The Promoter

by Orrie Hitt

  “As a minister, I am unable to go into the matter further,” Dr. Call told me. “As businessmen, those who are willing to finance the project are also restricted. What we need is someone who is clever enough to get to the bottom of such matters, who is unafraid, and who has the ability to put down on paper those things which he finds. We feel that if the truth were known then the process would reverse itself and destroy those responsible.”

  “What about the newspapers?”

  “There was one that began a series of articles about immoral activities more than a year ago.” He sighed and shrugged. “The Morning Star. But they dropped it after a couple of issues. I was never able to find out the reason.”

  “That’s a paper in the city?”

  “Yes. And, of course, all of these things come from the city. But they must be stopped, somehow, no matter where they originate. Those types of things are just as bad in the city as they are out here. Only we’re determined to do something about it. If we can, Mr. Morgan.”

  I kicked the idea around in my mind, wondering how I could go about doing a thing like that, estimating the risks involved. I was almost ready to tell him that it was no-go, that I’d stick to writing about hot-rod cars, when he mentioned the financial arrangements.

  “A hundred and fifty a week,” I repeated thoughtfully.

  “Plus expenses.”

  I thought about it a little bit.

  “Not bad,” I admitted.

  “If you do it, there’s just one request that I have.” The Reverend’s face looked very tired, tragically old. “It wouldn’t take much of your time if you could look for my daughter. I — I’d like to know where she is….”

  I closed my eyes for a moment and I saw Judith Call’s dark hair and smooth olive skin and black, questioning eyes. And I saw someone else, too. I saw another girl, equally dark and beautiful, lying twisted upon a lonely ski slope.

  “Sure,” I said. “I’ll send you her address.”

  And I would.

  3

  TRYING to learn anything from the local newsdealers was like attempting to run through the Notre Dame line without any interference.

  “You want to buy these pictures for yourself wholesale?” one man demanded. “Hell, I can’t help you, mister. A guy just comes around, maybe once or twice every two months. Not always the same man. Just a guy. He asks what I want and I tell him. He gets them out of his car, brings them in and I pay him. That’s all.”

  I wasted two days running around corners and then I decided to return to the city.

  “I’ll keep you posted,” I told Doctor Call.

  He gave me a check for three hundred and I put it in my wallet.

  “You won’t find anything here,” he said. “It comes from outside. And — Mr. Morgan, let me know about my daughter, won’t you?”

  “Just as soon as I get something.”

  I went out onto the porch and stopped.

  “She mentioned an Elsa Lang once. Would her parents live in town?”

  He gave me an address on Grove Street, not far from where I was staying.

  On the way back to the hotel I gave the situation some serious thought. How did you work your way into the guts of something like this? How did you find out the truth? And, after you had unearthed the truth, what did you do with it?

  The time spent with the newsdealers, however, had not been altogether wasted. I had learned a few things. Most of the magazines that featured draped and un-draped female figures were delivered by truck. The use of a truck, of course, prevented the publishers from being cited by the postal department. Some of the magazines, such as a few of those dealing with the nudist movement, carried unretouched photographs of both men and women. These magazines, I had been informed, were perfectly legal because they were aimed at a specific group of people. A mixed gathering of snickering boys and girls in one of the stores, a hole-in-the-wall billiard place on Ramson Avenue, had given me some serious doubts about the wisdom of this ruling.

  Not so generously to be judged, in any case, were some of the one and two dollar books which I had managed to pick up in a couple of places in town. These books, consisting of about thirty pages of very poor offset work, featured some equally poor typesetting and a few rather clear photographs. The text of each book concerned itself with the swift pursuit of the opposite sex, the immediate capitulation of the victim, plus a graphic account of the ensuing gratification. Some of the books were from the man’s point of view and some detailed the woman’s feelings. All were written in the first person and most of the books dwelled heavily upon unusual practices. The photographs, seldom related to the content of the story in any way, leaned heavily toward the unorthodox. The men in the photos usually wore fake moustaches and the eyebrows of the women were changed to make recognition impossible. Some of the books lacked a publisher’s imprint while others purported to have been printed in Paris, France, They were, individually or as a group, shoddy literature.

  Upon my return to the hotel I packed my suitcase and typewriter — I had destroyed the several books which I had purchased because they were of no possible value to me — and prepared to leave. However, before departing the room I looked up the phone number of the Lang residence on Grove Street and placed a call to it. I was greeted by a woman who said that her daughter was not at home and there was no telling when she would be there. It was quite evident that the woman cared very little about whether Elsa Lang ever showed up again or not.

  When I reached the lobby I checked my bags at the desk, paid my bill, and went out into the street.

  Grove Street, I soon discovered, was in a sorry neighborhood. The houses were ancient and uncared for and old newspapers and discarded tin cans littered the pavement. The Langs lived on the second floor of a house that smelled of fish and beer and poverty.

  “I’d like to see Mrs. Lang,” I told the woman who answered the door.

  “I’m Mrs. Lang. What you want?”

  She wasn’t an old woman, perhaps in her late forties, but the ravages of the years had left their marks upon her. Her face was dirty and wrinkled and her body sagged beneath a faded wash dress.

  “I was looking for your daughter, Elsa Lang.”

  I told her that I was an agent for one of the large model agencies in the city and that I had seen a picture of her daughter. I said that I didn’t know where she worked but that somebody had given me her address and I thought that I might be able to locate her if I called at her home. I gave it quite a build-up, bearing down on the possibilities of a good future for the girl, and after a while I began to get results. “Well,” she said finally, “I’ll give you her address. As long as you’re not a bill collector. God, but I’m tired of having them bother me! I just got rid of one a couple of minutes ago.” She stared at me silently for a moment, her eyes belligerent. “By God, if you’re another one, mister, you can go to hell.”

  I assured her again that I wasn’t.

  “Well, all right, mister. I just hope she makes enough to pay her bills and get straightened out. Anybody thinks I’m going to do it for her is nuts.”

  The address Mrs. Lang gave me was in a part of the city with which I was not familiar. I told the woman thanks, dropped the slip of paper into my pocket and left.

  I reached the city shortly after four and took a cab from the station up to the Central Building. Sam Terry had gone out early so I left the manuscript with his secretary and told her that the pictures would follow in a couple of days.

  Back on the street, I wondered if Sam was at the little bar around the corner but I decided against conducting an investigation. On occasion, Sam can drink rather heavily and I didn’t have the time to sit around and listen to him express his theories about why a magazine did or did not sell. I caught a cab, while I was still thinking about it, and told the driver to take me up to my apartment on Channing Boulevard, two blocks from Edison Park.

  Channing Boulevard isn’t the most exclusive section of the city but it isn’t down in the slum
s, either. I guess you could call it a happy compromise between wealth and poverty. Most of the apartment buildings are redbrick and clean, with green lawns in the front during summer and playgrounds in the rear. There is elevator service, a television rental service and most of the buildings have a private dining room. The building in which I lived, the Cottonwood, also featured a barber shop on the first floor and a swimming pool in the basement.

  The first thing I did after depositing my stuff in the apartment was to change into trunks and ride the elevator down to the basement.

  At that time of the day, between five and six, many of the male residents descended to the pool. They were a pretty good crew, moderately successful doctors and lawyers and insurance men and people like that. I’d never gotten too friendly with any of them but I had a speaking acquaintance with several and I found their conversations both amusing and relaxing. This evening, however, I am afraid I proved a rather dull companion and, sensing it, I remained only long enough to enjoy a good swim. But even the cool lash of the water did very little to relieve the tension I felt building up within me, a tension which had first manifested itself when I assured Dr. Call that I would do everything I could to get at the truth behind the filth campaign as quickly as possible.

  Back in my room I dressed hurriedly, retrieved my topcoat from the bedroom closet and took the elevator to the street level.

  There was a magazine and book store on Fanning Street, just around the corner and the proprietor, a man whom I knew only casually, greeted me as I came in. He seemed mildly surprised at my choice of reading material.

  The bill was four dollars and seventy cents and when I returned to the hotel I had a fine collection of magazines featuring gaudy covers and lurid titles.

  Many of the pictures and advertisements were repeated in the various magazines and I noted that several were published by the same firm. All of the girls pictured were young, many of them quite pretty and I wondered how they must feel after reading some of the blurbs assigned to them:

  “Long time, no see” hardly applies to curvaceous Dolly Dawn because anybody with eyes can see MOST ALL of red-headed Dolly.

  “SHADOW DANCE. These lovely scenes were taken from the window shades of a lovely dancer’s apartment. It was fun to catch Kathy in the act!”

  Pages toward the front of each magazine featured an assortment of blondes, brunettes and red-heads in various stages of undress. In nearly every case the reader was furnished with the vital statistics of the girl: her age, size of her hips, tummy and bust; plus suggestive comments about her aspirations.

  But it was not the girls, attractive as they were, that were of primary interest to me. The ads, toward the backs of the books, captured most of my attention. “Party Pix … An Unusual Fun Package.” “How to Kiss — More than 50 love techniques fully revealed.” “New Photos of Kandy Kane, Titillating Strip-Tease Sensation.” “50 Daring, Exotic Poses For Only 2 Bucks.” “Men! Free Samples Of The REAL STUFF!” “Censored Photos Of That ‘Girl Next Door’.” “Unique Figure Studies To Please The Most Discriminating Collector.” These, plus hundreds of other ads, cluttered the pages of each magazine. It seemed ironic that several of the magazines had donated space for public service ads instructing the reader to “Help Fight Cancer.”

  I worked until after eight o’clock addressing envelopes, writing out checks and ordering a wide variety of party pics, nudes for artists only, and four or five books with promising titles. Some of the firms were located in the east, an equal number in the west while several were in small towns scattered across the country. Just what I might accomplish by spending this money was highly doubtful, but it had occurred to me that I might learn more in the local outlets if I approached them as a seller rather than as a buyer. While I did not expect the photos which I would receive to meet the requirements of the smut trade, they might establish a basis for friendly conversations which could accidentally point the way to at least one of the sources of supply I was seeking.

  I figured up the total amount of money which the checks represented and grinned. It was probably the only time in history when a church would be billed for more than ninety dollars for the express purpose of purchasing borderline sex material.

  The dining room off the lobby was about to close but since I was a frequent visitor there the hostess obligingly seated me at one of the tables near the window.

  I ordered steak and a rye-and-soda, and contemplated my next move.

  I am not a prude and I hope you will understand that. As a matter of fact, I could not be a prude even if I cared to become one.

  I was born in Philadelphia, on October 27, 1931. My childhood was neither happy nor unhappy. I was an average student, I suppose, and my father, who worked in a local glass factory, wanted me to become a lawyer. But his death, when I was fifteen, prevented this and when I was graduated from high school, two years later, I went to work to help support my mother and younger sister. Two years after that, while riding with friends near Monticello, New York, both my mother and sister were killed in a head-on collision which also claimed the lives of three other people. I remained in Philadelphia only a few months following their deaths.

  Korea beckoned and I served there with the infantry, I believe with honor, until my discharge in 1952. Following this I worked for a year with Atlas Constructors in Casablanca and, upon completion of my contract with them, I went on to Greenland for another year. Back in the States once again I entered the insurance business, sold a little life and accident and sickness coverage for a few months, and then took a job as shipping clerk with a hot-rod mail order firm. While working for the automotive concern I became acquainted with all of the parts used in souping up cars and, for want of having nothing better to do with my spare time, began writing about them. Strangely enough, my work began to sell and, a few months later, I quit the firm and devoted all of my time to writing about the special parts which people should use in their cars.

  The women in my life, until meeting Sandy at a holiday party given by mutual friends, had been several and of little consequence. There had been a cute little thing in Germantown about whom I had been serious but an Air Force uniform had outranked me and she had married the lieutenant. During my army and overseas carreer there had been many adventures, most of them one-night affairs of the type where the girl seldom told me her name or asked me mine. Not until Sandy had there been anybody real, anyone really worthwhile. And, of course, Sandy was dead. Fate, and some of my foolish insistence that she learn to ski, had been responsible for that.

  The steak that the waitress brought was fairly good but I didn’t enjoy it. My glance kept straying to the pile of envelopes on the table and they served as a reminder of the job I had to do. It was not a pleasant job, in spite of the money Dr. Call and his associates were willing to pay. It was a job which would force me to look into the twisted lives of many people and, of course, that is never a happy task. Lucrative and perhaps exciting, yes; but, truthfully, nothing to feel very good about.

  I left the apartment building and mailed the letters at a drop box on the corner. A cab lurked nearby. I motioned to the driver and the car slid smoothly forward.

  Bolton Road was on the south side of the city, near the river. As we rolled down the parkway I could see the lights of the ships in the bay, the illuminated skyline of the suburbs beyond the opposite shore. A freighter pushed wearily upstream, heading for the big docks at Wind Hollow. When we reached the Yankee ferry slips, the cab swung down off the parkway, turned sharp right and rumbled along over rough brick pavement.

  Twenty Bolton Road was a couple blocks away from the river front, near one of the small parks. The building featured walk-up service and I was pleased to note that Elsa Lang’s apartment was on the first floor, right rear. I pushed the button and waited. The wail of a phonograph sounded faintly in the distance and from behind one of the doors a woman giggled. I pushed the button again.

  The door was opened almost immediately by the cute little blonde I h
ad seen on the train.

  “May I talk with you a moment, Miss Lang?”

  This, I discovered, was the wrong approach since she merely frowned and began to close the door.

  “It’s about Miss Call. I’d like to speak with you a moment about her if I may.”

  Slowly, the door opened again. This time I got a better look at her. She wore a long powder-blue housecoat that swept down over her body to her ankles. Her hair, though neat, held several pin curls and I assumed that I had interrupted one of her feminine chores. While it was rather difficult to see her face in the dim light I noted that she wore hardly any lipstick.

  “Oh,” she said, stepping aside. “I thought you were a salesman.”

  I entered the apartment and waited for her to close the door.

  “I’m a friend of her father,” I said.

  “Oh.” She smiled and her smile was just as nice as it had been on the train. “But you do look like that man who was here last week. He had one of those talking Bibles and he played and played the thing until I almost went out of my mind.”

  I had, quite by accident heard of the talking Bible and I had even written an article about it, slanting the material toward one of the Sunday newspaper supplements. But the piece had been rejected as being too commercial and I had let the matter drop. It had been, I thought, a gentle reminder that my most profitable field of writing was for the automotive markets.

  “Won’t you be seated, Mr. — ”

  “Morgan. Bill Morgan.”

  She smiled again, and I noticed that her teeth were very white. “I’m Elsa,” she said.

  I sat down in one of the low chairs opposite the davenport. Silently I watched her as she went over to one of the end tables and picked up a cigarette. The housecoat, which was made of some soft, shiny material, clung to her thighs and legs as she walked. She had a rather small, compact shape.

  “What did you want to know about Judith?”