She got the raincoat out of the closet, and belted it around her. They said good night, and she left.
A little urine had trickled down her legs, making them itch and sting, and leaving an unpleasant sogginess in her shoes. Her underpants chafed and stung, and the seat of the slacks seemed to have soaked through. The ache in her right hand grew, spread slowly up into her wrist and arm.
She hoped she hadn't soiled Bobo's lounge. She'd been very lucky, considering the amount her blunder must have cost him, but a little thing like that might spoil it.
She picked up her car, and drove away from the hotel.
As she entered her apartment, she kicked out of her shoes, began flinging her clothes from her; leaving them in a trail behind her as she hurried toward the bathroom. She closed its door. Kneeling, she went down in front of the toilet as though it were an altar, and a great sob shook her body.
Weeping hysterically, laughing and crying, she began to vomit.
10
At a few minutes before noon, Moira Langtry came out of the arched door of the hospital and crossed the street to the parking lot. She'd risen unusually early that day in order to turn herself out with extra care, and the result was all that she could have hoped for. She was a brunette dream, a fragrant sultry-eyed vision of loveliness. The nurses had looked after her enviously as she tripped down the corridor. The doctors and interns had almost drooled, their eyes lingering on the delicate shivering of her breasts and the sensual swing of her rounded little hips.
Women almost always disliked Moira. She was glad that they did, taking it as a compliment and returning their dislike. Men, of course, were invariably drawn to her, a reaction which she expected and cultivated but was emotionally cold to. Very rarely did they appeal to her. Roy Dillon was one of the rare ones who did. In her own way, she had been faithful to him during the three years of their acquaintance.
Roy was fun. Roy stirred her. Man-wise, he was the luxury which she had clutched to herself no more than a half-dozen times in her life. Six men out of the hundreds who had had her body.
If she could put him to practical use, fine. She hoped and believed she could do just that. If not, she still wanted him, and she did not intend to have him taken from her. It wasn't, of course, that she absolutely couldn't do without him; women who got that way over a man were strictly for the movies. But she simply couldn't afford such a loss, its clear threat to her security.
When things reached the point where she couldn't hold a man, then she was finished. She might as well do a high brodie out of the nearest window.
So today she had risen early, knocking herself out to be a knockout. Thinking that by arriving at the hospital at an off-hour, she could see Roy alone for a change and tease his appetite for what he had been missing. It was highly necessary, she felt. Particularly with his mother working against her, and throwing that cute little nurse at him.
And today, after all the trouble she'd gone to, his damned snotty mother was there. It was almost as though Mrs. Dillon had read her mind, intuitively suspecting her visit to the hospital and busting her goddamned pants to be there at the same time.
Smoldering, Moira reached the parking lot. The pimply-faced attendant hastened to open the door of her car, and as she climbed into it, she rewarded him with a look at her legs.
She drove off the lot, breathing heavily, wishing that she could get Lilly Dillon alone in a good dark alley. The more she thought about her recent visit the angrier she became.
That's what you got for trying to be nice to people! You tried to be nice to 'em and they made you look like a fool!
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Moira's hands tightened on the wheel of the car.
She told herself that she could cheerfully kill Mrs. Dillon. She could strangle her with her bare hands.
At her apartment house, she turned the Cadillac over to the doorman, and went on through the lobby to the grille and cocktail lounge.
It was well into the noon-hour now. Many of the tables were occupied, and waiters in smart white pea jackets were hurrying in and out of the kitchen with trays of delicately smelling food. One of them brought Moira an outsize menu. She studied it, hesitating over the filet mignon sandwich with stuffed mushrooms (6.75).
She was hungry. Breakfast had consisted of her usual unsweetened grapefruit and black coffee. But she needed a drink more than she needed food: two or three strong, reassuring drinks. And she could allow herself only so many calories a day.
Closing the menu, she handed it back to the waiter. 'Just a drink now, Allen,' she smiled. 'I'll eat later on.'
'Certainly, Mrs. Langtry. A martini, perhaps? Gibson?'
'Mmm, no. Something with a little more character, I believe. A sidecar, say, with bourbon instead of brandy. And, Allen, no Triple Sec, please.'
'Emphatically!' The waiter wrote on his pad. 'We always use Cointreau in a sidecar. Now, would you like the rim of the glass sugared or plain?'
'Plain. About an ounce and a half of bourbon to an ounce of Cointreau, and a twist of lime peel instead of lemon.'
'Right away, Mrs. Langtry.'
'And, Allen…'
'Yes, Mrs. Langtry?'
'I want that served in a champagne glass. A thoroughly chilled glass, please.'
'Certainly.'
Moira watched him as he hurried away, her carefully composed features concealing an incipient snicker. Now, wasn't that something, she thought. No wonder the world was going to hell when a grown man pranced around in a monkey suit, brown-nosing dames who made a big deal out of ordering a belt of booze! Where had it all started? she wondered. Where the beginning of this detour which had sidetracked civilization into mixing drinks with one hand and stirring up bombs with the other?
She thought about it, not thinking in those words, of course. Simply feeling that the times were out of joint with themselves, and that the most emphasis was put on the least-worthwhile pursuits.
What it all boiled down to really was everybody giving everybody else a hard time for no good reason whatever. And the hell of it was that there seemed to be no way of getting on the right track. You couldn't
