"Well, I saw it, Laura. My sweet little fashion magazine editor. My
sweet little hand-holding girlfriend who was too busy to see me most of
the time. My sweet little whore. So long, Laura. It just goes to show
you you can't trust anybody in this world ... not anybody...."
The phone clicked.
"Dan!" she cried.
The line was dead. With trembling hands, Laura replaced the receiver.
She clung to the edge of the bed, racked with deep sobs. She was at the
edge of hysteria. She fought for control.
After a moment she regained her inner balance. The first thing to do,
she thought, was to get a copy of the newspaper and see just what sort
of pictures they had used. She made her way into the kitchen and rang
the house-phone several times, until the doorman answered.
"Howard," Laura said, "will you pick up a copy of today's _Daily News_
and bring it up to my apartment as soon as you can?"
"Will do, Miss Haynes."
She waited. Ten minutes later, the doorbell rang. Laura started for it,
realized she was still nude, and hastily grabbed up a robe and wrapped
it around her. It was a thin, practically transparent robe, but there
was no time to worry about that now.
The doorman, a young, massive West Indian, goggled in surprise at the
immodesty of Laura's outfit as she answered the door. But he made no
comment, merely smiled and handed her the paper. She took it from him
without unfolding it, and gave him a dollar.
As soon as the door was closed, she spread the paper out on the bed.
A headline screamed up at her from the front page:
ARREST 100 IN
VICE ROUNDUP
The entire lower half of the front page was given over to a single
picture that had been taken from the doorway of the Detention building.
It showed a file of women being shepherded into the building by
policemen, with police wagons in the background.
Perhaps a dozen girls were shown in the picture. The one closest to the
camera was Laura. It was the photo that had been taken of her while she
was unawares. There was no mistaking the likeness. It was quite clear.
She was staring expressionlessly right into the camera, and a policeman
stood at her side with his hands grasping her arm at the elbow.
The caption said, _Vice squad man leads some of the more than a hundred
prostitutes arrested last night into the women's house of detention.
Story on page 3._
Quickly Laura opened to page three. There, under a page-wide headline,
were two more pictures of girls struggling with policemen. The article
began,
_The city's vice squad swooped down last night in a lightning raid on
New York City prostitutes. The carefully-planned operation covered
everything from cheap B-Girl bars to flossy midtown hotels, and by
midnight had netted more than a hundred tarts. Ten wagons were needed
to convey all the chippies to the hoosegow._
_According to a Vice squad spokesman, this is only the beginning of an
intensive campaign against the play-for-pay girls. Similar blitzkrieg
raids will take place from time to time, and there will be increased
surveillance of bars, hotels, and traditional street-corners. Another--_
Laura threw the paper down. She had to fight back a wild burst of panic.
The worst had happened, then. The picture was in the papers, and Dan
had seen it. He had drawn the inevitable conclusion.
_Oh, God_, she thought, _why did that photographer have to be there?
Why did they have to take my picture? Why did Dan have to see the
paper?_
_Why?_
The _why_ didn't matter any more. What mattered was that Dan had seen
it. And, obviously shocked, perhaps drunk, he had called up to accuse
her--rightfully--of having perpetrated a horrible deception on him. Her
head drooped in shame. To become emotionally involved with someone,
perhaps to come to the point of wanting to ask her to marry you, and
then to see her picture in the paper in a group of common prostitutes
arrested in a vice raid--what a shock that must have been to him, she
thought! And there was nothing she could do now, no way of calling
him and telling him that it was all a mistake, that they had arrested
someone who looked very much like her, or that they had really arrested
her but through some gigantic error of justice.
No. Dan knew the truth. No lie would help now.
Laura picked up the telephone and dialed Spinelli's number. On the
fourth ring it was Skalkottis, Spinelli's secretary-bodyguard, who
answered.
"Yes?"
"George, this is Laura Haynes. Is Phil around?"
Skalkottis hesitated. "He's pretty busy. Maybe he can call you back,
huh?"
"I want to talk to him. It's important."
"Hold on," Skalkottis rumbled. "I'll tell him who's calling and we'll
see."