Vengeance Is Mine

And in that brief second I looked at her the light filtered through her hair again and reflected the sheen of gold. My whole head rocked with the fire and pain in my chest and I felt Charlotte’s name trying to force itself past my lips. Good God! Is this what it’s like to think back? Is this what happened when you remember a woman you loved then blasted into hell? I ripped my eyes away and slammed my finger against the buzzer on the wall, holding it there, staring at it until I heard metal scraping behind the doors.

The elevator stopped and the operator gave her a princely nod and a subdued murmer of greeting. The two other men in the car looked at Juno, then back to me jealously. She seemed to affect everyone the same way.

The street had taken on a slippery carpet of white that rippled under the wind. I turned up my coat collar against it and peered down the road for a cab. Juno said, “No cab, Mike. My car’s around the corner.” She fished in her pocket and brought out a gold chain that ran through two keys. “Here, you drive.”

We ducked our heads and went around the block with the wind whipping at our legs. The car she pointed out was a new Caddy convertible with all the trimmings that I thought only existed in show windows. I held the door open while she got in, slammed it shut and ran around the other side. Stuff like this was really living.

The engine was a cat’s purr under the hood wanting to pull away from the curb in a roar of power. “Call it, Juno. Where to?”

“There’s a little place downtown that I discovered a few months ago. They have the best steaks in the world if you can keep your mind on them. The most curious people in the world seem to eat there . . . almost fascinating people.”

“Fascinating?”

Her laugh was low, alive with humor. “That isn’t a good word. They’re . . . well, they’re most unusual. Really, I’ve never seen anything like it. But the food is good. Oh,’ you’ll see. Drive down Broadway and I’ll show you how to go.”

I nodded and headed toward the Stem with the windshield wipers going like metronomes. The snow was a pain, but it thinned out traffic somewhat and it was only a matter of minutes before we were downtown. Juno leaned forward in the seat, peering ahead at the street corners. I slowed down so she could see where we were and she tipped her finger against the glass.

“Next block, Mike. It’s a little place right off the corner.”

I grinned at her. “What are we doing.. . . slumming? Or is it one of those Village hangouts that have gone uptown?”

“Definitely not uptown. The food is superb.” Her eyes flashed just once as we pulled into the curb. I grinned back and she said, “You act all-knowing, Mike. Have you been here before?”

“Once. It used to be a fag joint and the food was good then too. No wonder you saw so many fascinating people.”

“Mike!”

“You ought to get around a little more, woman. You’ve been living too high in the clouds too long. If anybody sees me going in this joint I’m going to get whistled at. That is . . . if they let me in.”

She passed me a puzzled frown at that. “They tossed me out one time,” I explained. “At least they started to toss me out. The reinforcements called for reinforcements and it wound up with me walking out on my own anyway. I had my hair pulled. Nice people.”

Juno bit her lip trying to hold back a laugh. “And here I’ve been telling all my friends where to go to find wonderful steaks! Come to think of it a couple of them were rather put out when I mentioned it to them a second time.”

“Hell, they probably enjoyed themselves. Come on, let’s see how the third side lives.”

She shook the snow out of her hair and let me open the door for her. We had to go through the bar to the hat-check booth and I had a quick look at the gang lined up on the stools. Maybe ten eyes met mine in the mirror and tried to hang on but I wasn’t having any. There was a pansy down at the end of the bar trying to make a guy who was too drunk to notice and was about to give it up as a bad job. I got a smile from the guy and he came close to getting knocked on his neck. The bartender was one of them too, and he looked put out because I came in with a dame.

The girl at the hat-check booth looked like she was trying hard to grow a mustache and wasn’t having much luck at it. She gave me a frosty glare but smiled at Juno and took her time about looking her over. When the babe went to hang up the coats Juno looked back at me with a little red showing in her face and I laughed at her.

“Now you know, huh?” I said.

Her hand covered the laugh. “Oh, Mike, I feel so very foolish! And I thought they were just being friendly.”

“Oh, very friendly. To you, that is. I hope you noticed the cold treatment I got and I usually get along with any kind of dame.”

The dining room was a long, narrow room with booths along the sides and a few tables running down the middle. Nobody was at the tables, but over half the booths were filled if you can call two people of the same sex sitting along the same side filled. A waiter with a lisp and hair that curled around his neck came over and curtsied then led us to the last booth back.

I ordered a round of cocktails to come in front of the steaks and the waiter gave me another curtsy that damn near had a kiss in it. Juno opened a jeweled cigarette case and lifted out a king size. “I think he likes you, Mike,” she said. “Smoke?”

I shook my head and worked the next to last one out of my crumpled pack. Outside at the bar somebody stuck a nickel in the jukebox and managed to hit a record that didn’t try to take your ears off. It was something sweet and low-down with a throaty sax carrying the melody, the kind of music that made you want to listen instead of talk. When the cocktails came we picked them up together. “Propose a toast, Mike.”

Her eyes shone at me over the glass. “To beauty,” I said, “To Olympus. To a goddess that walks with the mortals.”

“With very . . . wonderful mortals,” Juno added.

We drained the glasses.

There were other cocktails and other toasts after that. The steaks came and were the best in the world like she said. There was that period when you feel full and contented and can sit back with a cigarette curling sweet smoke and look at the world and be glad you’re part of it.

“Thinking, Mike?”

“Yeah, thinking how nice it is to be alive. You shouldn’t have taken me here, pretty lady. It’s getting my mind off my work.”

Her face knitted in a frown. “Are you still looking for a reason for your friend’s death?”

“Uh-huh. I checked on that Marion babe, by the way. She was the one. Everything was so darned aboveboard it knocked the props out from under me. I was afraid it would happen like that. Still trying, though, still in there trying.”

“Trying?”

`Hell yes. I don’t want to wind up a grocery clerk.” She didn’t get what I meant. My grin split into a smile and that into a laugh. I had no right to feel so happy, but way back in my head I knew that the sun would come up one day and show me the answer.

“What brought that on? Or are you laughing at me?”

“Not you, Juno. I couldn’t laugh at you.” She stuck out her tongue at me. “I was laughing at the way life works out. It gets pretty complicated sometimes, then all of a sudden it’s as simple as hell, if hell can be simple. Like the potbellies with all the barebacked babes in the Bowery. You know something . . . I didn’t think I’d find you there.”

She shrugged her shoulders gracefully. “Why not? A great many of your `potbellies’ are wonderful business contacts.”

“I understand you’re tops in the line.”

I could see that pleased her. She nodded thoughtfully. “Not without reason, Mike. It has meant a good deal of exacting work both in and out of the office. We only handle work for the better houses and use the best in the selection of models. Anton, you know, is comparatively unknown as a person, simply because he refuses to take credit for his photography, but his work is far above any of the others. I think you’ve seen the interest he takes in his job.”