Body For Sale Page 3

  I learned that Mathews himself seemed unaware of the gossip. Outside his private office he was as politely formal to Gertie as he was to any of the other help. But inside—

  The whole thing left me vaguely uneasy. It was common knowledge to everyone but his wife that George Mathews did a bit of philandering now and then. But he’d never been this open. If word of the affair got to his wife, my hold over Mathews would be gone, and I was reasonably certain he’d fire me at once—if he himself lasted long enough after the exposé to fire anyone.

  I interrupted Norma’s speculation about what went on in the office to ask, “Do you think he’s in love with the girl?”

  She looked at me in astonishment. “In love? Why it’s just an affair, Mr. Cavanaugh.”

  I shouldn’t have asked the question. Norma Henstedder’s outlook on life had vestiges of mid-Victorianism in it. To her way of thinking a man couldn’t love a woman he took to bed with him because he would lose all respect for her. She probably regarded Gertie as a fallen woman.

  I tried it another way. “Do you think she’s in love with him?”

  She sniffed. “Is a woman like that capable of real love, Mr. Cavanaugh?”

  There was no point in carrying the conversation further.

  I said, “You’ve been very helpful, Norma. Now let’s forget the subject and never mention it again.”

  Immediately she got up. “Yes, sir,” she said. “I won’t mention our discussion to a soul, Mr. Cavanaugh.”

  The more I thought about the situation, the more uneasy I became. Perhaps George Mathews was overboard enough about Gertie Drake to blow his marriage and his cushy job. If he was, he certainly had no reason to fear me. There would be no point in concealing Gertie’s existence from his wife if he intended to ask for a divorce. While I couldn’t imagine him being foolish enough to take so drastic a step, in self-defense I wanted to know his intentions. And Esther Simmons’ seemed the most likely opinion to poll.

  Our evening together started out as a repetition of our previous date. We dined at the Patio, then moved to the Cellar Club to drink and talk to the background of the club’s string trio. I waited until our third whisky highball on top of the before-dinner Gibsons and after-dinner brandy to bring up the subject.

  Then I said, “I’m worried about your boss, Esther.”

  She raised her eyebrows. “Why?”

  “Isn’t this affair with Gertie Drake becoming a little too serious?”

  A remote look appeared in her eyes. “Don’t spoil things by attempting to make me gossip about Mr. Mathews, Tom.”

  I said, “Has Mathews ever mentioned me to you, Esther?”

  Her eyebrows went up again. “How do you mean?”

  “Has he ever indicated what he thought of me?”

  She shook her head. “We don’t have that close a relationship. I’m not that deeply in his confidence.”

  That removed that possible stumbling block. If Mathews had been in the habit of expressing his opinions to his secretary-receptionist, she would have known he hardly held me in high esteem. Which would have spoiled my whole pitch.

  I said, “You know he personally had me made a district sales manager, don’t you?”

  “I suspected it. So I assume he must have a high opinion of you.”

  “He does. And I feel an obligation to him for recognizing whatever ability I may have and giving me an opportunity to use it. When I say I’m worried about him, I mean for his own good. And yours, too, incidentally.”

  “Mine?” she inquired.

  “If he blows his marriage, he also blows his job. You know his wife owns controlling interest in Schyler Tools, don’t you?”

  “Yes, of course.”

  “She’ll kick him out on his can if he decides to leave her. And with Mathews gone, your easy job will go up in smoke. Even if the next company president kept you on, you wouldn’t be studying extension courses on company time. You’d put in a full secretarial day with lots of overtime if you ever went to work for a functioning president.”

  She frowned at me, but said nothing.

  “We both have reasons to keep him from making a damn fool of himself, Esther. One of my reasons is gratitude for giving me a break, but, frankly, I have a more selfish one, too. I think I can make further advance in the company with Mathews behind me, and a different company president would be an unknown quantity. Your reason is to protect the sweet setup you have. Let’s get our heads together and see if we can help him without his knowing it.”

  “How could we do that?”

  “I’m not sure. But as a start we could analyze the situation. The first step is for you to kill your inhibitions about gossiping over your boss’s affairs. I’m not going to repeat anything. Anyway, everybody in the plant knows about him and Gertie.”

  Her eyes widened. “You’ve heard some gossip?”

  “It’s the main subject of conversation among the workers. Everybody but you is talking. You’re regarded as a kind of sphinx.”

  The discussion was interrupted by our waiter coming over to see if we wanted another drink. We killed what was left in our glasses and let him carry them away for refills.

  Esther said, “I had no idea it was that obvious.”

  “She’s in and out of his office all the time, isn’t she? Sometimes ‘in conference’ with him for an hour or more. And she isn’t being very discreet in her conversation with the other girls.”

  “She’s talking?” Esther asked in surprise.

  “She’s bragging. It’s the biggest thing that ever happened to her. She’s the mistress of the big boss, and she wants everybody to know it. I don’t think she’d hesitate a minute to break up his marriage if she thought she had a chance to get him to marry her.”

  We were interrupted again by the waiter bringing our new drinks.

  When he moved off again, she said worriedly, “You think she’ll try to cause trouble?”

  “She isn’t a troublemaker,” I said honestly. “I don’t think she’d do anything like deliberately letting his wife know what was going on in order to hasten the break. Gertie is a little tramp, but there isn’t a vicious bone in her body. I think she might urge him to break up with his wife, though. Do you think he’s in love with her?”

  After taking a thoughtful sip of her drink, she said slowly, “I don’t know. He’s had other affairs, but none as open as this. I know she’s in love with him.”

  “How?” I asked.

  “Women always know such things. I can tell by the way she looks at him.”

  “Then why can’t you tell by the way he looks at her?”

  She shrugged. “Men are more of an enigma. To women anyway. Maybe you could tell, but I can’t.”

  “Use his previous affairs as a basis of comparison,” I suggested.

  “On that basis I guess you could say he’s wild about her. The previous ones I know about have all been transient things. Gertie isn’t the first employee of Schyler Tools he’s been in conference with, but after a few conferences he’s always lost interest in the past. One of my duties was to let them know it was over by suddenly making him unavailable. After being turned away a couple of times, they usually got the point and stopped coming around. But this has been going on over two months, and he shows no sign of losing interest.”

  “He’s never unavailable to her?” I asked.

  “He sends for her. She’s smart enough never to come to the office unless he does.”

  Things were getting worse all the time. While Esther’s addition to what I had learned from my stenographer didn’t tell me any more about George Mathews’ marital intentions than I knew before, it did indicate that the man had no intention of ending the affair in the foreseeable future. Which meant the gossip would widen more and more. Even if Mathews didn’t expose the situation himself by asking his wife for a divorce, it was inevitable that Helen Mathews would get wind of it eventually. The minute that happened my job would be in danger. But it would be considerably less in da
nger if I had some support from Mrs. Mathews.

  I would have preferred the status quo, with the company’s majority stockholder never learning of her husband’s infidelity. But since it seemed certain that she was going to find out about it anyway, I thought it best that she find out from me.

  If I approached it just right, I could insure my job against any eventuality. I decided to visit Helen Mathews the first evening I was sure her husband wasn’t home.

  Esther said, “What are you thinking about?”

  “Some method of bringing Mathews to his senses,” I said.

  “Do you think I ought to warn him that the plant is gossiping?”

  “You might get fired for your trouble,” I said dryly. “Let’s sleep on the problem and maybe we can work out some more delicate approach. Meantime, let’s drop the subject and enjoy the evening.”

  5

  ABOUT ELEVEN P.M. I STARTED WORKING A DIFFERENT pitch. As on our previous date, I suggested a nightcap at my apartment. Esther gave me the same sort of an indulgent smile she had last time.

  “You use the wrong technique, Tom.”

  “I’m open for advice,” I said a bit sullenly.

  “Next time don’t feed me liquor. It has a different effect on me than it has on most people.”

  “Yeah,” I said. “It certainly doesn’t make you drunk.”

  “It just makes me placid. After enough drinks I just feel like going home and going to bed.”

  I said glumly, “Now you tell me. How about going to my place for coffee then?”

  She shook her head. “You’re too late. I’m already getting sleepy. I think I want to go home.”

  On the way home she leaned her head on my shoulder. We didn’t have any conversation at all. When I pulled up in front of her house, she didn’t move.

  “Are you asleep?” I inquired.

  “Not quite,” she said in a drowsy voice. “I was just thinking.”

  “About what?”

  “About us. Next time you take me out you won’t feed me any drinks. But you’ll probably be disappointed again.”

  “I doubt it,” I said. “My hopes won’t be very high, anyway. I figure you’ll dream up some other excuse.”

  Lifting her head from my shoulder, she sat erect and looked at me. “Are you implying that you think I’m frigid?”

  “Nope,” I said. “I just don’t think I appeal to you.”

  “That’s not true, Tom. You appeal to me very much. But I have to be in the mood. Would you want me to be a pushover?”

  I would, but I didn’t say so. “Does anything put you in the mood?”

  In the darkness her face was only a white blur, and I couldn’t make out her expression, but suddenly she giggled.

  “What’s so funny?” I asked.

  “There is something that puts me in the mood. But it’s too silly.”

  “I could use a laugh at this point,” I told her. “Let me in on it.”

  She was silent for a moment. Then she said in a muffled voice, “A hangover.”

  “What?”

  “I don’t know why, but the morning after a drinking bout I never have a headache. I wake up on fire.”

  “You mean with passion, or just with a fever?” I asked.

  “Pure lust. It’s a good thing I live with my mother. If I lived alone in some apartment house where there were male tenants, I’d be knocking on their doors before breakfast.” She giggled again. “When I wake up after having too much to drink the night before, I feel just as though I’d had an aphrodisiac.”

  “Suppose we run over to my place,” I suggested. “You can have my bed and I’ll sleep on the sofa in the front room. I won’t bother you until morning.”

  She gave a kittenish yawn. “Tomorrow morning I’ll probably wish I’d accepted the invitation. But tonight my own bed sounds more attractive. Besides, I couldn’t stay out all night. Mother would call the police.”

  I gave it up. As we walked toward the porch, I asked, “What time do you get up on Saturdays?”

  “I don’t have to get up at all. But when I get in this early, I usually roll out of bed about eight. Mother spends Saturday mornings from nine to twelve at the Red Cross blood center as a volunteer canteen worker. I have breakfast with her before she leaves.”

  At the door she slipped her arms about my neck and gave me the same aseptic kiss before popping a couple of cloves in her mouth and going inside.

  I was home by midnight. I set my alarm for eight A.M.

  When the alarm sounded, I thought the top of my head was going to blow off. After pushing down the button, I lay still until my nerves stopped vibrating. A hangover certainly had no aphrodisiac effect on me. At the moment I couldn’t think of anything I needed less than sex, with the possible exception of a glass of warm gin.

  The biological urge is a powerful thing, though. The thought of passing up an opportunity was worse than the effort involved in getting out of bed. After about five minutes of inner struggle, I staggered to the bathroom and put myself under the shower.

  By the time I was showered and dressed and had downed two cups of black coffee, I began to come alive. I still didn’t feel like running the hundred-yard dash. As a matter of fact, if Esther had been my wife and we had been married a number of years, I probably wouldn’t have felt up to walking as far as the bedroom for her. But because she was new and a challenge and I had planned it all the night before when I was full of booze, I found myself driving halfway across town with a hangover on the off-chance that she hadn’t merely been pulling my leg with her story of the peculiar effect drink had on her.

  I pulled up in front of the house at five of nine, exactly as I had planned. I figured that if her mother had to be at the blood bank by nine, she should be gone by then. And if I waited any later, Esther’s hangover effects, if she actually experienced such effects, might begin to wear off.

  Esther was a long time answering the door. When she finally got there, she wore a white housecoat and had a towel wrapped around her head. She looked at me in surprise.

  “You caught me in the shower,” she said. “What are you doing up so early?”

  “Testing your truthfulness,” I said. Moving inside past her, I pushed the door closed and latched it.

  She turned a little pink. “If you came over because of my drunken babbling last night, you’re being a little ridiculous, Tom.”

  I walked through the house to the kitchen and locked the back door. She followed me as far as the kitchen doorway and watched wide-eyed as I turned the key. She didn’t have any makeup on, and her face shone with a clear, freshly scrubbed look. That, plus her diminutive size, made her look about sixteen years old.

  “What do you think you’re doing?” she asked breathlessly. “Suppose my mother came home?”

  “You said she’d be at the center until noon.”

  “Suppose she leaves early?”

  “Has she ever left early?” I inquired.

  “Well, no,” she admitted. “But you can’t barge in here like this and expect—”

  Her voice trailed off when I bore down on her, took her by the elbow and forcibly trotted her across the small center hall into her bedroom.

  “What do you think you’re doing?” she squealed.

  “I told you,” I said. “Testing your truthfulness.”

  I pulled her against me. She turned her head to one side so that my lips descended on her cheek. I put a hand behind her head to face her toward me, got my fingers entangled in the towel, jerked it off her head and tossed it over the back of a chair. Her blond hair tumbled loosely about her shoulders.

  “Stop it,” she said imploringly. “Let me go.”

  I pulled her head back by the hair and kissed her on the mouth. For an instant she struggled, then her arms slid about my neck, and suddenly her lips turned hungry. Her body started to tremble, and she made a little moaning noise.

  “It isn’t fair,” she breathed against my mouth. “You took advantage of what I tol
d you.”

  I slipped a hand inside the housecoat. There was nothing beneath it but Esther. She gave a convulsive jerk as my palm closed over one rounded breast. I could feel the tip begin to harden the instant I touched it.

  Her arms tightened around my neck so hard she nearly cut off my breathing. Her body began to shake uncontrollably.

  “It isn’t fair,” she moaned. “You shouldn’t have come here. It’s rape.”

  Both my hands were beneath the housecoat now. I took them out, put them behind my neck to grasp both her wrists and broke her grip. I shoved her away and started for the door.

  She was past me and had her back to it before I got there. The belt of her housecoat had come loose, and the garment hung partially open. Her breasts heaved with her convulsive breathing.

  “It isn’t rape,” she said huskily. “I’m sorry I said that. Please don’t go.”

  I reached past her and put my hand on the knob. Throwing herself against me, she got another death grip around my neck.

  “Please,” she said in a voice so thick it was nearly incoherent. “You can’t leave me now. I take back what I said, Tom. Please.”

  “Please what?” I growled down at her.

  “Oh, God,” she said. “You know what. Don’t make me beg you. I can’t stand it another minute.”

  “Please what?” I said inexorably.

  She made a hopeless little sound, and her body shook so badly I think she would have fallen if she hadn’t been hanging tightly to me. She said what she wanted in two short words.

  I picked her up and tossed her onto the bed. The housecoat flew wide open on one side to expose one white rounded thigh, a perfectly tapered calf and one plump half-sphere of a breast. She lay unmoving except for her uncontrollable trembling, staring at me glassily as I ripped off my clothing.

  She closed her eyes when I leaned over her and drew the other side of the housecoat wide open.

  “Hurry,” she said in a nearly inaudible whisper. “Oh, God, hurry!”

  I didn’t leave the house until after eleven. At the door Esther offered her lips in a kiss of good-by, then examined me pensively.