The Flesh Of The Orchid Part 23

There was a flash of steel as a knife jumped into Max's hand. He leaned forward and with incredible swiftness traced the point of the knife lightly down Eddie's face, down his neck and chest to his stomach. It was as if a feather had touched Eddie, but instantly a thin line of blood appeared where the knife-point had touched him.

At the sight of the knife and the line of blood Eddie's fury and courage oozed out of him like oil from a leaky can.

He was tough enough when it came to handling elderly rich women, and even to fighting with Linda, but cold steel made him sick to his stomach.

"Don't touch me!" he gasped, his fine brown complexion turning to a muddy white. "I'm going . . . don't touch me with that knife."

"Get out!" Max said, his dead eyes fixed on Eddie's terrified face.

"Sure," Eddie spluttered, scrambled off the bed, huddled into his clothes. He had no thought for Linda and he didn't even look her way. His one burning desire was to get away from this dangerous thug, and he couldn't get away fast enough. "I'm going . . . just take it easy."

Max leaned forward and wiped the blood from the knife off on to Linda's thigh; as he did so he looked at her and his thin lips curled in contempt.

She shuddered, but made no move. The knife terrified her.

"Don't leave me, Eddie," she whimpered, but Eddie was already on his way; the door slammed behind him.

Max rose to his feet, put away his knife and picked up a silk wrap that was lying across a chair. He flung it at Linda.

"Put it on, you wh.o.r.e," he said.

Utterly demoralized, Linda put on the wrap with trembling hands. This awful man was certain to tell Frank. Then what would Frank do? Kick her out? Would she have to go back to being a show-girl again? Lose all this luxury, her freedom, her car and her beautiful clothes ? She felt so bad that when she had put on the wrap she slumped back on to the bed.

Max leaned against the wall. He had tilted his hat over his nose, and now he lit a cigarette, looking at her from over the flame of the match.

"So you couldn't take his money without cheating," he said contemptuously. "I warned him, but he's a sucker for a b.i.t.c.h like you. Well, from now on it's going to be different. From now on you're going to earn your money."

Linda flinched.

"Don't tell him," she implored, holding her wrap close to her. "It won't ever happen again. I promise. Frank loves me. Why spoil his life?"

Max blew a long stream of tobacco smoke down his pinched nostrils.

"You're d.a.m.n right it won't happen again," he said. "And I'm not spoiling his life and I'm not telling him."

Linda stared at him, began to control her trembling limbs.

"I don't trust you," she said. "I know meanness when I see it. You couldn't keep quiet "

"Shut up!" he returned. "He's come home now for good. And you're going to stay with him, do what he tells you, sleep with him when he feels that way, take him around, shave him, keep his clothes in order, read to him. You're going to be always at his side to help him. You're going to be his eyes."

Linda thought he had gone crazy.

"What do you mean-be his eyes? He has his own eyes, hasn't he?"

Max smiled thinly. He crossed over to her, caught a handful of her hair in his fingers, dragged her head back. She made no effort to break his hold, but stared back at him, her eyes dark with terror.

"And if you try any tricks I'll fix you," he said. "I warn once, never twice. If you run away, if you're unfaithful to him, I'll find you wherever you are and I'll burn his name across your face with acid." He released her and raising his hand he hit her heavily across her mouth, knocking her flat across the bed. "What he can see in a tramp like you I don't know, but he was always a sucker. Well, he wants you, and he's going to have you: there's nothing else left for him."

As he went to the door Linda sat up, her hand on her lips. He opened the door, went out on to the landing. She heard him call, "Frank; she's waiting for you."

She remained sitting on the bed, unable to move, staring at the open door, listening to a slow shuffling step on the stairs with growing horror.

Then Frank came in, his sightless eyes hidden behind black-lensed gla.s.ses, a stick in his hand guided him to the bed.

He looked sightlessly over the top of Linda's head. There were pent-up desire, self-pity, urgent animal longing in his fat white face.

"h.e.l.lo, Linda," he said, his hand groping towards her. "I've come home."

The next two weeks were nightmare weeks for Linda. Never, as long as she lived, would she forget them. She had no leisure from Frank's incessant demands. When he wasn't making mauling, hateful love to her, he was wanting to be read to, to be taken for rides in the car, to be waited on hand and foot. His blindness soured his already vicious temper and he vented his spleen on her. Now he could no longer see her beauty she quickly lost her influence over him. He refused to let her buy clothes (and in the past Linda never let a day pa.s.s without replenis.h.i.+ng her already bursting wardrobe). "Wear what you've got," he would snarl. "I can't see you in new things, so what the h.e.l.l?" Worse still, he controlled the money now, and became miserly, cutting down expenses, keeping Linda without a nickel.

She was driven to distraction, for she feared to leave him, knowing that Max was capable of carrying out his threat. She had no privacy and could not move a step without hearing the tap of his stick and the plaintive whine of his voice asking where she was.

She longed to see Eddie again, and poured out an account of her sufferings to him in long and hysterical letters.

Eddie was also suffering. He had not realized how crazy he. was about Linda until their separation. Now that he dared not go near the villa he became moody, slept badly and thought continually of Linda's charms. His racket and consequently his income suffered.

One afternoon, some sixteen days after Max's dramatic appearance in Linda's bedroom, Eddie was sitting in a drug store idling an hour away before he called on one of his elderly clients when he noticed a girl come in and sit on a stool not far from him.

It was a slack hour of the day, and Eddie and the girl were the only two people in the place. More from habit than interest, Eddie looked the girl over. She was shabbily but neatly dressed. Under a dowdy little hat a ma.s.s of raven black hair struggled for freedom. She wore horn spectacles, and in spite of her lack of make-up she was attractive. But Eddie had seen so many beautiful and glamorous women that such a poorly dressed, unsophisticated object was of no interest to him. He observed, however, that in spite of the shabby clothes, the girl had an exceptionally good figure, and her long, slender legs held his attention for a moment before he resumed reading his newspaper.

He heard the girl speaking to the soda-jerker, a little bald-headed guy whose name was Andrews and with whom Eddie was friendly.

"I'm looking for part-time work," the girl said in a quiet, well-modulated voice. "You wouldn't know anyone who wants a companion for the evening or someone to mind the children, would you?"

Andrews, who liked to help people when he could, s...o...b..d down the counter, wrinkled his forehead and considered the question.

"Can't say I do," lie said at last. "Most folks around this little town don't have children and don't need companions. It's a kind of gay little town, if you know what I mean."

"I've got a job," the girl explained as she stirred her coffee, "but it doesn't pay too well and I thought something in the evening might help out."

"Yeah, I see how it is," Andrews said, scratched his head. "Well, I don't know of anyone, but if I hear of something I'll pa.s.s it on."

"Oh, will you?" the girl said, brightening. "I should be very grateful. Mary Prentiss is the name. May I write it down? I live on East Street."

Andrews found her a pencil and paper.

"If there's a blind person who needs a companion," the girl went on as she was writing, "I have had training with blind people--"

"Sure, but there ain't many blind people in Santo Rio. In fact, I don't know any at all," Andrews said. "But I'll keep my eyes open for you."

Eddie watched her go, tipped his hat over his handsome nose and considered the idea that had suddenly entered his head. With a feeling of growing excitement he decided the idea was inspired.

"Let's have that dame's name and address, Andy," he said, sliding off his stool. "I know a blind guy who's aching for a little female society."

At eleven o'clock the same evening Eddie found Linda waiting for him at the secluded and prearranged rendezvous, a quarter of a mile or so from the villa.

Their first wild, pa.s.sionate greeting over, Eddie drew her down beside him on the sand and, holding her close, began to talk.

"Now, listen, honey, we haven't much time. That dope I sent you won't keep him quiet for long, but long enough for me to tell you I've got an idea."

"I've been waiting for you to get an idea," Linda said, clasping his hands. "If I hadn't been certain you'd have thought of something I think I would have killed myself."

Eddie made sympathetic noises, although he was as sure as Linda was herself she would not have done anything as drastic as that.

"We've both been through h.e.l.l," he said, "but, although this idea isn't the complete cure, it'll help. I've found a girl who wants a job as a companion. You must persuade Frank that a change now and then will be good for him-a change of company, I mean. Persuade him to hire this girl to come in two or three evenings a week to read to him."

Linda twisted round, her eyes stormy.

"Do you call that a good idea?" she demanded. "Where will it get me? Do you think he'll let me out of his hearing even if he does have a companion?"

Eddie smiled down at her.

"That's where you're kidding yourself, honey," he said. "You're forgetting one thing: the guy's blind. He can't see how lovely you are, and his interest is going to flag unless you help him to keep the memory green, which, of course, you won't. Sooner or later he'll want to hear a new voice, to have someone different around no matter how crazy he is about you at the moment. I've talked to this girl. She's got a good voice, although she's not much to look at. And, more important still, she has a swell shape. (Not so good as yours, precious, but good enough.) I've given her the nudge that she might have to be more than a companion to this guy, but that she'll be paid well. She didn't bat an eyelid. I'll bet you in a while Frank will want to be alone with her. From what you've told me about him he won't be content to sit and listen to a girl reading to him every evening. He'll want to make a pa.s.s at her, and you'll be in the way. Soon he'll be suggesting you take a walk, or do a movie or something, and with a lot of persuasion you'll go." He pressed her to him. "And you'll find me waiting right here for you whenever you can get away. Now, don't interrupt. Let me finish. It'll take time, but there's no other way round it. We don't want this guy Max shoving his oar in. He scares me. I don't scare easily," Eddie added, not wanting her to think he was yellow, "but when a guy uses a sticker the way he does, I'm scared and I stay scared. Once we get Frank used to the idea, we can find him any amount of girls to keep him amused. It'll cost dough, but right now I'm making plenty, and to get you to myself even for a day is worth all the money in the world. In a couple of months, if you play your hand right, don't let him get near you; snarl and snap at him, he'll be glad to be rid of you. Then you and me can get out of this burg without Max turning sour. How do you like it?"

Linda turned it over in her mind. She was sufficiently stupid to dislike the idea of setting up a rival in her home. There was a dog-in-the-manger streak in her nature that rebelled against the thought of another woman enjoying the luxuries of the villa, but if she were to escape from Frank this seemed the only logical way, unless . . ."

"I wish he was dead," she said between her teeth. "I wish someone would rid me of him forever."

"You can get that idea right out of your pretty little head," Eddie said with great firmness. "If it wasn't for Max it might be arranged, but if anything happened to Frank, Max would know who to look for. I'm not taking that risk for you or anyone else."

And so, reluctantly, Linda agreed to give Eddie's idea a trial.

Rather to her surprise, the idea worked out exactly as Eddie had predicted.

After a week of carefully preparing the ground, Linda suggested to Frank that he might care to have someone in to read to him, and went on to describe Mary Prentiss (whom she had not as yet seen) in such glowing terms that Frank rose immediately to the bait.

Linda had been irritable and sharp-tempered during the past week, had avoided Frank's questing hands, snapped and snarled at him along the lines suggested by Eddie, until Frank was growing tired of the sound of her querulous voice. The idea of having someone fresh in the house appealed to him.

Mary Prentiss called the following evening, and Linda made it her business to meet her at the gate so she should have an opportunity of talking with her before she met Frank.

Linda was agreeably surprised when she saw the shabbily dressed figure coming along the narrow beach path. This was no dangerous rival, she consoled herself. If Frank could but see her, tie wouldn't look at her twice. It amused Linda to know that he was all worked up, imagining his new companion to be as glamorous as herself.

"The fat fool would get a shock if he could see her," she thought spitefully.

Mary Prentiss did manage to look very plain, although her big green eyes were undoubtedly beautiful. But the dowdy clothes, the lack of make-up and the awful hair style seemed to neutralize the effect of her eyes.

Linda was a little puzzled to see how white and haggard she became when she introduced her to Frank. She thought for a moment the girl was going to faint, but she appeared to control herself, and, still puzzled, Linda left them alone together.

She noticed an immediate change in Frank when the girl had gone. He was more cheerful, less trying and openly enthusiastic.

Each evening for the next week Mary Prentiss came after dinner to read to him, and, acting on Eddie's instructions, Linda was always present. She watched Frank, noted his growing restlessness, his lack of interest in the books Mary Prentiss selected for her reading. The girl was as impersonal as a nurse. Whenever Frank's groping hand reached out for her, Linda asked him sharply if there was anything he needed, and the hand was quickly withdrawn, and Frank's fat, sensual face darkened with frustrated disappointment.

A week later Eddie's prediction came true.

"I've been thinking," Frank said abruptly one afternoon. "You don't get out enough. It's not right that you should stay in night after night when I have someone to read to me. Take yourself to a movie tonight. The change will do you good."

So that night, when the girl who called herself Mary Prentiss came as usual to read to Frank, she found him alone.

"Isn't Miss Lee here tonight?" she asked quietly, as she drew up a chair and selected a book to read.

"No," Frank said, and smiled. "I've been wanting to be with you for some time-alone. You know why, don't you?"

"I think so," Mary Prentiss said, and laid down the book.

"Come here," Frank said, his face suddenly congested.

She stood close to his chair and allowed his hand to stray over her. There was a look on her face of intense loathing and horror, but she remained still, with closed eyes and set mouth. It was, to her, as if a filthy, repulsive spider with obscene and hairy legs were crawling over her bare skin.

Then suddenly she drew back out of his reach.

"Please don't," she said sharply. "Not here. I have a code of honour. Not in the same house. . . . I'm thinking of Miss Lee."

Frank could scarcely believe his ears.

"What's she got to do with it?" he demanded thickly.

"This is her home," Mary Prentiss said in a low voice, and vet her eyes were watching Frank's face with desperate intentness as if she were trying to read his mind. "But at my place . . ." She stopped, gave a little sigh.

"Don't be a dope," Frank said, heaving himself out of his chair. "This is my home too. To h.e.l.l with Linda. What did she ever do for me, except spend my money? Come here. I want you."

"No," she said firmly; "but if you will come with me it would be different. I would have no scruples then, but it is being in this house. . . ."

"All right," Frank said, and laughed. "I haven't been out for a long time. Let's go. She won't be back until midnight. Where's your place?"

"East Street," she told him, her green eyes lighting up. "I have a car. It won't take us long."

Frank caught hold of her, tried to find her face with his lips, and for a moment she nearly lost control of herself, but she drew away, shuddering, and said, without betraying the sick horror that gripped her, "Not yet. . . soon, but not yet."

"Well, come on then," Frank said impatiently. He was not used to being dictated to by his women. He caught hold of her arm and let her lead him from the house and along the narrow beach path. She guided him into the seat of a black Chrysler coupe that was parked in the shadows, out of sight of the villa. "How can you afford to run a car like this?" he asked suspiciously, as his fingers touched the fabric of the seat and he felt the springing and the leg room.

"I borrowed it," she said in the same cold, flat voice, started the engine and drove quickly towards the lights of the town.

"How I miss my eyes!" Frank snarled suddenly. "You wouldn't know what it feels like to be driven without seeing or knowing where you are going." He brooded for a moment, added, "It's like being taken for a ride."

"Is it?" she said, gripping the steering-wheel until her knuckles showed white.

He ran his hand down her leg.

"Hurry, sweetheart," he urged. "You'll find me a very satisfactory lover." Asked in a lower tone, "Have you any experience?"

She shuddered away from him.

"You'll see," she said. "You'll know soon enough."