"H-hello, Laura."
"You don't have to cringe like that," Laura said calmly. "What you did
to me is ancient history, Ned. I've been through the mill plenty since
the day you raped me." She smiled at the naked blonde. "And this is the
new one, eh? Very nice, Ned. Phil, are you going to give her a job?"
Spinelli looked annoyed. "Now, listen, Laura, you can't come busting in
here--"
"Sure I can. I just did." She realized Skalkottis was standing behind
her. But Spinelli would not dare to have her manhandled--not in front
of a potential candidate. The naked girl looked about to faint. She was
cramming her full breasts into a bra, now, and reaching for panties.
The audition had suddenly become much too public to suit her, it seemed.
To the girl, Laura said, "I'm Laura Haynes. I'm also one of McCarten's
discoveries. Remind me to tell you someday about how he 'discovered'
me. Maybe you got the same treatment yourself."
Spinelli was scowling. "Laura, I'll have to ask you to wait outside
until--"
"I won't," Laura snapped. She stepped back and to the side, so there
was solid wall behind her and not the possibly menacing Skalkottis. "I
want to talk to this girl. I want to tell her to get her clothes on
and get out of here before it's too late."
"Are you out of your mind, Laura?" Spinelli shouted.
"No! I'm _in_ my mind, at long last," she tossed back at him. In a
quieter voice she said, "He's dead, Phil."
"Who is?"
"Dan Bittner."
"And who the blazes is he?"
"I loved him," Laura said quietly. "Remember, you suspected I might be
carrying on on the side? Well, I was. I never slept with him. He was
too innocent for that. He loved me, I think, and he wanted to marry me.
But he killed himself the day my picture got into the papers with the
label _whore_ underneath it."
Spinelli moistened his lips. "You're drunk, Laura. If you've got
anything to say to me, wait until I can see you in private. George--"
"Don't touch me!" she warned Skalkottis. To Spinelli she said, "I'm
not drunk. I just came here to tell you that I was through with the
call-girl business. You hear me? _Through._ The only decent person I
ever knew in my life is on a slab in the basement of a hospital right
now, and you sit here like a bloated spider in your web, and here's
some new girl ready to be turned into a whore."
"Get her out of here!" Spinelli grated.
Laura stepped back. "Keep your hands off me," she told Skalkottis. "I'm
warning you, don't lay a finger on me, you ape."
"The boss wants you to wait outside," Skalkottis said in a
surprisingly gentle voice. "Why you want to make all this trouble, huh?
You shouldn't come in here and shout at him like that. You did all
right by him, didn't you?"
Suddenly Laura knew what she had come here to do. In one quick flash of
understanding, she realized what her purpose in existence was.
She opened her handbag. The cold little .22 leaped into her hand.
Skalkottis jumped back, startled. Laura's finger slid round the trigger.
She fired.
There was an explosion that seemed incredibly loud for so small a
gun, and a violent shaft of pain ran up Laura's arm. A crater erupted
in Skalkottis' throat. Hit at five feet's distance, the little slug
practically blew his throat apart. A gout of blood coursed out of
severed arteries; he uttered a thick, wordless moan and sank to his
knees, clutching the wound and trying to hold it closed.
The half-naked blonde screamed. McCarten cowered. Spinelli rose to his
feet in astonishment.
Smiling, Laura swung round to face Spinelli. He was groping in a
desk-drawer, now, obviously searching for a weapon. His well-groomed
face looked pale and frightened, and his eyes were very wide.
Laura fired again.
She aimed for his chest, but the gun kicked hard, and the bullet
entered him low, in the stomach, hardly six inches above the top of the
desk. He grabbed his belly and staggered back, away from the desk.
Shrieking, McCarten broke from his seat and dashed across the room. He
presented his full back to Laura, who aimed with skill that surprised
her, and squeezed the trigger a third time. The bullet caught McCarten
between the shoulderblades; he howled and went sprawling. Laura took a
deep breath. The blonde, with her panties still halfway up her hips,
had fallen flat and was moaning hysterically. Skalkottis lay face-down
in a pool of gushing blood, not moving at all. McCarten did not seem
to be moving either. Spinelli, still alive, was writhing feebly and
clutching his belly.
Laura walked calmly toward the girl and lifted her to her feet.
"Don't worry," Laura said. "I'm not after you. Just these worms." She
looked at Spinelli. Her voice was rock-steady as she said, "The police
could never stop you, Phil. You knew too many people, you had too much
pull. They'd never pin anything on you that you couldn't wriggle out
of. And you'd go on, getting richer and richer, leading girl after girl
into filth and sin."
"_Laura_...." he muttered.
"You didn't expect this, did you?" she asked. "You figured you'd live
forever, that no one could possibly catch you or stop you. Well, you
were wrong. You're lying there in your own blood, and you're going to
die, Phil. You're going to die right now. All the pull in the world
can't save you, Phil."
She lifted the gun.
She fired again, aiming carefully.
The shot caught Spinelli in the chest. He had risen to his knees, but
the impact of the bullet threw him down flat. He lay still.
Laura let the gun drop to the floor. She realized she was almost at
the point of collapse.
_Killing myself wouldn't have accomplished anything_, she thought. _But
now I've done something for society, something that society couldn't
do for itself. Maybe they'll send me to the chair for it, but at least
Phil Spinelli is dead and the world's a cleaner place for what I've
done._
She looked at the blonde. The girl was dazed and stunned.