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Authors: John D. MacDonald
Tags: Mystery
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WITH TENDER KISS. A crude arrow pointed toward her. Her slacks, cardigan, big purse and wisps of underwear were arranged in severe order on a straight chair beyond the foot of the bed. She wore a nightgown, pale blue-and-white net and lace, as evanescent as a mirage, a tenderness against the brown of her throat and shoulders. Her lips were slightly apart, and the thickety lashes were closed over the secrets of her eyes.
Moving without sound, he undressed in the sweet silence of the room, he paused once when he caused a harpsichord jangle of hangers, but she was not awakened. He went to her then with eagerness, but paused and sat slowly, with the patience of a thief, on the edge of the bed, so he could watch her for a little while and enjoy the gentle guilt of onewho watches the face of a sleeping friend or lover. By forestalling his own hunger he sharpened his desire.
It was, he thought with a proper humility, a rare kind of luck, and a seldom thing. Back in August when he had begun work, he had been tense about the size and complexity of the operation and the almost total lack of proper administrative controls. There had been no one to break him in on the job. Buckler was a compulsive fool, obviously jealous of the assistant who had been forced upon him. And Hugh could define the limits of his authority only by testing them.
The employee situation was difficult. The good ones were glad to see the change, and the thieves were frightened. He had no one to confide in, no one whose judgments he could trust. And so his first project was to familiarize himself with every aspect of the operation, from linen inventory, to printing receipts for guests, to rejuvenation of wilted lettuce, to window-washing schedules, to shot-glass dimensions, to the uniforms of maids, to furniture repair and replacement. He worked a fifteen and sixteen hour day, roaming, watching, scribbling notes, assessing personnel. He knew they were all watching him, wondering when he would suddenly stop being an observer and start chopping off heads.
It was during the nights of his roving that he became aware of Betty Dawson. She worked the Afrique Bar just off the main casino floor to the right as you came into the casino from the lobby. She was working the midnight to six, doing her four shows in alternation with other entertainers. He found that she could provide the closest thing to relaxation and forgetfulness for him, and he fell into the habit, when he was around during the small morning hours, to go in and sit at the curve of the bar nearest the small stage and listen to her. She had a limited range. She talked her way through a lot of her songs. But her face was very alive and, at times, wonderfully comic, and she had the refreshing trait of seeming to be sourly amused by her own antics. The lyrics of her songs were quick and tart—and blue without being tasteless.
He began to have a preference for some of her songs and to await them with pleasure. He liked ALICE WAS AS BLUE AS HER GOWN , and THEY ’ RE STILL RECRUITING GIRLS FOR THE NAVY and THE GIRL OF THE WEEK CLUB. She seemed to enjoy truly horrible puns, and he wondered who wrote her material, and he was more pleased than he should have been when he learned she wrote it herself.
By a quiet question here and there, never betraying morethan the most casual interest, he learned that she was the nearest thing to an entertainment fixture the Cameroon had. She had been there almost two years, and her room was but three doors from his. Knowing that Max Hanes handled the entertainment, with approval, when necessary, he made the obvious assumption that there was a special relationship between Betty and Max, between that curiously sinister apelike old man with his playboy wardrobe and this handsome woman who, behind the practised facade of an entertainer, had the ineradicable perceptions and instincts of a gentlewoman.
With that nagging question still unanswered, he had begun to move, doing the things
Moving without sound, he undressed in the sweet silence of the room, he paused once when he caused a harpsichord jangle of hangers, but she was not awakened. He went to her then with eagerness, but paused and sat slowly, with the patience of a thief, on the edge of the bed, so he could watch her for a little while and enjoy the gentle guilt of onewho watches the face of a sleeping friend or lover. By forestalling his own hunger he sharpened his desire.
It was, he thought with a proper humility, a rare kind of luck, and a seldom thing. Back in August when he had begun work, he had been tense about the size and complexity of the operation and the almost total lack of proper administrative controls. There had been no one to break him in on the job. Buckler was a compulsive fool, obviously jealous of the assistant who had been forced upon him. And Hugh could define the limits of his authority only by testing them.
The employee situation was difficult. The good ones were glad to see the change, and the thieves were frightened. He had no one to confide in, no one whose judgments he could trust. And so his first project was to familiarize himself with every aspect of the operation, from linen inventory, to printing receipts for guests, to rejuvenation of wilted lettuce, to window-washing schedules, to shot-glass dimensions, to the uniforms of maids, to furniture repair and replacement. He worked a fifteen and sixteen hour day, roaming, watching, scribbling notes, assessing personnel. He knew they were all watching him, wondering when he would suddenly stop being an observer and start chopping off heads.
It was during the nights of his roving that he became aware of Betty Dawson. She worked the Afrique Bar just off the main casino floor to the right as you came into the casino from the lobby. She was working the midnight to six, doing her four shows in alternation with other entertainers. He found that she could provide the closest thing to relaxation and forgetfulness for him, and he fell into the habit, when he was around during the small morning hours, to go in and sit at the curve of the bar nearest the small stage and listen to her. She had a limited range. She talked her way through a lot of her songs. But her face was very alive and, at times, wonderfully comic, and she had the refreshing trait of seeming to be sourly amused by her own antics. The lyrics of her songs were quick and tart—and blue without being tasteless.
He began to have a preference for some of her songs and to await them with pleasure. He liked ALICE WAS AS BLUE AS HER GOWN , and THEY ’ RE STILL RECRUITING GIRLS FOR THE NAVY and THE GIRL OF THE WEEK CLUB. She seemed to enjoy truly horrible puns, and he wondered who wrote her material, and he was more pleased than he should have been when he learned she wrote it herself.
By a quiet question here and there, never betraying morethan the most casual interest, he learned that she was the nearest thing to an entertainment fixture the Cameroon had. She had been there almost two years, and her room was but three doors from his. Knowing that Max Hanes handled the entertainment, with approval, when necessary, he made the obvious assumption that there was a special relationship between Betty and Max, between that curiously sinister apelike old man with his playboy wardrobe and this handsome woman who, behind the practised facade of an entertainer, had the ineradicable perceptions and instincts of a gentlewoman.
With that nagging question still unanswered, he had begun to move, doing the things
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