Fifty-to-One

KILLING CASTRO by Lawrence Block*

THE DEAD MAN’S BROTHER by Roger Zelazny*

THE CUTIE by Donald E. Westlake*

HOUSE DICK by E. Howard Hunt*

CASINO MOON by Peter Blauner*

* coming soon

FIFTY-to-ONE

by Charles Ardai

A HARD CASE CRIME BOOK

(HCC-050)

First Hard Case Crime edition: December 2008

For Max Phillips, Without whom...

1.

Grifter’s Game

The day she got the job dancing, they asked her what her name was and she told them the first thing that came to mind: Trixie. It wasn’t her real name, of course, her sister had told her enough to know better than to give them her real name; but it was close enough that if someone called it out to her she wouldn’t think they were calling someone else.

Her name was Tricia Heverstadt, Patricia Heverstadt. She was five foot one and weighed a hundred pounds soaking wet. She was pretty enough, but her body wouldn’t make any man look at her twice—no bosom to speak of and nothing much in the way of hips. She had long legs for her frame, but what did that mean when your frame was as small as hers was? Her hair was brown, her eyes were brown, her skin was pale, her smile didn’t shine. But she could move.

You put Tricia Heverstadt on a stage with a spotlight on her and a quartet pounding out some dance hall melody and you’d have yourself a show. Hell, forget the spotlight and the quartet. You put Tricia Heverstadt on the street in broad daylight, just walking along, and you’d see men’s heads turn. It wasn’t obvious just why. She wasn’t beautiful. But when she moved, your eyes wanted to follow.

Coral Heverstadt, Tricia’s older sister, had come to New York four years before, had gotten work in the chorus of a rooftop cabaret in Times Square, had written back home to Tricia in Aberdeen, South Dakota, telling how her feet ached and her shoulders chafed from the straps of the cigarette tray they made her carry around between performances, and how she couldn’t get enough sleep because an hour after she finally made it home the garbage men were pulling up outside her window, making a racket. She wrote about the men, taking liberties in the club and whistling at her on the streets, and about one masher who walked out on her in the middle of a meal at Rosie O’Grady’s when she shook her head no to the suggestion he whispered in her ear. She wrote about all this and signed her letters “Your struggling sister” but the day Tricia turned eighteen and her mother could no longer prevent her, she was on a train to New York.

She arrived at Grand Central Station and for a good fifteen minutes couldn’t find her way out, just kept dragging her luggage in circles through its cavernous rooms and underground corridors, till finally a policeman pointed her toward the Vanderbilt Avenue exit. And as she headed off, the poor flatfoot’s eyes followed her and he beat a little tattoo on his palm with his nightstick.

She had her sister’s letters in a bundle in her purse, and she showed the return address to the cab driver at the head of the line. He heaved her two bags and her typewriter case into the trunk, ushered her into the back seat, slammed the door behind her, and took off down Lexington Avenue, aimed smack at the heart of Greenwich Village. At first Tricia didn’t even notice the buildings speeding by outside, she was so taken with the pair of fold-down jump seats leaning up against the back of the driver’s seat and the automatic taxi meter ticking away her fare. She didn’t even mind watching the numbers rise, higher and higher. A taxi ride through New York City! It was an extravagance, a luxury, perhaps the last she’d enjoy for a good, long time; but she did enjoy it so. It felt as though her childhood in Aberdeen was dropping away from her at last with each city block they drove, with each expensive tick of the meter.

Coral greeted her at the door of the rooming house on Cornelia Street, hugged her and lifted her off her feet while the cab driver unloaded her luggage. Coral took after their mother, had the broad shoulders and muscular arms, and she picked up one heavy bag in each hand and carried them up the front steps without the slightest show of effort, chattering nervously as she went. It was lovely to see Tricia, it had been so long, what a wonderful idea, to drop by for a visit—how was mama? Tricia picked up the typewriter case and followed her sister up to the big glass door leading into the building’s vestibule. “Mama’s good,” she said. “But Cory, I’m not here for a visit. I’m here for good.” And then when Coral didn’t respond, just stood there staring, she said, “I want to live in the city. I’ve moved here. To stay.”

And the smile that had slowly been eroding on Coral’s face as Tricia spoke fell all to pieces. “No,” she said, putting the suitcases down on either side of her. “No, no...you come for a visit, Patty, you see the Empire State, you eat at Lindy’s and you go right back home. You can’t move here. You can’t live here.”

“Why not? You do.”

That seemed to be a stumper. Coral Heverstadt heaved a sigh up from the depths of her abdomen. “I do lots of things, kiddo. You wouldn’t want to do them. I wouldn’t want you doing them, and mama sure as hell wouldn’t.”

“You mean dancing?”

“I don’t mean dancing.”

“Well, then what do you mean?”

Another sigh, long and plangent. “It would never work. What were you going to do for money?”

“I have some money,” Tricia said, patting her purse. “I’ve been saving up for a while now. Maybe it won’t last long, but it’ll hold me for a month, I figure, and by then I’ll have a job, and...I’ll get by. I don’t eat much.” She smiled hopefully.

“And where were you planning to stay?”

The smile widened.

“No,” Coral said. “Honey, no. I can’t put you up. I—I just can’t. Don’t ask me why.”

“Why?”

“Patty, listen to me. I live in one room. Bathroom’s down the hall. There are ten other people on the same floor and in the morning you’ve got to fight the whole lot of them just to pee.”

“That’s okay. I can hold it.”

“Patty, listen to me. I...don’t live alone.”

“Okay, so it’s tight, I understand, but I wouldn’t stay long. And it might even be fun, three girls in the big city—”

“Two girls,” Coral said. “It’d be two girls.”

“Two? But you said you don’t live alone...” Tricia’s hand leapt to her mouth. “Oh!”

“Yeah: Oh. So would you please just get yourself back on that train and go home to mama and tell her you saw me and everything was fine and you had a nice visit but now you’re home to stay? Please?” She reached a hand out and ruffled Tricia’s hair. “Please.”

But Tricia didn’t say anything. She couldn’t. Her face was blank, her breathing slow. Comprehension was just beginning to break through.

“Please,” her sister said again. “Go home.” Coral held her eyes for a second, then turned, went inside, drew the door shut behind her. Through the glass, Tricia watched her retreat up the stairs.

Tricia set the typewriter case down beside her other two bags. She looked around. The street was bustling, as every street in New York City seemed to be; but she might as well have been alone. She was alone.