Shrugging, Spinelli said, "He could have avoided it. He should have
paid a bellhop to look out for something like that. But he never
thought it could happen to him. It always is a big surprise, when the
bulls bust in. But it was his own damn fault."
_CHAPTER THIRTEEN_
The first thing Laura did when she reached her apartment was to strip
off her soiled and rumpled clothes and head for the shower. She paused
to look in the mirror. She looked terrible. Her eyes were bloodshot
and rimmed with dark circles. Her cheeks were hollow. Even her breasts
seemed to droop a little.
The brisk shower revived her to some degree. At least she was clean,
now. Naked, she walked numbly through the apartment, with all its
beautiful furniture and expensive carpeting, and threw herself down in
a heap on her bed. Her eyes throbbed mercilessly. She felt sick, sick
with pity for McDermott and Marilyn and herself, for all the hapless
whores rounded up and bundled into the House of Detention, for everyone
who schemed and suffered for filthy lust.
After a while she began to doze off. She had had virtually no sleep at
all, and she was exhausted. She thought fleetingly of Spinelli, that
octopus of crime. He had saved her, and she supposed she should be
grateful for that. But she realized suddenly that she hated Spinelli
and everything he stood for. The merchant of high-priced sex, of
blue-chip nookie. Always ready to work the fix to cover something
up. Always ready with the glib talk, the smooth sales pitch, the big
money. He bought and sold souls with his money. He was a new kind of
villain, she thought--not the mustache-twirling kind with an evil
leer, but a new Madison Avenue kind of villain, an Ivy League kind of
villain, soft-spoken, dressing in perfect taste, eating at the finest
restaurants. Handsome, affable, cultured. But just as evil as the
most raucous gangster. More dangerous, in fact, since he cloaked his
malevolence behind smooth phrases.
She dropped off to sleep, finally, still thinking of Spinelli. The
ringing of the telephone brought her up out of it. She woke, listening
to the bell ring for a third time, a fourth, a fifth. Frowning at her
own nakedness, she stretched across the bed and picked up the receiver.
The clock on the nighttable told her it was four o'clock; she had been
asleep for hours.
"Hello?"
"So you work for a fashion magazine, eh? And you had important work to
do last night?" The voice, Laura realized in astonishment, was Dan's.
But it sounded different--thick, as though he had been drinking, and
shaky.
"Is that you, Dan?"
"Yeah, it's me. Sucker Dan. The biggest dope this side of the
Mississippi. Fashion editor, you are. I could have had a free lay from
you, if I'd known. Fashion editor!"
"Dan--" Her voice was edged with fright. "Dan, are you drunk?"
"Maybe. You stinking whore!"
"_Dan!_"
"Go on, deny it, why don't you?"
"I don't understand--"
"Maybe it was your twin sister. You got a twin sister, Laura? Because
she looked just like you. Right down to the last, she looked just like
you. I didn't know you had a twin, Laura."
"What are you talking about?"
"The picture in the paper, Laura. On the front page of the _News_. You
mean you didn't see it?"