At the back of the shop, up a flight of dirty narrow stairs, she ran a flop-house. At one time or another she had given guys like Karpis, or Barker or Frank Nash, a shake-down while the cops were looking for them. Miss Benbow was safe. The cops left her alone. Some said she’d got a hold on the Police Commissioner. Anyway, the police let her alone, and that was good enough.
The two, Myra and Dillon, came to Miss Benbow at sight. The rain fell lightly on the glistening pavements, and the soft mist from the river was for the moment washed away. They came out of the night, Dillon walking softly, looking over his shoulder suspiciously from time to time. He was conscious of his new clothes, and the weight of the Thompson lying at the bottom of his big grip. ;
Myra stepped down the wet flags, her wooden heels tapping their challenge. She held her head up, delighting in the soft caress of silk against her skin. Dillon had done things to her in a short time. For the first time in her life she knew what it meant to have a man around. She no longer had to urge or suggest. She was told what to do and she obeyed blindly.
She glanced at Dillon, seeing his powerful shoulders and his thick, muscular neck. A little flame flickered through her. She wanted him. She wanted him to take her brutally, to bruise her in the taking of her.
They had been two nights on the journey, moving cautiously forward towards Kansas City. She had spent two nights of sick disappointment with him. He had treated her coldly, sharing the same room with her, but not touching her.
Dillon disturbed her thoughts abruptly. “This is it,” he said.
They stopped outside the dress shop. The place was in gloomy darkness.
“This joint is good,” Dillon said, speaking out of the side of his mouth. “All the boys come here.”
He located a bell-push at the top of the door and pressed. They could hear the sharp whir somewhere at the back of the building. They waited there in the rain like statues.
Miss Benbow came and opened the shop door herself. She blocked the entrance with her great body. “My!” she said. “Ain’t you made a mistake?”