing really happened.”
“You expect me to believe that?” Rufus asked ominously.
“It happens to be true.”
“That right?” His voice dripped sarcasm. “Then how do you explain that?”
Llona’s eyes followed down the length of his quivering arm. The outstretched finger at the end of it was pointed with sure logic at a spot on the floor. There, in an imtimate, compromising tangle, lay her panties and George's jockey shorts.
“I don’t care,” she said. “It’s not true. Nothing happened And I won’t marry George.”
“Oh yes you will,” Rufus said with absolute certainty. “Now you just go to your room. My future son-in-law ’n’ me’s got weddin’ plans to be makin’. Jes’ you sit right down there, son.”
George sat numbly down on the sofa while Llona ran upstairs, sobbing. She threw herself down on her bed and lay there sobbing for a long time. Finally, all cried out, she sat up and looked at herself in the mirror.
I won’t throw my life away, she told herself. I just won’t! And I won’t have some man marrying me because my father forces him to do it. It’s too humiliating! I'd rather die first!
Then Llona was struck by a sudden idea. She rummaged through her bureau for the little box where she kept the money she’d been saving from her job at the Five-and~Dime. She found the box and emptied it on the bed. Then she emptied the contents of her coin purse on top of it and counted the money. Seventy-two dollars and thirty-nine cents. It would have to be enough.
I’d rather die first, but I don’t have to. All I have to do is get away from Birchville!
Llona quickly pulled down a suitcase from the shelf of her closet. She began emptying drawers and tossing clothes into it. If she hurried, she could catch the midnight bus out of town.
Suddenly she was filled with exhilaration. She wouldn’t be doomed to just another dull life in Birchville. She wouldn’t. She was going away. Her life was just beginning. She could go where she wanted to go, do what she wanted to do, be what she wanted to be.
“I wish I was a fascinatin’ bitch . . .”
Llona began humming the words under her breath as she packed. Yes sirree, her life was just beginning! Just beginning!
Chapter Two
GERTIE MORAN was on her third circuit around the park and her feet were getting tired. It was a slow night when she hadn’t turned her first trick by eleven o’clock. Hell, she hadn’t even seen a John who might be a prospect. It was damn discouraging.
Gertie paused before turning the corner of the park. She straightened her shoulders, heaving a sigh at the twinge of arthritis that flicked her back muscles. She took a deep breath, put both hands under her bosom, and pushed it up. She knew it would slip down again, but while it was wobbling back to its more natural position, the motion just might intrigue some passing John. She twisted her too-red mouth into what was intended to be an inviting smile and turned the corner, telling herself that her first trick just had to be up this block.
Damn it! There she was again! Or, rather, still. That dame was still sitting there on the park bench. What the hell was the big idea? Didn’t the tramp know this was her territory. Yes, her territory, bought and paid for, cops, pimp, syndicate and all. So what was this little tramp trying to pull off?
The first time she’d spotted her, Gertie had thought it odd. Girls didn’t just sit around in this neighborhood. Not nice girls, anyway. It was a good place to get mugged, or raped, or who knew what. The second time around, still finding her there, Gertie had begun to get suspicious. Now that suspicion was beginning to grow into a certainty. She looked the chick over carefully as she strolled slowly toward her and then past her.
She was young, with dark blonde hair. She wasn’t made up, or dressed like a hustler, but then that didn’t always mean anything. Not when they were built like that, Gertie told herself, feeling a little envious at the big breasts straining against the material of the girl’s sweater. Yeah, she was built all right, and what the hell would she be doing here all this time if she wasn’t hustling? Gertie rounded the next corner and stopped to think about it.
After a moment she peeked cautiously back around the corner to see what the girl was doing. There was a guy walking toward her, slowly, like he was just out for a walk. A mark! Gertie spotted him. He sure might be a mark, walking along that way like he was just out for air.
Then she gasped to herself as the guy passed the girl on the bench. The girl’s head swiveled slowly as he walked past and there was a great, big, ear-to-ear smile that said “For Hire!” pasted across her face. But the guy just ignored it and kept on walking.
So the guy hadn’t been a John after all. Still, there could no longer be any doubt about it. That babe was hustling. And she was hustling her territory. Well, she’d just see about that, Gertie told herself determinedly as she crossed the street and walked briskly toward the bright lights of the row of stores two blocks away.
When she reached it, she looked down its length for a moment. Then she spotted the man she was looking for in front of a cigar store halfway down the block. She headed for him with fire in her eye.
“You, Claude,” she said, planting her feet firmly in front of him. “I want to see you.”
“Well, my goodness gracious, if it isn’t Gertie Garbage.” The effeminate young man in the tight-fitting chinos made her a mock bow.
“I’ll Gertie Garbage you, you puffed-up pansy pimp,” she told him. “Don’t you get wise with me. I pay you good money to steer me some Johns and keep the competish away from my territory, and what happens? I'll tell you what happens! You haven’t found me a live one in a month, and now there’s some young bimbo cutting in on me while you stand here batting your eyelashes and playing pocket pool with yourself. That’s what happens!”
“My heavens, you are in a tizzy. Now why don’t you just calm down, sweetie, and tell Claude what’s upsetting your tum-tum?”
“Tum-tum! Holy jumping Polly Adler! Two hundred pimps in this town and I had to pick a dishrag like you. I oughta have my cranium examined! All right! I’ll tell you what’s upsetting my tum-tum. Just what I said, that’s what. There’s some floozie down at the park lifting her skirt at every John that goes by and cutting into what little’s left of my business!”
“Is that all, sweetie?” He patted her cheek with an impeccably manicured hand. “Well, don’t you fret. Claude will just walk down there and tell the lady to move on. See? You don't have to get your ulcers all in a tizz.” He patted her again and swayed down the block toward the park.
Spotting the girl, Claude stopped mincing and adopted a more he-mannish swagger. His walk slowed as he came closer to her, and the look he gave her had none of the coyness of the flaunting fruit. It was the look of a man looking for a woman and it said “How about it, baby?” as clearly as though he’d spoken the words. The frightened half-smile she gave him by way of answer said “Okay!”
“All alone, girlie?” Claude sat down on the bench alongside her.
“As alone as you can get.” Her voice trembled.
“So am I. I guess that sorta puts us in the same boat.”