by Jerry eBooks
“Monty!” she gasped.
Wolf Montana’s flat, heavy face grinned up at her from the chair in front of her dressing table. A cigarette dangled from one corner of his thick mouth.
“H’ya, babe!” he greeted. “What the hell’s the matter? You look like you seen a ghost!”
Mona closed the door quickly and backed up against it. Her cheeks were pallid under a layer of rouge, and her lower lip trembled.
“Monty! What are you doing here? I thought—” He rose deliberately, shaking out his big, raw-boned frame. A faint, contemptuous sneer twisted his mouth. “Sure, you thought I’d be spendin’ the rest of my life up the river.” His beady eyes narrowed. “Well, I’m out, see?”
He swaggered across the room. “How about showin’ me you’re glad to see me, babe, or ain’t I in the picture no more?”
Mona shivered as his hands came to her hips, slid up the naked curve of her waist and closed about her breasts. He leaned over and kissed her full on the mouth. When he leaned back again the pupils of his eyes were dilated.
“Eight months is a long time, babe,” he panted. His fingers were under the jeweled bandeau and caressing the bare softness of her breasts.
Mona pushed him away . . . gently. She turned the key in the lock. “Good God, Monty, why did you come here? Don’t you realize they must be gunning for you!”
His smile was almost a drunken leer. Mona knew he had been drinking. She tasted stale liquor on her lips.
“Anxious to get rid of me, aren’t you, babe? Got some other John on the string?”
Mona breathed heavily. “Don’t be a fool, Monty! Get out of the state until this blows over!”
His hard fingers gripped the roundness of her upper arm. “I came down for two reasons, babe. First place, I had a yen for ya, see? Second place, I need dough. Got any?”
Mona winced. “Only about a hundred dollars.”
“That’s no good. I need big money. What the hell do you do with all your dough? You’re knockin’ down a hundred and fifty a week, ain’t ya? Blowin’ it in on fancy duds to get the Johns all hot and bothered, huh?”
He jerked her close to him and pinned her there with an arm around her waist. “I got friends, babe, an’ they been tippin’ me off about you, see? Who’s the Mallory bloke you been mixin’ with?”
Mona tried to squirm out of his grip. “You’re crazy, Monty! There isn’t anybody!”
“You’re lyin’! I got it straight! Mallory’s the guy’s name, an’ he’s lousy with dough. That’s all right with me, see, because maybe you an’ me can take some of it away from him. I don’t mind you treatin’ the boys good, just so I get mine.” He tore away one of the bandeau cups, releasing a firm, rounded breast. “Still got what it takes, ain’t ya, babe?”
Mona shuddered as his fingers brushed her sensitive bosom.
“Please, Monty!” she pleaded. “I’ll do anything if you’ll only go! I’ll meet you someplace and—”
“Shut up! I been thinkin’ about this for eight months. Layin’ there and wonderin’ what it would be like when I got out. You never been in stir so you don’t know what it means. Some nights I’d dream about kissin’ ya an’ lovin’ ya. I’d go nuts just thinkin’ about it!” His eyes became burning embers.
He forced her head back and fastened wet lips on her throat. His hand dipped down off her breast, crossed the velvet flatness of her stomach . . . Hot, questing fingers seared her hip.
A knock at the door stiffened him. He dropped back, reaching for a gun. The color drained from Mona’s cheeks. She covered her mouth with her hand to keep from crying out.
Montana’s shifty eyes scanned the room. He pulled open a closet door. “Let ’em in,” he whispered, “and talk plenty fast!” He slid behind a row of gauze and silk costumes, drew the door shut behind him.
Again the knock sounded—this time impatiently. Mona covered herself with a pale blue smock. Her fingers were icy cold as she turned the key in the lock, but warmth seeped up them as Bob Mallory, meticulous in tails, stepped across the threshold.
“Hello, gorgeous!” His left arm coiled about Mona’s slim waist and he drew her close for a long, breathless kiss. “Certainly kept me waiting. For a moment I thought you had another man in here.”
Mona’s violet eyes shot to the closet. She crossed her arm over her breasts to hide the heaving tumult of them. Prickly sensations ran up and down her spine. Her smile was pitifully forced.
“Silly!”
The heir to the fabulous Mallory utilities fortune shrugged. “Well, one never can tell!” He placed his top hat and silver-headed cane on a chair. “Which reminds me: remember my mentioning the kid sister? Well, Jane came in on the Normandie late this afternoon. She’ll be at the St. Moritz for a few days before going up to the feudal castle at Watch Hill.”
Mona died a thousand deaths as he talked on enthusiastically. At any moment she expected Montana to step out of the closet and tear apart the one beautiful thing in her life. But for some reason or other, he didn’t.
Bob took her in his arms. “I thought it might be a good idea, sweet, if you called Jane tonight and asked her to have lunch with you tomorrow.” He kissed her cheek. “If we can get her on our side the governor has to give in.”
Mona’s lower lip trembled. She drew a deep breath, swelling her firm, lovely breasts. “I feel cheap and tawdry doing a thing like that Bob. If I’m not good enough—”
His possessive mouth cut the sentence short. Whirling on dizzy heights, Mona offered no objection when his hand slid up to her breasts, burrowing beneath the smock to touch the velvet spheres Wolf Montana had bared.
“Don’t ever say a thing like that again!” he warned. “You know how my father is! He’s coming into town tonight and I’m seeing him. Try to arrange to get the weekend off and we’ll spend it at Watch Hill. Nothing like bearding the lion in his own den.
He kissed her hard again. “You’ll call Jane?” Mona nodded. “Yes.”
She turned the key, locking the door, a moment after he left. Montana’s eyes glittered like black diamonds as he came out of hiding. He hefted the gun in his palm menacingly.
“So, there was no other guy!” he sneered. “Not much, sister!” He pocketed the gun and crossed the room. His wiry fingers dug deep into Mona’s arms. “You’re damn’ lucky I didn’t bust into your little tea party, baby! All set to trot down the aisle, ain’ cha?”
Mona shrank from him. Hot stabs of pain were shooting up her arms. “Please, Monty! You’re hurting me!”
He backed her up against the wall. “I’ll hurt you plenty unless you play ball. Now, here’s the layout. This Mallory guy’s got dough to burn. I need some of it. You’re gonna get me ten grand by noon tomorrow, see?”
Frozen terror mirrored itself in Mona’s eyes. “No, Monty! I can’t!”
His liquored breath was the exhalation of a foul blast furnace in her face. “What do ya mean ya can’t? You gotta! Ten grand’ll keep me under wraps ‘till the boys can fix things up.”
Mona sucked in gulps of air. Her arms were numb from the cruel pressure of his fingers. The rough lapels of his shoddy jacket rasped across her breasts, scratched the sensitive skin.
“I’m through with the racket Monty,” she whimpered plaintively. “I’m going straight. I haven’t touched a dollar of hot money since you went up.”
Utter contempt twisted his twisted lips. “White as a lily, ain ‘cha?” He forced his huge frame against her, crashing her breasts. “Well, this is one deal you’re in on, baby. You’re knockin’ Mallory over for ten grand or I’ll know why! Savvy?”
“No! No!” Mona’s voice was thick and choked. Montana backed away. His face became a cruel, obscene mask of hatred. “Say that again!” he hissed.
Mona cringed before his hulking bestiality. “I can’t do it, Monty!” she gasped. “I won’t!” Like the crack of a rifle, the palm of his hand shot out and smashed against her cheek. The blow had all the force of Montana’s hulking shoulders behind it. Mona’s head s
napped to one side. A cry, more of fright than pain, leaped from her lips.
Montana caught her as she stumbled. He ripped away the top of her smock, leaving her alabaster shoulders and her pulsating breasts bare. His taloned fingers squeezed the soft flesh until every nerve in her body was an agonized knot.
“And not only that,” he muttered, “but you’re playin’ like you used to in the old days, see? You can put on the marriage act with Mallory, all right. That’s okay by me. But when I want you, kid, you’re toddlin’ over.” His right hand shot into his pocket. Mona felt cold steel boring into her stomach.
“Get the feel of that, baby? I still know how to make it work. I’ll meet ya up at Nick’s at twelve sharp tomorrow. Have the dough with you.”
Mona cowered, one hand raised to her tingling cheek—“I tell you I can’t do it, Monty!” she cried. “And anyway, he hasn’t any money of his own. I swear he hasn’t!”
“You know what I think of your swearin’,” Montana snapped. His hand shot out, gripped her shoulder and wrenched it until tears of pain glazed her eyes. “You’ll either get it or—” The gun barrel jammed into her flesh. “Supposin’ I tip the gent off that Wolf Montana played husban’ an’ wife with ya for a year, huh! Supposin’ I put him wise to a couple of shady deals? Supposin’—”
Mona beat her tiny fists against his massive chest. “You wouldn’t! Monty, you wouldn’t!”
“Oh, wouldn’t I? Like rollin’ off a log, baby.”
“He’d call you a liar!”
“He would, would he? All right! I’ll get fifty grand from your high-hat friend an’ fix your wagon at the same time.” His voice dropped. “An’ when it’s all over, you’ll come crawlin’ back on your hands and knees, see?” He backed to the door.
Released, Mona squared her shoulders. “If you touch him, Monty—”
“Supposin’ I do?” belligerently.
Defiance flashed in Mona’s eyes. “You’ll have some explaining to do.”
His face went black. He leaped at her savagely, raking his fingernails across her bare skin and leaving macabre trails of blood.
“Explain that to him, sister!” he cried mockingly.
AloneE in the dressing room Mona bathed the livid scratches marking the whiteness of her breast, but neither the smarting pain nor the ugly disfiguration bothered her. It was more than that.
From now on, with Montana at large, her every waking moment would be charged with fear. Her hands trembled, outward evidence of raw-rubbed nerves, as she patted soothing cold cream into the cruel nail gashes. What was in Montana’s mind? Should she warn Bob; tell him of impending danger? That would mean baring the hideousness of her past, long since buried.
“Two minutes to your number, Miss Drake,” a voice called.
Chilled to the marrow of her bones, Mona stripped off the jeweled costume and donned a filmy chiffon frock. Why, when happiness was within reach, did the bat of hell have to blanket the sun? She alone realized, as she stood in the warm glow of an amber spot and sobbed out a nostalgic torch song, that the sobs were real.
On the way back to her dressing room, Mona remembered the call she was to make to Jane Mallory at the St. Moritz. It was ten-thirty now and the next show went on at midnight. She dressed for the street, slipped out the side entrance, and hurried to a drugstore phone booth.
“Miss Jane Mallory, please,” she requested, once the connection with the hotel switchboard was made. There was a short pause, and then:
“Miss Mallory does not answer.”
Mona gnawed nervously at her lower lip. “Will you take a message, please? Tell Miss Mallory that Mona Drake called and—”
The operator’s voice was inquisitively singsong. “Were you disconnected from Miss Mallory?” she queried.
Mona fumbled. “Er—disconnected? Why—er—I don’t understand.”
“You called Miss Mallory about ten minutes ago. Did you get her?”
The skin on Mona’s scalp tightened. Cold frost seemed to form around her heart. Wolf Montana had struck! Dazed, she returned the receiver to its cradle, unmindful of the operator’s insistent: “Hello? . . . Hello?”
She stepped out of the booth and leaned against the glass-paneled door. Her stomach was sick with nausea and her head spun wildly. Now she understood what Montana had meant when he said: “I’ll get fifty grand from your high-hat friend an’ fix your wagon at the same time!” It was all ghastly clear.
Montana was using her name to lure Bob’s sister into a kidnap trap! Already the operator at the St. Moritz knew a Miss Drake had called and spoken to Jane Mallory. It was a cruelly diabolical scheme, each tentacle of which would ultimately crush all that was near and dear to her.
Mona walked out to the street, thankful for the cool breeze blowing across her fevered brow. It seemed as though fate were conspiring against the few drops of happiness she had managed to squeeze out of life.
Mona shuddered as she envisioned Jane Mallory in Montana’s hands. Bob had showed her his sister’s picture. She was young, vibrant and formed like a nubile goddess. Montana would demand body tribute on top of everything else.
Something had to be done—and quickly! Everything was at stake! She returned to the booth and called the Casa Grande.
Minutes later she was riding uptown in a taxi. A faintly sardonic smile curled her lips as she thought of what she had told Danny Keeler. “I can’t make the show! I’ll call you in the morning.” There might never be another morning. Only an hour ago Wolf Montana’s gun had bored into her stomach! It might bore again, but not so harmlessly!
Mona left the taxi a block from the Golden Dawn Cabaret. She walked toward it rapidly, the jaunty swing of her hips belying the pounding beat of her heart and the fluttering of her breasts.
Halfway up the gilt, rococo steps of the building housing the cabaret, Mona heard the hot, sultry rhythms of a pounding jazz band. The raucous music burst out at her as she passed through a heavy, blue plush barrier to the interior of the place.
Thoroughly at home, she circled the room, opened a door and walked into an imitation oak-paneled office. The man behind the desk—short, squat, and fat-faced—darted his hand into the breast of his jacket.
Mona smiled brightly as she closed the door. “Kinda jumpy, Nick, aren’t you?” She undulated up to the desk, supporting herself on the palms of her hands and leaning far enough over so that his beady eyes could not help seeing the white softness of her unbrassiered breasts under her bodice. “Did Monty get the dame?” she whispered.
Nick ran a thick tongue around his bloated lips. “Where you been keepin’ yourself, Venus?”
Mona shrugged “Oh, I’m still in circulation. What about the dame?”
“What dame?”
“Stop stalling, Nick! You know as well as I do that Monty had a snatch on for tonight. Did it go through?”
His eyes rolled over her figure from hips to throat “What’s it your business?”
Mona forced her voice into brittle hardness. “Plenty! Did he get her?”
“And if he did?”
“That’s all I want to know. She’s good for fifty grand and I’m cut in. Know where they took her?”
Nick rose, pushing back his swivel chair. He circled the desk, rubbing his damp, plump hands together, He was inches shorter than Mona. His chin reached the upper boundaries of her breasts.
“For a little girl,” he murmured liquidly, “you wanna know a whole lot, don’ cha? Do you still know all the tricks?”
Mona fought down her revulsion, swaying toward him as his pudgy short-fingered hands snaked over her hips. She slumped so that her breasts would press against his chest.
“Yeah, I know a couple,” she replied throatily. “And some new ones, too.”
He raised himself on his toes and kissed her. Mona sickened at the touch of his rubbery lips, but she gave him everything in a big, panting dose.
When he drew away, beads of perspiration dotted his forehead. His hands moved up, fumbling for her
breasts. Mona coiled her arms about his neck. Every inch of her quivered against him.
“Where’d they take the Mallory dame, Nick?” she breathed. “She’s a swell looker and I gotta see that Monty doesn’t mess around.”
With his mind a hot inferno of anticipation, Nick was caught off guard. “Up to Tonelli’s Tavern, but you don’t gotta worry about Monty, honey. Nick’ll take care of you.”
Tonelli’s Tavern! Mona’s heart leaped. She knew the place well. It was a pseudo-roadhouse ten miles out of the city on the Post Road. During Prohibition it had been used as a warehouse. Now it was a hangout for Montana’s gang.
“How about you an’ me goin’ upstairs?” Nick breathed heavily.
Mona slipped away from his clutching, seeking fingers. “Not tonight, Nick. I’m singing at the Casa Grande. Got to make the next show.” She was at the door before he could stop her. “So long. Tell Monty, if you see him, that I’m waiting for my slice.”
On the street again Mona debated with herself whether to play a lone hand or call in the police. The danger of trying to outsmart Montana was great, but enlisting the police would lead to gunplay, the possible killing of Jane Mallory, and—what was almost worse—would bare all that had gone before to Bob and his father. She decided to take it solo. If one of Wolf Montana’s bullets ended things for her—so much the better!
A reluctant cabbie finally consented to make the trip out of the city for a flat rate of twenty dollars. It was every penny Mona had with her but she agreed.
“You know where you’re goin’, lady, I hope,” he commented as the cab sped through the night. “Tonelli’s ain’t no place for no pink tea parties.”
Tonelli’s Tavern was a low, rambling stucco house set back from the road and bearing no sign to indicate the nature of its being. Mona stepped out of the cab as it drew up to the place. The driver slammed the door shut, turned on protesting tires and headed back toward the city.
Mona drew a long, fortifying breath, wrapped her light jacket-coat tight around her, and walked up the gravel pathway. A moment before her hand reached for the doorknob, the door swung open and a scarred, unappetizing face peered out at her. It was a new face to Mona, but it bore the indelible marks of gangsterdom. A twisted jaw, a battered nose, and eyes that were bright and shifty in deep sockets. Mona spread her luscious lips in an ingratiating smile.
