The sky in the east was streaked with the first tentative light of a new day, and Fred Hartman's estate was outlined in cold gray early morning light. People, their faces haggard and puffy, straggled to their parked cars. Their feet crunched over the gravel as they yawned mightily and rubbed their bloodshot eyes.
Two men about to get in a car stopped and nudged one another. They watched, their stares impudent, their smiles brazen as they saw Nancy Dodge hurry to her car. She walked quickly, her head down, nervously fingering her car keys. The men watched her flaring hips undulate and they could plainly see her lovely buttocks seductively swaying under her dress.
One of the men started to say something but the other one touched his arm and shook his head. "Another time. You had enough."
"Yeah, but I want her name."
"Another time. I'm beat. Another time. There'll be another time."
The first man grinned and slumped down into the car, still watching Nancy as she hurried to her car. "Yeah," he agreed, grinning. "Man, she sure was something. I don't think I've ever had a better blow job."
"Nothing wrong with her asshole, either."
Nancy, hearing them, got in her car. Her lovely young face was crimson as she stared straight ahead and drove off the tree lined estate to turn onto one of the many highways leading into Chicago.
Only when she was several miles from Fred Hartman's place could she heave a weary sigh of relaxation. She settled back in her seat, driving easily with one hand while she lighted herself a cigarette with the other. She inhaled deeply on the cigarette, feeling it relax her. Her body was sore all over, and she was so tired she worried about keeping awake and driving until she got home. Driving along the highway, she looked like a lovely young woman, completely composed, on her way to some early morning errand.
But she was far from composed.
In the past three months, her life had changed so much that even she couldn't believe it. It seemed unreal to her… as if it were happening to someone else. Three months ago she didn't know Fred Hartman… or Tom Nelson. Three months ago Rita Nelson was her old friend who was newly married to Tom and drinking too much. Three months ago she, herself, seldom drank. Now… the first thing she would do upon getting home was to have a few stiff ones.
It would be a few drinks just to loosen up. And later… it would be quite a few drinks in order to get to sleep.
Nancy drove fast, smoking quickly and lighting another cigarette after stubbing the first one out. Vaguely, uneasily, she thought of committing suicide. She didn't like to think too much about it or openly admit it to herself, for she was afraid she might do it. She was afraid that she was going to take her own life. She even had a secret supply of sleeping pills stocked up. She had them in a little plastic bottle and, after she had drunk enough, she would find them, take them out, look at them and rattle them in the bottle.
Suicide seemed like the only way out.
Sometimes, especially after starring in one of Fred Hartman's shows, she thought of suicide and felt it was the only way she was going to get away from him and this double life she was leading.
Sometimes it was the double life, the modern, female, Jekyll and Hyde existence that got to her. She felt she was a split personality, a schizophrenic. At home, with Allan, her husband, she was one kind of person. And… when Fred Hartman or Tom Nelson called… she was someone else. With Allan, she was genteel and her elegant cool looks were just right when they were having people over. At home with Allan she was witty and the proper hostess. Then… when Allan was at work, at the bank… and the phone would ring…
Tears welled in her eyes and she had to slow down on the highway. She couldn't see where she was going and, for an instant, she didn't care. For one wild moment, she felt like flooring the accelerator and driving at top speed until she went careening off the road or hit something and ended it all. She choked back her sobs and swiped at her eyes, knowing she couldn't do it; she was too much of a coward and too much in love with life.
And Nancy did love life with a gay and appealing zest. It was the thing that had originally attracted Allan to her. It was part of her charm. Allan was quiet and thoughtful and conservative. Everyone felt, when he spoke, that his words were weighty and carefully considered. He looked like a banker with careful good looks and grooming and somber business suits. He talked like a banker. He even thought like one. All of this was to the good, for Allan was a banker. He was assistant manager of a branch office. He did his job with quiet devotion and the smooth determination that showed he was going to get ahead.
Allan and Nancy were a good combination, for what he lacked in wise-cracks and just plain impudent silliness, she more than made up. Friends felt that Allan kept her in line, while Nancy kept him from being a stuffed shirt. Their marriage was looked on as a good one.
And it was… as far as Allan knew.
Nancy whipped her car into their little driveway and heaved a sigh. Allan wasn't home. Bank business had taken him to Cleveland, and he wouldn't be home for at least another day. She was, for the moment, safe.
She got out of the car as quietly as possible. The hour was early and the sun barely up. She didn't want the neighbors seeing her get in at such an hour, especially old Mrs. Hunter who lived next door and had her nose in everyone's business.
"My, my, such a lovely morning."
Nancy stopped dead in her tracks and wearily closed her eyes. She was trapped by the cackling voice. "Good morning Mrs. Hunter. How are you?"
"Fine," came the voice in a spiteful tone, "considering what date it is."
Tired, but near home, near bed, Nancy summoned up a smile and turned to see the old woman standing in her yard in her nightgown with a faded old housecoat buttoned up to her neck. She was wearing worn old house slippers and a floppy sun hat. "The date?"
"Yes, the date." She kneaded her wrinkled lips for a self-satisfied moment before continuing. "It's the twenty-fifth of the month."
Dumbly, Nancy nodded, not knowing what the old woman was so maliciously getting at.
Mrs. Hunter's face turned suddenly pious as she intoned. "Roger. Poor Roger."
Nancy caught on. "Oh, your husband."
Mournfully, she nodded. "Dead twelve years and three months today. Dropped dead of a heart attack in an Optimo cigar store in the loop. Man who owned the store said he bought a cigar and keeled over. Never said a word."
"My, what a shame."
The old woman nodded and looked off, seeming to remember her husband. "He was always coming home at late hours, too."
The words stung but Nancy decided to ignore them. "Lovely morning, isn't it?"
Mrs. Hunter was too grandly glum to be deterred. "That's what he always used to say." She gimped close to the hedge that separated the two driveways, her eyes gleaming dull agates. "That's when I knew he was covering up." A dry laugh wheezed out of the old woman. "Oh, didn't he think he was clever, but I always knew. I always knew."
"Really?"
"He couldn't fool me. I knew. When the policeman came and knocked on the door and told me, I knew. I knew what he was doing in that Optimo cigar store when he died. I knew."
"What?" Nancy was completely mystified by the old woman's smug speech.
"Buying a cigar." Mrs. Hunter said it slowly as if she were talking to a child.
"So?" Nancy cocked her lovely head, her long raven hair sliding silently and hiding half her face.
"Well. You don't suppose I let him smoke, do you?" She looked like a wrinkled bandy rooster as she strutted behind the hedge. "I didn't let him smoke! No sir!"
"Oh." Nancy turned away to hide her smile. "That was certainly thoughtful of you."
"He smoked when he stayed out. I knew. I could smell it on him. He smoked and…" she leaned forward, whispering loudly, "and other things."
"Oh."
"Like staying out all night and then coming home with some kind of story." The old woman eyed Nancy in an accusing way.
Nancy hated her neighbor at the moment, but felt compelled to offer up an excuse for coming home so early. After all, she was guilty. "I… I had to go over to my parents. My… my father isn't feeling at all well." She stood in the driveway, biting her delicate lip, hating Mrs. Hunter and hating herself for using her father as an excuse.
"Mmmmmmm. Gone all night?"
A lie, once told, has to be embellished. "Yes, it got so late, I decided to spend the night."
"And how is he feeling this morning?"
"Better, much better thank you."
Mrs. Hunter smiled and butter wouldn't melt in her mouth as she asked, "And how is Mr. Dodge?"
"Fine."
"My, it seems he's away an awful lot."
Nancy drew herself erect. She looked at Mrs. Hunter with her elegant features growing cold. "I've got things to do." With that she spun on her heel and left the old woman standing in her yard, smiling and laughing to herself.
Once inside her house, once she was sure she was alone and wouldn't be seen by anyone, Nancy could let go. It was as if a dam broke inside of her and she couldn't resist any longer. She put her lovely chiseled features in her hands and heaved the first long sob. Moments later, blinded by tears, she stumbled to the bedroom and fell full length on the bed and cried hard and long. She sobbed herself out, crying until she found a weary kind of relaxation. She couldn't feel peace. She rolled over and stared at the ceiling with puffy eyes and wondered what, if anything, she could do about her present situation.
Nancy Dodge was being blackmailed.
It had all started off so innocently, so innocuously. One thing had led to another and, before she knew it, she found herself in an impossible situation where there seemed only one way out: suicide.
Now, she got to her feet and went to the bathroom, putting a cold towel on her face and sighing deeply into the cool refreshing depths of the towel. Her eyes avoided looking in the mirror… above all, she didn't want to look at herself. Hastily, she went to the modern kitchen with its vinyl counters and took a bottle out of one of the cupboards. Allan was beginning to be suspicious of all the liquor that was being consumed. Nancy had taken to buying booze out of the house money and hiding the bottles from Allan. She knew she was lying to her husband and she also knew that alcohol wouldn't solve any of her problems. In fact, if pressed, she probably would admit booze only made things worse. That wasn't the point. The point was… she needed a drink.
She poured herself a generous shot, almost half filling a drinking glass with clear vodka. She tossed the drink down as if it were water and stood with her eyes closed, her body braced against the raw cutting shock of the vodka hitting her empty stomach. "Soon, soon, soon," she murmured. Soon the vodka would take effect and she would feel a little numb, things would become a little blurred.
She didn't quite believe it when she was first approached about blackmail… it wasn't quite real… people just didn't get blackmailed anymore… there seemed so little reason for it. It had seemed, at the time, an elaborate bad joke. Surely old friends wouldn't take advantage of her. Surely old friends wouldn't trick her.
"Friends." Nancy said the word aloud like something tasted awful in her mouth. Friends. Rita Nelson was an old friend. Nancy trusted her; why shouldn't she? She was happily married, and Rita came back into her life with her new husband, Tom Nelson.
Tom Nelson.
First impressions. Nancy hadn't liked him when she first met him yet she tried hard to deny and submerge her first impression because she liked Rita so much and wanted Rita to have a good marriage… she wanted Rita to have as good a marriage as her own.
Tom Nelson. Young, handsome, social, glib, flashy. Yet weak somehow. There was a roll of petulant fat under his belt, and Nancy thought she saw a look of indulgent depravity on his face. He was in public relations and apparently was doing well. To Nancy, it seemed that he always had a drink in his hand or on his breath.
And he was too fresh, too familiar. Nancy felt she was far from being a prude, yet Tom Nelson was just a little too intimate. The first they had met, he had brazenly, somewhat drunkenly looked her up and down, taking in her sensuously flaring figure and letting out a low, long wolf whistle.
Nancy poured herself another drink and tossed it down, immediately refilling the glass. Her first impression about Tom had been correct. Actually, it hadn't been enough. If she had been really sensitive, if she hadn't buried her instincts in her happiness over seeing Rita again, she would have known or suspected that Tom Nelson was a vile human being who would sell out his own mother if the price was right. In fact, he would probably be out peddling her.
Tom Nelson was blackmailing Nancy.
To Nancy, Tom Nelson was scum, a man who would use and betray a friendship, an unbelievably evil and weak man who would do anything to gain an advantage… even sell his own wife's body.
Rita.
Rita Nelson, vivacious and possessed of a wild, sensuously wanton figure that was second only to Nancy's proudly upthrust breasts, supple waist, and smoothly undulating hips. Rita was now no better than a whore, doing her husband's bidding. Tom, starting his own public relations firm in Chicago, was a success, off to a flying start.
Grimacing, Nancy poured herself another drink and gulped it down. Immediately, she half filled the glass then decided she'd be more comfortable in the bedroom. She found her walk was getting loose and easy, the alcohol already beginning to take effect. She pulled the blinds closed as she ambled from room to room. If, later, she drank too much and started wandering around, she didn't want old Mrs. Hunter seeing her. She didn't want anyone seeing her.
Tom Nelson had a flock of clients using his services and proudly showed Nancy a big write-up he got in a trade paper: YOUNG REP STREAKS FOR TOP.
She had felt a surge of nausea as she read the article. It was true he was successful… it was true he had many clients… but that was all that was true about the article. The truth was… Tom Nelson was selling his wife's body for his own gain and profit. Rita was nothing more than a common prostitute. Madly in love with Tom, she did whatever he asked of her, even down to recruiting and betraying old friends. Tom Nelson was blackmailing her for his own gains. Tom, drunken and weak-willed, had his own genius. In ways that totally mystified Nancy, he had ways of finding a particular kind of person… like Fred Hartman… and somehow discovering his secret desires… like watching women humiliate themselves. Tom Nelson had a nasty, perverted knack for getting orgies going. In a comparatively short time, Nancy had come to regard Tom as the ultimate rat. Full of disgusting weaknesses himself, he had a nose for sensing weakness in others… and taking advantage of it.
She drained her glass, holding her breath against the shock she would feel in the pit of her stomach and decided the best thing to do was to have a shower and go to bed. She was bone tired and sore all over. She had a shower at Fred Hartman's… he was nice enough to give her a guest room, but all she had wanted to do then was get away.
The alcohol was beginning to make her yawn and stumble around. She knew she couldn't keep her eyes open much longer. As tormented as she was, she knew she simply had to get some sleep. Without looking at herself in any mirrors, she threw her clothes off, letting them fall to the floor. Later she would straighten the house up, later she would have it ready for Allan coming home. Later! Later she would be rested and she would think of what she was going to do. She knew she had to do something because she was only getting in deeper with each phone call from Tom or Rita. She was only getting herself more deeply involved in a lewd world of utter abandon with each visit to Fred Hartman's estate.
At the thought of Fred Hartman, despite her fatigue and drunken vagueness, Nancy shuddered. She feared him. She loathed Tom, but she was afraid of Fred Hartman, afraid of what he might ultimately do to her.
She showered quickly and wrapped her lovely body in a terry cloth robe and, yawning, eyes almost closed, she curled up on the bed and fell into a deep but troubled sleep.