Chances

by Jackie Collins

  He swiveled to face her when the butler brought her in.

  “Shall I stay, sir?” Roger asked discreetly.

  “No, no. That’s all right. I’ll buzz when I need you,” Bernard replied, waving him away. “Sit down, Carrie.” He indicated a chair.

  She sat and studied her hands folded neatly on her lap.

  “I do know you, don’t I?” Bernard inquired gently.

  She raised her eyes in surprise. “Yes.”

  “I have a very good memory for faces,” he said. “Once seen, never forgotten. And if I can’t quite place that face it drives me insane! Now, where was it I met you?”

  “I b-beg your pardon?” she stammered hesitantly.

  “Where?”

  “Here,” she replied, puzzled.

  “Here?”

  “Yes, sir. I used to be in service here.”

  “You did?” He was surprised. “When?”

  “Oh, quite a few years ago,” she mumbled vaguely. “I was very young.”

  He stared at her, his brow creasing in a perplexed frown. “No, not here…. Somewhere else.”

  “I did work here.”

  He was unconvinced.

  “Mr. Dimes. I worked for you in this house—oh, way back in 1926. I had to leave suddenly because of a… family reason.”

  His frown deepened.

  “Yes,” she continued excitedly. “Don’t you remember? I met you in an Italian restaurant. The owner brought me over and you gave me a job. You must remember?”

  He remembered a skinny little girl, certainly not this woman sitting before him. Oh, her hair was braided, her clothes unflattering, and her face bereft of makeup, but Bernard Dimes had not been a producer for twenty-three years without being able to recognize a beautiful woman when he saw one. “So,” he questioned, “after all those years are you still satisfied to be just a maid?”

  She studied the pattern on the carpet. “I guess so.”

  “What’s the matter with you, Carrie? No ambition?”

  She looked up at him in surprise. He was talking to her like a person. “Yes, I have ambition,” she said, startling herself, “but it’s not easy getting any other kind of a job.”

  He stared at her. And then he said, “I guess that’s true. But you are a very attractive girl. You should be doing more with your life.”

  She shrugged. “I know….”

  He looked at her thoughtfully; then, on impulse, got up from his chair, walked over, and handed her a card. “Be at the Shubert Theater. Ten o’clock tomorrow morning. There may be something in the chorus.” He stared at her gravely. “You don’t want to remain a maid all of your life, do you?”

  She shook her head.

  “I’ll clear it with the Beckers. Don’t worry.” He rang a bell and the butler appeared instantly. “Roger, take Carrie downstairs.”

  She left the room in a state of shock.

  Bernard watched her go. He was as surprised at the turn of events as she was. He had asked to see the girl because of a nagging sensation of not being able to place her. And then, sitting in his study looking at her, the strangest feeling had come over him. She radiated a hidden sexuality that enthralled him. Why not give her a chance in life?

  He lit a cigarette and blew smoke rings toward the ceiling. Something was still bothering him…. He had seen her somewhere before, but it was not when she had worked for him.

  He racked his brains, but it would not come. Eventually he would remember. If he thought about things long enough, they always fell into position.

  The director picked his teeth with the edge of some book matches, “Where’d you find her?” he asked.

  “She works for a friend of mine,” Bernard replied vaguely.

  “She sure looks good.”

  They both regarded Carrie from their anonymous seats in the orchestra. She stood onstage, blinded by the lights, nervous and perspiring, clad in a borrowed leotard.

  “What you want me to play, sweetie?” the young pianist asked.

  “I don’t know,” she mumbled.

  “You gonna sing or dance first?”

  “Er, dance, I guess.”

  “How about ‘Pennies from Heaven’?”

  “How about some honky-tonk?”

  “Hey, now you’re talkin’ my language!” He started to play enthusiastically, a real New Orleans rendition of “Hard-Hearted Hannah.” Carrie began to dance.

  “Good God!” exclaimed the director. “She moves like a stripper!”

  Bernard sat bolt upright in his seat.

  Indeed she did.

  Clementine Duke’s party.

  Westchester, 1928.

  He knew he would remember—eventually.

  Gino

  1937

  Gino drove the black Cadillac sedan erratically.

  Cindy tucked her legs under her on the front seat and said, “Say, are you drunk or somethin’?”

  “What kind of a crack is that?”

  “You’re drivin’ like you are.”

  “Fuckin’ Senator. Thinks he can call the shots. I don’t dance on anyone’s string.”

  “Who said you did?”

  He glanced quickly at his wife and wondered if he should tell her. No. Why let her in on his humiliation at Senator Duke’s talking to him like some two-bit hoodlum? Expecting him to say, Yeh, I’ll kill for you, just tell me where and when. Cocksucker. And he had thought they were friends. What a laugh!

  “Nothin’,” he muttered.

  “Sure, nothing. That’s why we raced out of the place like a couple of fugitives. Your girlfriend wasn’t pleased.”

  “She’s not my girl friend. I’ve told you that a hundred times.”

  “Sure,”—Cindy yawned—“and Jean Harlow don’t bleach her hair!”

  They drove the rest of the way in silence. Gino was as mad at himself as with anybody else. He hadn’t actually said no. He had listened and said, “I can arrange to have it done for you.”

  And the Senator had replied, “You must do it, Gino. Nobody else can know.”

  Fuck. He had sat there and allowed himself to be taken for a cheap killer. He was a businessman, not a criminal who lived by the gun. But he had sat there while Oswald had unfolded the details. Blackmail, of course. Sexual, of course. A long story.

  Senator Duke hadn’t actually said, “If you don’t take care of this matter personally I will destroy you.” But the words hung in the room.

  And could Gino take care of it? Probably. He had the power. Of course—thinking it over—he had been unwise to allow Senator Duke so much knowledge of his activities. But how could he help it? The Senator was a director of most of the companies he owned, and his lawyer handled all legal documents. His broker took care of Gino’s investments. The only thing the Senator didn’t know about was the safe deposit boxes all over town.

  So, what to do? Murder some blackmailing faggot creep? That way Oswald Duke would have even more on him.

  Or—forget the whole thing and take his chances?

  Gino was stumped.

  It had not been a good week.

  It got worse.

  The very next day three of his collectors got hit on the street. Two beaten, one shot. Another fifteen grand down the drain. Jake The Boy was in business.

  Gino didn’t think twice about it. He put out a contract on The Boy. Having balls was one thing. Making Gino Santangelo look like a fool was another.

  Senator Oswald telephoned at midday. “Have you made a decision?” he whispered.

  “Yeh,” Gino replied. “Don’t worry, it’ll be taken care of.” He would take care of the matter in his way.

  Later he dismissed Red and Sideways Sam for the night, took the old Ford from the basement garage of the club, and drove to the address Oswald had given him. The car ran like a dream. It should. He still worked on it lovingly once a month.

  The address was down in the Village. A dump. He parked the car a block away and walked to the building. He checked the names scribbled und
er buzzers and found Kincaid Z. Second floor.

  The time was 2 A.M. But the building rocked with the noise of a jazz band in session.

  He knocked on Kincaid Z’s door, and a black boy opened up immediately, as though he was expecting someone.

  Gino jammed the door with his foot and slid inside.

  The boy backed nervously into a corner without saying a word. He had wild frizzy hair and the eyes of an addict. He was wearing bright red lipstick and a flowered housecoat.

  “You Zefra Kincaid?”

  “Who’s asking?” the boy replied in a strange falsetto voice.

  “Are you?” Gino’s hard black eyes bored into him.

  “Yes,” the boy whispered.

  “I want the letters.”

  “What letters?”

  With one swift step Gino was on him, the palm of his hand under the boy’s chin forcing his head back, his knee jammed deeply into his stomach.

  “I… want… the… Senator’s… letters… now.”

  “Yes.” The boy’s eyes were frozen with terror and pain. “I’ll get them.”

  Gino let him go and sighed. His instincts were always right. No need to kill this petrified little freak. Just put the fear of God in him with a few well-intended threats, then dump him on a train out of town.

  The boy was shaking as he went toward a cupboard in the corner. Idly Gino wondered where Oswald had found him. Where would their paths ever cross, the Senator and the teenage fairy junkie?

  The boy opened the cupboard, and with a wild scream an apparition leaped out, a six-foot bewigged maniac wielding a butcher’s knife and heading in Gino’s direction.

  For one moment he was paralyzed with horror. And in that moment the maniac struck, the knife embedding itself deeply in Gino’s shoulder.

  Thursday, July 14, 1977

  New York and Philadelphia

  Lucky drifted in and out of sleep. She was no longer aggressive toward Steven, she just wanted out. They had been trapped in the elevator for nine long hours, and all the fight had gone out of her. She felt filthy dirty. Her lips, mouth, and throat were parched dry. Her head ached. Her stomach cramped. She wanted to throw up yet at the same time was starving hungry.

  “You awake?” she murmured.

  “Can’t sleep,” Steven replied.

  “Neither can I.”

  He felt sorry for her and sorry for himself. And very pissed off that in New York in 1977 you could get trapped in an elevator for hours on end without anyone doing a thing about it.

  “What are you going to do when you get out?” Lucky asked.

  He couldn’t help smiling in the dark. She sounded like a forlorn little kid looking forward to getting released from jail.

  “Take a bath.”

  She laughed softly. “So am I, a long hot bath, and a glass of cold white wine to drink in it. And music playing—some Donna Summer or Stevie Wonder.”

  “How about Millie Jackson or Isaac Hayes?”

  “You like that kind of music?”

  “Sure do.”

  “Really?”

  “You sound surprised.”

  “I didn’t have you figured for the kind of guy likes soul.”

  “What did you have me figured for?”

  “Oh, I don’t know. Middle-of-the-road. Herb Alpert, Barry Manilow.”

  “Thanks a lot!”

  “Wouldn’t it be great if we had music here?”

  “Marvin Gaye.”

  “A1 Green.”

  “Willie Hutch.”

  “Otis Redding.”

  They began to laugh. “Hey,” she exclaimed, “we’ve got something in common.”

  “You ever listen to old music? Billie Holiday, Nina Simone?”

  “Sure. Love it.”

  “You do?” Suddenly they were discussing music, carrying on like old friends. So intent that they almost missed the voice yelling down the elevator shaft: “Anyone in there?”

  “Hey!” Lucky leaped to her feet. “I think we’ve been found.”

  Steven jumped up too. “We’re in here!” he shouted. “Two of us. Can you get us out?”

  Dario tensed his whole body as he crouched on the kitchen floor of his apartment. All he could hear was the boy’s chant of obscenity as he got nearer and nearer, closer to the knife that protruded from Dario’s sweating hands.

  “Asskissa… cocksucka… mothafucka….” The voice was almost upon him. “Asskissa… cocksucka… aargh—”

  The boy had walked into the knife. Dario had not moved. The boy had just walked right on into it.

  Silence.

  Dario’s hands slipped noiselessly from the handle. He felt sick. Had he killed him?

  Carrie’s indignity was complete. Hauled down to the police station in a filthy wagon with a seething, furious mass of humanity. “The dregs of society,” Elliott would say. And what would he say when he found her among them?

  She closed her eyes and tried not to think about it.

  She could picture the scene. His patrician features creased in amazement. “But what on earth were you doing in Harlem, Carrie? I don’t understand.”

  She had told him she was dropping by to see Steven. “I won’t be long,” she had said. Steven lived three blocks away. Elliott, who had been watching a movie on television, waved vaguely.

  How long had she been? Hours. Elliott would be frantic. He would have phoned Steven, found out she never arrived there…. They would both be frantic.

  Desperately she racked her brains for a cover story. And when it came it was perfect. Everyone would believe her.

  “I said, who is there?” Gino repeated gruffly.

  “Mr. Santangelo…. It’s me, Jill. I thought you might have changed your mind.”

  Christ! Broads! Two thirty in the morning and she was back knocking on his door. “Forget it,” he growled.

  “Just open the door a minute,” she wheedled. “I have to ask you something. Please.”

  Always a sucker when they asked nicely. He slipped his gun in the pocket of his robe and turned the lock on the door. Maybe he was feeling a touch horny. Why not do her the big favor?

  Opening up the door, he began to say, “Hey, now listen, kid—”

  His words turned to a strangled curse as a camera flash exploded in his face.

  Laboriously a top panel was removed from the elevator and a man in overalls stuck a flashlight through, pinpointing it on Lucky’s face.

  “For crissakes,” she snapped, bringing a hand up to cover her eyes.

  The light swiveled around and hit Steven, who was busy putting his clothes back on. “Turn that thing off,” he commanded. “We’ve been in pitch dark for nine hours and I’m not about to have a light in my eyes.”

  The man in overalls laughed crudely and switched the flashlight off. “You two sure look a mess. Just took ten people outa an elevator in the Sherman Building. Goldarn—they was joined at the hip!” He cackled some more. “Sweating like a regular herd o’ cattle…. An’ the stink! I—”

  “Can you get us out of here?” demanded Steven shortly.

  The man cracked his knuckles. “That’s why I’m here.”

  “Let’s quit the talking and do it,” Steven said sharply. “Are you from the fire department?”

  “Naw.” The man sniffed. “Fire department’s all backed up. The whole city’s a mess. I’m from elevator maintenance.”

  “Don’t tell me there’s a city power blackout?”

  “You got it.”

  Lucky was struggling into her clothes. “Let’s just get out of here,” she hissed.

  “Right,” Steven replied; then, to the man on top of the elevator, “What are you going to do, force the doors?”

  “Can’t do that. You’re between floors. Everyone who gets stuck is always between floors.”

  “So how—”

  “Put a rope around you. Pull you out.”

  “Oh, God!” exclaimed Lucky. “I don’t like the sound of that.”

  “Let me get
this straight,” said Steven. “You tie a rope around us and pull us up through the top of the elevator. Is that it?”

  “Sure is. Safe as pullin’ a tooth.”

  “What’s so safe about pulling a tooth?” Lucky demanded, the thought of rescue reviving her somewhat.

  “You don’t have to be taken out, ma’am. You can stay here till they turn the power on, if you want. It don’t bother me none.”

  “Let’s do it,” Steven decided. “If he says it’s safe, then it’s safe.”

  “Oh—if he says,” Lucky spat disdainfully. “Who the hell is he?”

  “Look,” said Steven patiently, “I’m going. You want to stay, that’s up to you.”

  “Wonderful. Really wonderful. You mean you would just leave me here, all alone?”

  “’Scuse me, folks,” the maintenance man said, from his position on top of the elevator. “Why don’t I just come back? I got six more elevators to check out in this building. Maybe I can find me some folks want to get out.”

  “We’re leaving,” said Steven grimly. “Throw down the ropes.”

  Before Dario could stand, the boy crumpled and fell on top of him. He shrieked with horror, pushing and shoving until he was able to roll the boy off. He was shaking, his whole body one quivering mass.

  He staggered up and ran from the kitchen. He had killed someone. Get to a phone. Get hold of Costa immediately.

  The apartment was dimly lit by the moon. It enabled him to see his way to the telephone. Frantically he picked up the instrument and started to punch out the numbers.

  It was then he heard the noise—a picking, scraping noise outside his front door.

  Someone was trying to get into his apartment.

  It wasn’t easy getting attention in the crowded police precinct. After all, she was just another black face jammed in the pen with a whole bunch of others. But Carrie was in control of herself again, and quickly, lucidly, she spun her web of lies in a firm voice. “Please phone my husband,” she begged at the end of her tale, “and let him come and get me.” The cop she had been talking to nodded. It was a plausible story, and easily checked. Fortunately for Carrie, he made the phone call, and within an hour Elliott Berkely arrived at the precinct with his lawyer. He looked frantic, just as Carrie had expected. Within fifteen minutes she was released, apologized to, and out in the car with Elliott.