8:17 P.M.
Dolly Mason heard the first ring of the phone when she was in the hallway outside her apartment, returning from dinner with Mack Irby. Mack was with her and she thought she had a free evening to spend with him. She ran to the door, fished the key out of her handbag and stuck it in the lock. It jammed there for several rings of the telephone inside, till Mack said, "Let me, Doll." He reached around her and turned the key. Dolly got to the phone just as it finished the seventh ring. "Hello," she said, a bit breathlessly.
"Hi, Dolly," the phone said to her. "This is Ray. Ray Fletcher."
"Oh. Hi, Ray honey. Long time no see."
"Too long. Can I see you a while tonight? Just for a few minutes?"
"Well—maybe just for a little while. But not right away. 'Bout an hour from now, huh?"
"An hour? Can't you make it a little earlier than that, Dolly?"
"Well, maybe a little earlier." She looked at her wrist watch. "Nine o'clock? That's a little over forty minutes."
"Swell. See you at nine. 'Bye now, till then."
The phone clicked before Dolly could say anything more, so she cradled it.
Mack Irby, who had made himself comfortable in an over-stuffed chair, looked at her with amusement. "You wouldn't of had to stall the guy, Doll," he said. "He could of come right away. Me, I chase easy. I'm on the free list."
"Damn you, Mack honey. You're not on the free list. You are the free list. And the reason I didn't tell him to come right away is I didn't want him to come right away."
Dolly didn't mind Mack kidding her about the free list, but that was because Mack was special; if anyone else had ever said anything like that, she'd have bawled the hell out of him—and meant it.
Dolly Mason was not a prostitute. She'd never taken money from a man and never would. She earned her own living, as a beauty operator. And it was a fairly good living because she owned a one-third interest in the beauty shop and shared in the profits. Her two-room apartment—living room and bedroom, with a kitchenette off the first and a bath off the second—was in a good building in a good neighborhood. Despite the fact that it was fairly expensive as were her clothes and her standards of living in other directions, she had a modest balance in the bank. Her living standards would not, of course, have been quite so high if she did not accept presents—some of which she used and some of which she converted into money—from a score of men, but she would still have lived comfortably. And why shouldn't she accept presents from men—for doing something she thoroughly enjoyed and would have done for free if it were not for the fact that there were men, more men than she could possibly take care of, who would gladly bring her presents for doing what she most enjoyed.
Dolly Mason had been graduated five years ago from high school in a small town a hundred miles downstate with a reputation that made it quite inadvisable for her to stay in that town. If she hadn't had sex relations with every boy in her class it hadn't been her fault, and she'd made up the deficit by having slept with quite a number of older men.
Fortunately for Dolly her father had died just a week after her graduation, leaving Dolly—since her mother had died years before—the sole beneficiary of a few thousand dollars in insurance. She had left town and had come to the city immediately after the funeral. She had kept her capital mostly intact by working part time while she took a beauty course, had worked two years as an operator for someone else to gain experience, and then had used what was left of her capital to buy her way into a small but profitable suburban beauty shop.
She liked any and all men, but since she had a wide choice of them she limited her friendships (as she thought of them) to ones who were reasonably young, reasonably attractive, and reasonably prosperous. They had to be reasonably generous in giving her presents from time to time. And, no matter how generous they were, they had to be reasonably good in bed.
Of all men she liked Mack Irby best. She'd met him when she'd been working about a year as a beauty operator and about a year before she'd bought into the shop. She'd thought at first that she was in love with him and for a few weeks had actually eschewed promiscuity and given herself only to him. But love, to Dolly, meant only that she enjoyed sex with Mack more than with anyone else. She'd probably have married Mack during the first week or so that she'd known him if he'd asked her, but fortunately he hadn't, for she soon found out that no one man could possibly keep her happy. Not even Mack, who was more virile than most men.
So she'd gone back to promiscuity, but since Mack wasn't jealous she'd kept him as a paramour. It was about this time that she began to get the idea that, while she was going to keep her amateur standing by never accepting money, there was no reason why men—other men, not Mack, that is—shouldn't give her presents in appreciation of her favors. In fact, Mack had suggested it.
By now, only Mack was on what he called her free list. She expected presents from him only at Christmas and on her birthday. Not that she didn't get anything else at all from him. He took her to dinner several nights a week; most of her other male friends were married and afraid to take the risk of being seen with her in public. And, because of his line of work, Mack was able to do her other valuable favors. He was "in" with the cops and able to fix traffic tickets. Once he'd even managed to square a drunken driving rap which, since it was a second offense, would otherwise have carried a mandatory jail sentence. He had connections through which he could sell for her at a fair price, certainly more than she herself could have got for them, presents which were given to her and which she didn't want to keep for herself. And a few times when a man whom, for one reason or another, she had dropped from her friendship roster had become troublesome in his efforts to see her again, Mack had talked to him and Dolly had been bothered no longer.
Mack had been a policeman once, on the vice squad. Now he was a private detective, a lone operator who, if he was a bit on the shyster side and did mostly divorce work, stayed nearly enough honest to be on good terms with the police. Which made him a very valuable friend and protector for a girl like Dolly, who, although she did nothing seriously illegal, frequently skated on somewhat thin ice.
"Ray," Mack was saying to her. "That's the guy who's a liquor salesman, no? The one who brings you a case of whisky once in a while?"
Dolly nodded. "He said he just wanted to stay a little while, Mack honey. If he means that and doesn't change his mind maybe I can phone you after he goes and you can come back. Where'll you be?"
"At the office, I guess. I've got some skip-trace reports I might as well write up. I'll be there a couple of hours. I'll go home after that if I haven't heard from you. Should hit the pad early tonight anyway."
"Swell," Dolly said. "Mack honey, you make us a couple drinks while I take a quick shower. I won't be three minutes."
She walked quickly into the bedroom. She undressed quickly, putting away the clothes she took off since she wouldn't have to dress again this evening; she could just put on a robe when Mack left.
She wondered if Ray would bring a case of whisky with him tonight; that was something she was always glad to get. She thought back and decided that he wouldn't. He'd brought a case last time he'd come. Dolly didn't expect her friends to bring her a present every time they came to see her, if they'd brought something fairly valuable the previous trip. Something like a dozen pair of nylons, dollar forty-nine variety, anything that cost no more than twenty or twenty-five dollars (and it had better not cost much less than twenty) was good only for the time it was brought. Something worth fifty was worth a couple of visits and so on up the line. Dolly didn't keep books on the presents brought her but she had a good memory and always knew who was due to bring something and who wasn't. She didn't have her rules printed and posted on the inside of her door, as rules and prices are posted inside hotel room doors, but the men who came to see her soon got the idea and could figure it the same way Dolly did. No, Ray probably wouldn't bring anything tonight and she didn't expect him to. A case of whisky, the brand he'd brought, was worth at least fifty dollars. He would have paid less, of course, since he'd have been able to get it at wholesale, but Dolly didn't care about that; it was still worth at least fifty to her.
She was in the bathroom almost exactly the three minutes she'd predicted. Two minutes under the shower and one with the bath towel; she didn't dry herself too thoroughly because Mack liked her with her skin a trifle moist. And during the minute of toweling she had time to admire her body in the full-length mirror on the inside of the bathroom door.
Her breasts were especially beautiful, she thought, and why shouldn't she think so when she knew they drove men crazy. Already their shell-pink, tip-tilted nipples were hardening in anticipation.
Naked and glowing she walked through the bedroom and into the living room. Mack was sitting on the sofa; two freshly made highballs, strong ones, were on the coffee table in front of it.
Naked she ran lightly across the room and sat in his lap, kissed him. His arms went around her, one of his hands cupping one of her breasts, a perfect fit.
He pulled back to break the kiss, groaned softly.
"Little bitch," he said. "How can a man enjoy a drink with you like this. The drinks will have to wait."
He picked her up and carried her into the bedroom. She laughed; this was what she'd wanted, to have to wait for her drink until afterward.