was twisted and baggy, but still rolled above the knee on a round garter. The other was coiled around her slim ankle.
Something peculiar about the left stocking caught her attention. She blinked her glazed eyes at it, reached down fearfully and extracted a green paper folded lengthwise four times and inserted beneath the roll above her knee.
She unfolded it wonderingly, smoothed it out between her fingers, squinting in an effort to focus her aching eyes.
A two-dollar bill! But what on earth…?
For a long time she had difficulty comprehending the significance of the bill. Then she suddenly understood! Anger swept over her, mingling with loathing and self-pity.
A two-dollar whore!
That’s what she had become. Racking sobs tore at her chest and rose in stifling knots to her throat. The cheapest sort of drunken floosie. Staggering up to a hotel room with a man who figured it was worth two bucks when he left her. Two filthy bucks, by God!
Her tears came at last. Hot tears that streamed down her cheeks and eased the knots in her throat. She blindly tore the offending bill into narrow strips, then crossways into tiny bits and flung them over the bed.
Her sobbing changed to hysterical laughter. Good enough for her! It was exactly what she deserved! Oh, God in heaven! How could she have allowed it to happen again? After being so careful. So very, very careful for the past month… since the last time.
Again the tears flowed, gently yet copiously, tears of self-pity, relaxing her body and easing the throbbing pain in her temples.
She didn’t know where she was or what time it was or how she had got there or who the man was who had paid her the final insult of slipping a two-dollar bill into her stocking.
She didn’t know anything. Try as she would, she could not remember anything after that third martini at Bart’s party. Always, in the past, there had been some vagrant memories of the things that happened during her alcoholic blackouts. Vague, disconnected and unreliable, but with a certain pattern and meaning if one worked hard at putting them together.
This time, there was nothing.
Aline wiped her eyes with the top sheet and sank back against the damp pillow, determined to go back step by step and recall everything she could from the moment she had decided to attend Bart’s party.
Let’s see. She had decided to accept Bart’s invitation at the last minute. About eight o’clock, she guessed. After all sorts of stern resolves not ever to trust herself at a drinking party again.
But she had been practicing self-control for a whole month. She was sure she could stop in time. It seemed absurd to pass up a good party just because she was afraid she wouldn’t stop drinking before she lost control.
After that horrible last time, she couldn’t possibly make the same mistake. She knew, now, that she was different from other people who drank. Her body reacted differently. Probably something to do with basic metabolism, or an allergy.
For a full month she had been checking her alcoholic intake to see exactly how she was affected by certain amounts under varying conditions. In the past it had happened because she hadn’t recognized the danger signals in time. It hadn’t worried her… not in the beginning. She would sometimes take one or two beyond her capacity and have a slight mental lapse. A few minutes or half-hour, perhaps, and then she’d be conscious again. She’d be nauseated, of course, and have to run to somebody’s bathroom, but that would be the end of it. Something to joke about with the others and dismiss from her mind.
Until a month ago!
That night had taught her a much-needed lesson. She still cringed and wanted to vomit every time she let herself remember it, which was not often. A month had glossed the horror over as scar tissue covers an open wound. Even though the experience was the most horrible that any fairly decent girl could suffer, it had happened, and she was still Aline Ferris, and that was that.
Nothing like that would ever happen again. She had learned her lesson. She could go to Bart’s party if she decided she wanted to. There was no real reason why she shouldn’t.
Just to test herself, she had mixed a light rye and water as she moved restlessly about her small apartment. She was bored with being alone, bored with the prospect of going out to dinner alone, and overwhelmingly bored with the heartsick loneliness of the past month.
The first drink had reassured her and told her exactly what she needed to know. There was a gentle glow which she recognized and welcomed. That’s what a drink should do to a normal person… relax the body and tranquilize the mind. Nothing wrong about that. Just be sure the effect was gradual and recognize one’s limits.
She had felt certain that her mistake in the past had been to take too much alcohol into her system too swiftly. She had not allowed time enough between drinks for each to have its normal effect before piling another on top of it. But now that she knew all about spacing her drinks and calculating the effect of each one before taking another, she was just as safe as anybody.
To make a final test before deciding she could safely trust herself at Bart’s party, she poured another rye and water. Slightly stronger this time, but still a moderate drink.
Her sense of certitude and well-being had increased. One didn’t have to worry if one watched one’s self and remained alert for the danger signals.
That was the most important thing, she thought contentedly as she went into her small dressing room to sit before the mirror and inspect her face. Until a month ago, she had not dreamed there was a danger line. From now on, she would be on guard against it.
Her mirror had reflected flushed cheeks and glowing eyes. She powdered her face lightly and rouged her lips, ran a comb through her hair and patted it into place. She had showered earlier, just after getting home from the office, and wore only her slip, panties and bra.
Turning from the mirror, she kicked off scuffed mules and got clean stockings from a drawer. God, she felt good after her self-imposed penance. Bart always gave good parties. He hadn’t said who’d be there tonight, but some of the gang, certainly. They would be glad to welcome her back into circulation. Some of them knew what had happened last time at Betty Elaine’s party. Well, not exactly everything, but enough to guess at the rest. And they would help her tonight. They were good kids. They didn’t like to see a girl like Aline make a complete fool of herself.
She slipped on her alligator pumps and chose the gold and blue print dress. It set off her slim waist and nice hips, and the heart-shaped neckline was flattering.
She hadn’t bothered to telephone that she had changed her mind and decided to attend the party. It didn’t matter. There would be a dozen or more anyway, with others dropping in later or leaving early.
She took one more short rye before going out. Just enough to give her that final lift that made an evening in New York so challenging and exciting to a girl who had been sedately reared in the mid-west.
Yes. It would have been about eight-thirty when she reached Bart’s apartment in the Village. She remembered paying the taxi fare and waiting impatiently while the driver made change for a five. It was eight- thirty. There had been a clock across the street above the entrance to a cellar restaurant. She had left the taxi driver the silver, and put the four bills in the small alligator handbag and gone up the steps…
Her handbag! Where was it?
Aline Ferris sat upright and looked wildly around the hotel bedroom. It was nowhere in sight. She dragged herself from the bed and waveringly made her way to the chest of drawers, frantically opened each one to find it empty. She searched the closet and looked under the bed without result. She opened the bathroom door.
Light from the bedside table spilled through the doorway onto the body of a man sprawled on the bathroom floor. His head was near the door, inches from Aline’s stockinged feet, and there was blood on the white tiles.
5
That was the first chapter of Elsie Murray’s manuscript. I laid it aside and tossed off the rest of my cognac, thinking about Elsie and what she had told me about the script.
