Girls' Dormitory (15 page)

"Cost you a few bucks to find out."

"It'll cost me nothing," Jerry said.

"Why not?"

Jerry balled up his right fist.

"This is why not."

The woman lived on Grand Avenue, near one of the coat factories. She had an apartment and she did her work there.

"She's good," Frank said. "Some of the girls from the houses go there. I know of one who's been there three times."

"How much?"

"Two-fifty or three hundred. It depends."

"Thanks."

"You're not welcome."

Back in the car he kept driving downtown. Now and then he glanced at the box beside him.

Three hundred bucks. He had to have it. Three hundred bucks or everything would be pretty much finished for him.

When he reached Forbes Street he parked in front of a hock shop.

There was no other way. None. And he couldn't be any worse off, no matter what happened.

He ripped open the box and took out the fur. The coat must be worth at least three hundred.

Someday he would get it back for her, he told himself.

Someday.

Helen was shocked; it was the first time that death had ever been close to her, the first time that death had struck somebody she knew.

"I don't believe it," she said.

"It's true," Cathy Barnes said. "The police were here and they talked to Mrs. Reid. They also talked to some of the girls. I was one of them."

"What did you say?"

"Just that I knew her and that I knew she was pregnant. They wanted to know when she had left the house, who had gone with her, but nobody could be sure. She left for classes yesterday morning but she never did show up at the college. She was alone and I guess I was the last one to see her alive—the last one that they know anything about. She was on the corner, waiting for the bus, and she didn't even speak when I went past her."

"Did she look funny?"

"What do you mean, funny? How should she look? She was just standing there, staring up the street, and she didn't look at me."

"Poor Evelyn," Helen said. "What a miserable way to die."

Cathy, who had been standing in the doorway, turned and started down the hall.

"It's taught me a lesson," Cathy said. "The next man who fools around with me will have to put what he's going to do in writing. I can just imagine myself getting that way and doing the same thing. Hell, I don't want to die."

Helen closed the door and walked toward the bed. Her knees were weak. That was a man for you. A man didn't care about the woman. All a man wanted was his own pleasure. The woman suffered and, in a situation like this, the woman died.

A truck driver had found Evelyn's body near the river, lying in a snow bank. She had died as the result of an attempted abortion.

"If only she had gone sooner," Marie Thatcher said. "It's not so dangerous until after the third month. Painful, maybe, but she'd still be alive. Waiting that long was almost murder."

Helen shrugged and tried to relax. She couldn't worry about Evelyn; worrying would do Evelyn no good and, besides, she had her own problems. A lot of them.

Peggy was now living in the upstairs room and she rarely saw Peggy except going to or from school. A change had come over Peggy, a vast change which Helen did not understand.

"Are we going to get a place downtown?" she had asked Peggy.

"No."

"Why not?"

"I don't think we should."

"But—"

"I don't want to. I just don't want to."

Now that she was living alone in the room Helen was lonely, terribly lonely. The nights were worse than the days but the days were pretty bad, too. Afternoons, when they had come in from school, there had been love and now there was no love. There was just that terrible ache, that constant yearning—and the room at the end of the hall on the second floor.

She guessed that she hated Thelma Reid. She didn't want to hate any girl, but she couldn't help hating Thelma. She was a toy for her, a plaything of desire, and Thelma dominated her constantly.

"You're mine," Thelma would say. "All mine."

"No!"

"But you are. Try to change it."

She had thought of trying to change it but there was no way. Thelma knew too much about her. She would have to pay the price for having been a fool, pay it until she could leave the rooming house and make her way elsewhere.

Jerry no longer presented any difficulty—except in one way. She had gone down to the house on Kennedy Street the previous weekend, unwilling but afraid not to go, and he had not shown up. Later, when she had seen him, he said that he was giving the business up, that he didn't want to continue. Helen didn't know how she would live without the money from the men. She had very little money in the bank and no way of getting any more. Of course, she could always go right on by herself and work only the better sections of the town. If she did that she would have more than she had ever had. And the other possibility she had for money was Peggy. That she could count on. Peggy would give it to her—one way or another.

Helen was still in love with Peggy, and Peggy had drifted away from her. Peggy had been seeing Jerry a lot and perhaps it had been more than just a game. Jerry could be rather persuasive when he wanted to be; he knew how to please a woman. He wasn't like Harry Martin who was a stupid fool. Harry thought every girl was as sacred as his mother and he treated her that way. Harry, whether he knew it or not, had a good job being an undertaker's helper. He was as dead as they came.

Money, money, money—Helen had to have money. Tuition would soon be due again, there would be books to buy and rent to pay. Well, she could forget about the rent. She paid her rent every night in the end room on the second floor. But there were clothes and lots of other things. Yes, she had to have money. And when she got what she needed right now she would still want more. She always wanted more. Never had there been enough money for her and there never would be enough, unless—

She smiled and lay back on the bed, closing her eyes. She was not utterly stupid. Someday she would manage to have what she wanted. Someday, somehow, she would be rich. She would have all of the things she had ever dreamed about, and then things would be all right. The only thing she had to find was a wealthy man. And she knew of one. Just one. But one was all she needed.

When she awoke there was someone in her room, moving around in the half-light. She sat up, rubbed her eyes and yawned.

"What the hell do you want?" she asked.

The figure straightened and she recognized Jerry.

"I've got to talk to you," he said.

"You shouldn't be here."

"I know that, but what can I do when I never see you any more?"

"Write me a letter," she replied. "And mail it under a rock."

He came over and sat down on the edge of the bed. "You're not so tough," he said. "You just talk that way."

"You'd be surprised."

"Nothing would surprise me any more."

"If it ever would have." She yawned again and stretched. "Why did you have to see me?"

"About this weekend."

"What about this weekend?"

"I got a place uptown, a nice place, and we can work from there."

"I thought you were all done with that business."

"I was. But not now."

"Need the money?"

"Both of us do."

"That's no lie," she said. "I've got twenty bucks to my name."

"That's more than I’ve got."

"But you get forty a week. And I get nothing. There's a difference between the two."

"Not much."

She thought about it, briefly. Uptown would be a lot better. She wouldn't have to put up with Frank's stares and there would be a lot more money. She had heard that some of the girls got as much as fifty dollars for an hour or even less.

"Not this weekend," she said.

"Why not?"

"Peggy's father is coming on for parents' night and I'm supposed to stick with the old guy."

"You won't make any money that way."

"Maybe not, but I promised."

And she might make a bundle. Peggy had said that her father was crazy about young kids and she would drive him real crazy. She would wear her blue dress, the one that showed off all her curves, and if he got any ideas they might be able to work a deal. Peggy wouldn't have to know.

"What goes with you and Peggy?" she heard herself saying.

"I don't get you."

"You know. She hasn't been the same since she started going around with you."

"What girl is?"

"Don't try to be funny."

"I'm not being funny. There's nothing with us, not a thing. She's just a nice kid."

"If she still is."

"Shut up. What's she got to do with this?"

"Nothing. I was just wondering."

"Well, don't wonder. Keep your garbage in your own back yard."

He got up from the bed and moved toward the door.

"I'll think about next weekend," she said.

“Don't think about it. Put on your girdle and look like a duchess. The carriage trade wants what they pay for?"

"Did anybody ever pay for what they didn't get?"

"Did anybody ever get what they didn't pay for?"

She looked at him for a long time.

"You did," she said.

"Thanks."

"Don't mention it. The pleasure was all yours."

He went out and closed the door.

Helen didn't want to go with Harry but being with him was better than staying in that house and feeling sorry for herself, or going to the room on the second floor. Every second she spent in that room she thought of Peggy, wild and wonderful Peggy. But what did she have? A woman for whom she was a slave, and that was all.

The bar was small and barely crowded and he couldn't afford anything but beer.

"I wrote home and told my folks about you," Harry said, pushing the plate of free pretzels toward her. "I wish I'd had a picture to send."

"You don't want a picture of me, Harry."

"Why not?"

"Because you don't."

"You're pretty."

"There are lots of pretty girls," she said. "And there are lots of girls prettier than I am."

"I don't know any."

"Then you haven't been around very much."

The waiter brought two more beers and Harry picked up a fistful of pretzels.

"I don't understand you," Harry said. "You're always running yourself down."

"Maybe because I know my true value."

Harry shook his head. "You're like my mother," he said. "In many ways you're just like her."

"No mother was ever like me."

"You don't know what I mean. You're sort of good and nice and—well, kind. That's what I mean. My mother is that way, only she tries not to show it. She tries to put on a false front, a hard front that hides what she really feels. But she doesn't fool anybody. I can look into her eyes and tell just what she's thinking. And I can do the same with you."

"What am I thinking about, Harry?"

"Me."

He was wrong, of course. She was thinking about Thelma Reid. Thelma would be looking all over for her and when she didn't find her Thelma would go into her room and drink. Helen shuddered, recalling how Thelma could act when she was drunk. She was bad enough sober but when the woman had been drinking she was impossible.

"Go on," Helen said with a small sigh.

"And us. You're thinking about us."

"A little," she lied.

"You think this doesn't mean anything, that it can't last. But you're wrong."

"Am I?"

Harry finished his beer and waved toward the waiter.

"I think a lot of you, Helen. I don't know why I can't say it unless I have a couple of beers in me, but I can't. I see you at the school and I want to tell you and I think about you later and I want to call you on the phone." He laughed and reached for her hand. "I guess you could say I've got it bad."

Helen let him take her hand. There was no harm in that, and he always seemed to enjoy it. He would hold it gently, turning it over and over, and if he drank enough beer he would pretend to read her fortune. The whole thing was crazy and silly but it was part of a cheap night together and she guessed she could endure it. At least Harry was clean and honest and that was more than she could say for Jerry or for any man.

"Had a good week," he said. "Four bodies."

If somebody didn't die his week was shot. He worked by the hour and the more bodies they got the more money he made. There was something gruesome about having to wait for somebody to die before a man could make a buck.

"Three men and a girl," he said. "One of them you knew."

"Evelyn Carter?"

"Yes. They're waiting for her folks to come from Buffalo. A brother got here late this afternoon but he couldn't do anything. All he did was just stand around and look like somebody had robbed him."

"They did. Of his sister."

"He said she wasn't that kind of a girl, that she had never been that kind of a girl. I heard him talking to the police and he wouldn't even believe them."

"It is hard to believe. Just the other day she was around the place and now she's gone. Gives you the creeps."

The waiter brought more beer and Harry drank his quickly.

"She had no business doing it," he said. "A woman who gets pregnant should have the baby."

"Without the father?"

"With or without. A baby, no matter what the reason, has a right to live."

She withdrew her hand and looked at him. Sometimes she liked to hurt him, hurt him terribly, and she didn't understand why. She could make him almost cry sometimes and that always made her feel good. It was as though she owned him, as though she were his master. And right now, she was angry.

"You make me sick," she said. "You're so damned pious, all of you men. You get a girl pregnant and then you say awful things about her because she tried to help herself."

"You don't have to go and get sore."

"I'm not sore. I'm just telling you. What if you got me that way and walked off and left me? What would I do?"

"I wouldn't get you that way," Harry replied seriously.

"Sure—if you didn't get the chance."