pointing at him like the vision of the great whore who lives in the minds of all puritanical men.
He stripped the zipper of his pants getting them off; popped the buttons from his shirt. When he was nude he tried to dive into her like into the sea, but she fought him off.
'You got to put on your sack first,' she said, snatching it up from the floor and pulling it down over his head backwards by mistake. 'Oop!' she cried.
Blinded momentarily, his hands flew up to tear it off, but she snatched it off first and slipped it on him the right way, so that only his eyes, mouth, nose and ears were showing.
'Now, baby, now,' she cried.
At that moment the telephone rang.
He jumped out of bed as though the furies had attacked him, his lust going out like a light. In his haste he knocked over the chair in the doorway, bruising his shins, and slammed into the doorjamb. Curses spewed from his gasping mouth like geysers of profanity. His lank white body with stooped shoulders and reddish hair moved awkwardly and looked as though it had just come from the grave.
With a quick lithe motion she opened a secret compartment in the bed-table, snatched up the receiver of the telephone extension, and cried, 'Help!' then quickly hung up.
In his haste he didn't hear her. He reached the telephone in the sitting-room and said breathlessly, 'Henderson speaking,' but the connection had been broken. She could hear him jiggling the receiver as she slipped on a sport coat and snatched up a pair of shoes. 'Hello, hello,' he was still shouting when she went barefooted from the bedroom, locking the door behind her and taking the key, on back to the kitchen and went barefooted out of the house by the service door.
'Your party has hung up,' came the cool voice of the telephone operator.
He realized instantly the call had come from the police cruiser parked down the street. Panic exploded in his head as he realized he didn't even have his pistol. He ran naked back to the bedroom, snatched his pistol from the doorknob and tried to open the door. He found it locked. He became frantic. He couldn't risk shooting off the lock, he might hit her. The detectives from the cruiser would be there any instant and he'd catch hell. He had to get into the goddamned room. He tried breaking in, but it was a strong door with a good lock and his shoulder was taking a beating. He had forgotten the paper sack over his head.
The detectives from the cruiser had rushed there post-haste and had let themselves in with a pass-key. Over the telephone they had heard a woman cry for help. God only knew what was going on in there, but they were ready for it. They went into the apartment and spread out, their pistols in their hands. The sitting-room was empty.
They started through towards the rear. They drew up as though they had run into an invisible wall.
Down the hall was a buck-naked white man with a paper sack over his head and a holstered pistol in his hand, trying to break down the bedroom door with his bare shoulder.
No one ever knew who was the first one to explode with laughter.
Iris went down the service stairway barefooted. The sport coat was a belted wraparound of tan gaberdine and no one could tell she was naked underneath it. At the service exit on St Nicholas Avenue, she slipped into her shoes and peeped out into the street.
A car stood at the kerb in front of the apartment next door with the motor idling. A smartly dressed woman got out and ran towards the entrance. Iris cased her as an afternoon prostitute or a cheating wife. The man behind the wheel called softly, 'Bye now, baby,' and the woman fluttered her fingers and ducked out of sight.
Iris walked rapidly to the car, opened the door and got into the seat the other woman had just vacated. The man looked at her and said, ' 'Lo, baby,' as though she was the same woman he'd just told good-bye. He was a nice-looking chocolate-brown man dressed in a beautiful gray silk suit, but Iris just glanced at him.
'Drive on, daddy,' she said.
He steered from the curb and climbed St Nicholas Avenue. 'Running to or from? ' he asked.
'Neither,' she said and when they came to the church at 142nd Street she said: 'Turn left here up to Convent.'
He left-turned up the steep hill past Hamilton Terrace to the quiet stretch of Convent Avenue north of City College.
'Right here,' she directed.
He right-turned north on Convent and when he came opposite the big apartment house she said, 'This is good, daddy.'
'Could be better,' he said.
'Later,' she said and got out.
'Coming back?' he called but she didn't hear him.
She was already running across the street, up the steps and into the foyer of a big well-kept apartment house with two automatic elevators. One was waiting and she took it to the fourth floor and turned towards the apartment at the back of the hall. A serious-looking man wearing black suspenders, a white collarless shirt, and sagging black pants opened the door. He took himself as seriously as a deacon in a solvent church.
'And what can I do for you, young lady?'
'I want to see Barry Waterfield.'
'He don't want to see you, he's already got company,' he leered. 'How 'bout me?'
'Stand aside, buster,' she said, pushing past him. 'And quit peeping through keyholes.'
She went straight to Barry's room but the door was locked and she had to knock.
'Who is it?' asked a woman's voice.
'Iris. Tell Barry to let me in.'
The door was unlocked and Barry stood to one side wearing only a purple silk dressing-gown. He closed the door behind her. A naked high-yellow woman lay in the bed with the sheet drawn up to her neck.
Clothes were draped over the only chair so Iris sat on the bed and ignored the naked woman. 'Where's Deke?' she asked Barry.
He hesitated before replying, 'He's all right, he's holed up safe.'
'If you're scared of talking then write it,' she said.
He looked uncomfortable. 'How'd you get away?'
'None of your business,' she snapped.
'You're sure you weren't tailed?'
'Don't make me laugh. If the cops wanted you they'd have had you long ago, stupid as you are. Just tell me where Deke is and let others do the thinking.'
'I'll call him,' he said, going towards the door.
She started to go with him but pressure on her hip stopped her, and she said only, 'Tell him I'm coming to see him.'
He went out and locked the door from the outside without answering.
The woman in the bed whispered quickly, 'He's with Mabel Hill in the Riverton Apartments,' and gave the street, number and telephone. 'I heard Barry talking.'
Iris looked blank. 'Mabel Hill. The only Mabel Hill I know vaguely is the Mabel Hill who was married to the John Hill who got croaked.'
'That's the cutie,' the woman whispered.
Iris couldn't control the rage that distorted her face. Barry came in at that moment and looked at her, 'What's the matter with you?'
'Did you get Deke?' she countered.
He wasn't clever enough to dissemble and she knew he was lying when he said, 'Deke's cut out but he left word he would call me. He's changing his hideout.'
'Thanks for nothing,' Iris said, getting up to go.
The naked woman underneath the sheet said, 'Wait a minute and I'll give you a lift. I got my car downstairs.'
'No, you ain't,' Barry said roughly, pushing her down.
Iris unlocked the door and opened it, then turned and said, 'Go to hell, you big mother-raping square,' and slammed the door behind her.
