She liked him, though. He knew damned well she liked him. He could tell by the way the heat came up in her slanted eyes when she looked at him. He could tell by the way her hands sometimes reached out for him, touching him lightly, straying with brief abandon. But she was like mercury. He couldn’t hold her when he reached back.
CHAPTER 7.
The night he decided to try mink, he came into the club late, just as Linda was moving onto the small circular floor in a blue spot. He stood for a minute against the wall, holding the long cardboard box under his arm, watching the emerging dusky body, his pulse matching the tropical tempo of drums in the darkness. Before the act was over, he moved on around the edge of the floor and back to the door of Linda’s room.
Inside, he lay the box on the dressing table and sat down. Waiting, he could hear faintly the crescendo of drums and muted brass that indicated Linda’s exit. The sound of her footsteps in the hall was lost in the surge of applause that continued long after she had left the floor.
She closed the door behind her and stood leaning against it, head back and eyes shining, her breasts rising and falling in deep, rhythmic breathing. Light and shadow stressed the convexities and hollows of her body.
“Hello, Frankie,” she said. “Nice surprise.”
He stood up, pulses hammering. “Nicer than you think, baby. I’ve brought you something.”
She saw the box behind him on the dressing table and moved toward it, flat muscles rippling with silken smoothness beneath dusky skin. Her exclamation was like a delighted child’s.
“Tell me what it is.”
“Open it, baby.”
Her fingers worked deftly at the knot of the cord, lifted the top of the box away. Without speaking, she shook out the luxurious fur coat, slipped into it, and hugged it around her body. She stood entranced, her back to Frankie, looking at her reflection in the dim depths of the mirror.
Closing in behind her, he took her shoulders in his hands. Capturing the hands in hers, she pulled them around her body and under the coat. Her head fell back onto his shoulder. Her breath sighed through parted lips. He could feel in his hands the vibrations of her shivering flesh.
She said sleepily, “You’re a sweet guy, Frankie. A lucky guy, too. You’re going places. Too bad I can’t go along.”
“Why not, baby? Why not go along?”
Her head rolled on his shoulder, her lips burning his neck. “Look, Frankie. When I go for a ride, I go first-class. No cheap tourist accommodations for Linda.”
“I don’t get you, baby. You call mink cheap?”
“It’s not the mink. It’s being second. It’s the idea of taking what’s left over.”
“You mean Taffy?”
She closed her eyes and said nothing, and Frankie laughed softly. “Taffy’s expendable, baby. Strictly expendable.”
“Just like that? Maybe she won’t let go.”
“How the hell can she help it?”
“She’s legal. That always helps’.”
“Married? You think Taffy and I are married?” He laughed again, his shoulders shaking with it. “Taffy and I are temporary, baby. I never figured it any other way. Nothing on paper. All off the record. We last just as long as I want us to.”
She twisted against him, her arms coming up around his neck. Her breath was in his mouth.
“How long, Frankie? How long do you want?”
His hand moved down the soft curve of her spine, drawing her in. He said hoarsely, “As far as Taffy’s concerned, I quit wanting when I saw you. Tonight I’ll make it official.”
She put her mouth over his, and he felt the hot, flicking of her tongue. Then she pushed away violently, staggering back against the dressing table. The mink hung open from her shoulders.
“Afterward, Frankie,” she whispered. “Afterward.”
He stood there blind, everything dissolved in shimmering waves of heat. At last, sight returning, he laughed shakily and moved to the door. Hand on the knob, he looked back at her.
“Like you say, baby—afterward.”
CHAPTER 8.
He went out into the hall and through the rear door into the alley. There was a small area back there in which he kept his convertible Caddy tucked away. Long, sleek, ice-blue and glittering chrome. A long way from the old Plymouth.
Behind the wheel, sending the big machine singing through the streets, he felt the tremendous uplift that comes to a man who approaches a crisis with assurance of triumph. His emotional drive was in harmony with the leashed power of the Caddy’s throbbing engine. Wearing his new personality, he could hardly remember the old Frankie. It was impossible to believe that he had once, not long ago, been driven by shame to a longing for death. Life was good. All it required was luck and guts. With luck and guts, a guy could do anything. A guy could live forever.
At the uptown apartment house, he ascended in the swift, whispering elevator and let himself into his living room with the key he carried. The living room itself was dark, but light sliced into the darkness from the partially open door of the bedroom. Silently he crossed the carpet that wasn’t actually quite up to his knees and pushed the bedroom door all the way open.
Taffy was reading in bed. Her sheer nylon gown kept nothing hidden, but what showed was nothing Frankie hadn’t seen before, and he was tired of it. He stood for a moment looking at her, wondering what would be the best way to do it. The direct way, he decided. The tough way. Get it over with, and to hell with it.
From the bed, Taffy said, “Hi, honey. You’re early tonight.”
Without answering, Frankie walked over to the closet and slammed back one of the sliding panels. He dragged a cowhide overnight bag off a shelf and carried it to the bed. Snapping the locks,
