Judas Journey. Lee Roberts

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СКАЧАТЬ He disappeared around the corner.

      As Ramsey and the girl walked along the sidewalk, she said. “He seems nice.”

      “He’s my buddy. We’ve been together a long time.”

      They entered a small restaurant and found a booth in a corner. The hot black coffee tasted good to Ramsey after the beer. In the bright light he saw that the girl was younger than he’d first guessed. Her skin held a soft smooth quality and her brown eyes were bright and clear. At first she seemed shy and kept watching him in an odd way. He touched her hand and smiled. “Don’t be afraid. I’m just an ordinary guy.

      “I’m not afraid,” she said seriously. “It’s just that it seems strange, being with you like this. I do not go out very much.”

      “We’ll fix that. What’re you doing tomorrow night?”

      She smiled. Her teeth were small and even and very white. “You do not know yet if you like me.”

      “I liked you the minute I saw you.” He began to talk to her, and gradually he saw that the shyness was leaving her. Twice she laughed at his accounts of amusing incidents involving him and Pete. They ordered more coffee and eventually he learned that she had been born in Mexico City, that her father had been an American mining engineer, her mother Mexican. When she was ten years old her mother had run away with a bull fighter from Taxco, and her father, after a time, had quietly hung himself from a cottonwood tree.

      She told it calmly. “It seems long ago. I do not feel anything any more, except that my father, he—he was nice.”

      “Yes,” Ramsey said, thinking of his own father.

      After her father’s death, she told him, an aunt, a sister of her mother, had taken her to live in Mazatlan with her uncle and seven little Mexican cousins. The aunt had taught her to dance. When she was eighteen, her father’s insurance money was gone and she had decided to come to the States. Through a New York agency she had found work right away and for the past three years had been dancing in night clubs and hotels in various parts of the country. Once she’d had a chorus spot in a musical that folded in Boston, and had made several minor television appearances. She had been at the Jungle Tavern for over a month, and hoped to eventually work her way to California and maybe get some movie jobs.

      “I am not a very good dancer,” she said, “but it is all I know how to do.”

      “You’re a wonderful dancer,” he said, and added, “What about your love life?” It was time the subject was mentioned, he thought. “Any boy friends? I mean, anyone special?”

      She shook her head quickly. “I have met many men, but I have not stayed in one place long enough to really get acquainted with them.”

      “Good,” he said, smiling, and touching her hand. She didn’t draw her hand away. He suggested leaving then, and she agreed.

      The fog was thicker and the street lights glowed yellowly through it, making a glistening dampness on the pavement. A taxi rolled along the curb toward them. Ramsey took the girl’s arm and started for it.

      “No,” she said. “Let us walk. I live only a few blocks from here.”

      Ramsey waved the taxi on. Ten minutes later they came to a small neat brick apartment building on a quiet side street. There was a clipped hedge and a small tiled stoop flanked by a wrought-iron railing. Ramsey followed the girl into a small dimly-lighted foyer containing a single telephone booth, a row of mail boxes, a door labeled Office and an automatic elevator. She turned to face him.

      “It has been nice,” she said. “Thank you very much for bringing me home.”

      He was surprised. “Aren’t you going to ask me up?”

      She gazed at him gravely. “Did you expect me to?”

      “I had hoped you would.”

      “Why?”

      He was a little disconcerted, but he said easily, “Maybe have a nightcap, talk—the usual reasons.”

      Her eyes hardened a little. “I’m afraid you have been wasting your time.”

      He moved close, placed an arm around her small waist and tilted her chin with a finger. “Please,” he said softly.

      She stood stiffly within his arm. “Let me go,” she said in a low voice.

      He forced her against him and kissed her. She didn’t resist, but her lips were cold. The time for gentleness is past, he thought, and he looked beyond her at the mail boxes on the wall. A white card on one of them read: Sara Colvin—3-D. He pushed her into the elevator and pressed a button numbered 3. As the door closed and they began to move upward, he looked down at her. There were tears on her cheeks and her eyes were tightly closed. He was surprised and a little shocked. He let her go, aware that the elevator had stopped and that the door had slid open. Blindly she moved past him into a green-carpeted hall. He started to follow her. “Listen,” he said. “I’m sorry. I—”

      She turned a corner of the hall and disappeared. He stood still. There was the sound of a key turning in a lock, and a door opened and closed firmly with a final click. He stood in the silence, bewildered. Hell, he’d picked her up, a part Mex gal who danced almost naked in a sucker trap—what did she expect?

      He hesitated a moment, then decided against knocking on her door. She had made it clear that she did not want him. He sighed, shook his head and entered the elevator.

      CHAPTER 3

      PETE DAVOS was waiting for him in the lobby of the Gulf Hotel. “How was it?” Pete asked, grinning.

      “Shut up.” Ramsey strode past him.

      “Aw, Rack,” Pete protested, hurrying after him. “I was just asking. I been waiting for you, Rack.” He grasped Ramsey’s arm.

      Ramsey stopped and turned. “I thought you were going to bed.”

      “I was, but there’s somebody I met in the bar. I want you to meet him.”

      “I’m tired. Who is it?”

      “You’ll see,” Pete said, grinning. “Come on.” He pulled the reluctant Ramsey across the lobby.

      They entered a long murky room with a bar against one wall, booths along the other, tables in the center. Pete led Ramsey to a table at the far end. As they approached, a man stood up and gazed at them steadily, swaying a little. He was a very thin man with wide spare shoulders. His narrow face and the top of his bald head were burned dark by the sun, and the yellow hair over his ears was bleached almost white. His nose was long, with sensitive nostrils; his mouth and chin were firm. He wore a rather scraggly yellow mustache and his eyes behind gold-rimmed glasses were the pale blue of a winter sky. A dark blue serge suit hung limply on his lean frame and a black knit tie was knotted loosely in the collar of a soft white shirt. He was about fifty years old.

      “My God,” Ramsey said, grinning broadly. “Simpson.” He held out a hand. The thin man reached for it, missed, and Ramsey grabbed his.

      “Rackwell,” Simpson said gravely, “it is nice to see you again.” СКАЧАТЬ