Read Online Never Love a Stranger by Harold Robbins - Free Book Online

handed back the sheet. I took it. He reached down and pulled his trousers part way up and fished for his money. He couldn’t find it. He stood up and, holding his pants with one hand, he felt with the other and found the dollar. Letting his pants drop to the floor he gave it to me. I put it in my pocket and started out.
    “See you tomorrow,” I said. He didn’t reply.
    A drugstore just down the street was the next stop. I picked up three dollars there. Then a restaurant where some fellows who ate there played about seven bucks. A beauty parlour, a candy store, a few more garages and repair shops, a shoe store, another restaurant, and I had only one more stop to make. It was a furnished-room house. I rang the bell. The door was opened by a coloured girl.
    I looked at my paper. “Miss Neal in?” I asked.
    “Sho,” she said. “But you kinda young to be askin’ foh her.” She led the way up to the second floor. “Miss Neal?” she asked through a closed door.
    “Come in,” a voice answered.
    I went in. There were a few women sitting in there in kimonos and house frocks. “I’m Neal,” said a big, dark-haired woman standing up. “What do you want?”
    “Keough sent me,” I said, looking around the room. I guessed correctly—I was in a whorehouse.
    “Oh,” she said. “Got the sheet?”
    I gave it to her. Another woman took the other one. I stood around while they looked at it. I shifted from one foot to another. Finally, one of them told me to sit down. I sat in a chair and looked out the window into the street. I got nineteen bucks in bets there. I looked at the wrist-watch Brother Bernhard gave me. It was nearly two o’clock. I had to hurry back to Keough’s or I’d be late. I ran all the way back to the store.
    “How’d it go, kid?” Keough greeted me.
    “Pretty good,” I said, taking out the betting slips and putting them on the counter. We totalled up the slips. I had $51.50 in bets. I gave him the money and got busy cleaning up the place. The afternoon went by quickly. When I finished figuring Keough’s slips I figured mine. There was $22.50 profit in my book. Split with Keough and my share was
    $11.25.
    “Eleven dollars and twenty-five cents for one day’s work,” I thought to myself as I went back to the orphanage for the night. It was more than I had ever made in one week before. It was more money than I had ever had at one time before. This beat going to the country for the summer.
    Chapter Eleven ‌

    A T the end of my first week on the route I had made fifty-one dollars. That and the six dollars I got for cleaning up Keough’s place brought my earnings to a total of fifty-seven dollars, which was more than most families earned in my neighbourhood. I don’t suppose I really knew the value of money. I gorged myself on franks and hamburgers and cokes. For the first time I always had money in my pocket. The kids in the neighbourhood all had something at my expense. I couldn’t resist showing my roll or spending it treating them. I was a real big shot.
    I had a date to go swimming with Julie after church Sunday. When I met her she was carrying a small bag. “Where’s your bathing suit?” she asked when we sat down on the train.
    “I got it on,” I told her.
    She laughed. “How will you get back?” she asked. “Your suit will be wet.” I looked dismayed. “I didn’t think of that.”
    “Well, silly, I’ll let you put it in my bag.” We sat back. The train was at Times Square, and the crowd piled in—all heading for the Island to escape the heat. We took lockers at a small bath-house near Steeplechase. I almost forgot my money but remembered just in time to take it with me. On the way out I bought a white belt that fitted around the outside of the bathing suit and had a pocket in it to keep the money. I was on the beach before her. I waited a few minutes till she came out. She had a red bathing suit on, and it looked swell. Without her high-heeled shoes on she was a little