She felt someone shaking her. She didn't know if she was dreaming or not and tried to push the insistent hand away. Her head throbbed with a pounding headache and her eyelids felt as if they had been coated on the inside with sand.
Then, with her eyes still closed, she tried to remember where she was. What had happened to her. She stirred beneath the covers, and the movement made her hurt all over… there was a searing pain between her thighs, and she felt as if she was covered with bruises. What had happened to her? Why did she hurt so badly?
And then the memories slowly sifted through her thoughts, cutting her like razor-edged knives. As the young girl began to regain her consciousness, the events of the night before slowly began to fall into place.
"No… no… not again… not again…!" Her scream shattered the soft sunlight and stillness in the room and caused the man at her side to jerk his arm and knock off the glass at the side of the bed.
The clatter of the glass and sound of her own scream opened her eyes, and Laura saw the man's face only inches from her own.
"No… No…! get away… please… Noooooooo…!"
"Shhhhhh… Laura, don't be frightened. I won't hurt you." The mans voice was soft and gentle, and somehow the girl could sense the sincerity.
"Laura, this is Cassis Mornay. I won't hurt you." He took her by the shoulders and held her tenderly, her wracking sobs muffled against his arm.
"Oh, it was so horrible… they raped me… Over and over…" her voice trailed away against him. It was several moments before he felt the girl's shuddering begin to die out.
"Harry, bring Laura some of that coffee. And some brandy."
The other man, the kindly bartender from the bar below, finished pulling the cords of the draperies and walked into the kitchen.
Almost an hour later, the three of them sat in the sunlit room. Laura lay propped up against a pillow in bed, and the two men sat at the coffee table by the divan in the bedroom.
Laura had regained her composure and now she listened to the tall distinguished-looking man on the couch.
"Laura, you don't have to talk if you don't want to. Harry has explained a lot of things to me, and I can probably guess the rest."
He got up and came over and took her by the hand. "I'm sorry that I didn't know last night. I swear I thought you had come up here because you wanted to." He paused. "I thought you were just another of the girls we sometimes use."
He refilled her coffee cup, and laced it lightly with a little more cognac. She accepted it gratefully and looked back at him, trying to comprehend what was happening.
A few moments after he'd awakened her she'd realized that she was still upstairs in his suite, but the rooms were empty of all the people who had been at the party. Then she'd seen the sunlight pouring through the open window and had known the party had ended hours earlier.
She sat there in bed, looking around at the ruinous aftermath of the orgy and then back into the kind face of the man at her side.
"Mr. Mornay, I didn't want to do anything… it was Deke Vito who made me do it." The grey-haired man felt the shudder pass through her as she mentioned the gambler's name.
"I didn't want to… he forced me… and then… Johnny…? Where's Johnny…?"
"Shhhhh… Laura, don't worry about anything. I've taken care of it all. Both Johnny and Deke Vito. Here, drink your coffee and get dressed. I left a bathrobe in that bathroom for you." He handed her the cup and got up.
"Mrs. Dutton, don't you worry about a thing," Harry said from the other side of the room.
"Thank you… thank… Harry." But her voice was interrupted again by her tears.
"Go ahead, get it all out of your system. We'll be in the living room," said Mr. Mornay.
They left her, shutting the door quietly behind them. And she lay there for a few moments until the last tear had fallen. Then she rose and went into the bedroom.
Minutes later, under the stinging spray of the shower, she rubbed away the shame and the degradation and she felt as well as she could under the circumstances.
She wondered what Mr. Mornay had meant about Johnny and Deke Vito. She'd only seen Mr. Mornay once before, but when he'd come over to speak to her before the party began she had sensed the air of gentility about him, and she had been attracted by his tall handsome appearance.
It's so wonderful of him to do… to worry about me, the thought. I wonder how he found out what was happening. It must have been Harry…
She came into the living room, wrapped warmly in the robe he'd given her, and both men stood as she entered.
"Here, Laura, I've ordered Eggs Benedict for all of us and it should be up in a minute." He motioned for her to sit across from him and turned to accept a cigarette from Harry.
"Laura, I'd better tell you exactly what's happened. Most of it's due to Harry here. You can thank him, because I wouldn't have known otherwise."
"Well, Mr. Mornay, I just thought it was time someone told you what was happening in your clubs… and when that greasy bastard made his play for Mrs. Dutton, I couldn't stand it any longer."
"Harry, I don't how you knew… and I wish there was some way I could thank you. Please call me Laura, won't you?"
"Yes, Mrs. Dutton… I mean…"
"Laura, I'll start from the beginning…" But the tall man was interrupted by the sound of the chimes at the door.
"Just a second, Laura, that must be our breakfast." He rose and pushed a button by the bar and the front door opened.
They spoke very little as the waiter served the breakfast, and it wasn't until later, with the coffee, that he continued: "It's something that most people don't know about, and shouldn't, but most of us who run casinos as large as this have to deal with some pretty unsavory characters. The only difference is that these characters have a considerable amount of money. I've always thought before that if I didn't follow the practices of the other casino owners that I'd lose too much money. What the hell, I figured if I didn't provide these guys with what they wanted they'd just go to another club. Just one of the things they demanded were women. Beautiful girls that the house paid for and private little parties where they could have their fun to take away the sting of their losses."
He paused to refill the coffee and pour a little more brandy. "I've never had anything against prostitutes. There's certainly enough demand for them, I just didn't know where to find them. This is all long before you time, Laura, but bear with me because it'll explain a lot of what happened."
She nodded, intent on his words, and waited for him to continue. He had such a beautiful voice and as he spoke she realized that he wasn't as old as she had thought. At a first glance, he appeared older, but now she realized that it was his silver-grey hair. He spoke again, and she lifted her eyes from her coffee cup to watch him.
"As I said, I didn't know where to find the right girls, and then a friend of mine down in Las Vegas recommended Vito. I brought him up here and he seemed to be working out alright. He wasn't exactly my type of person, but I had to admit that he was able to supply what I needed." He laughed. "What the hell, I didn't really expect to get a Stanford man to supply me with a bunch of whores."
"At any rate, because it was a business that I didn't particularly want to get mixed up in, or even know much about for that matter, I gave him full rein."
She watched him turn and pat Harry on the shoulder. It's strange, she thought, Harry's so much older but Mr. Mornay treats him like a son.
"If it hadn't have been for Harry, it might have gone on that way forever. I'm here so rarely, as you know – though that'll be changed – and I never suspected that Vito was doing more or less than I told him. It seems that he'd taken this whole disagreeable business of prostitution and made a sucker out of me."
"When I'd get back from a trip I'd ask for the cost figures on the parties, etc. and pay it without question."
He turned to Harry.
"As a matter of fact, Harry, I ought to be mad that you didn't tell me earlier, it sure had cost me a bundle." Then he laughed.
"I'm only kidding. I did some checking with the other club owners this morning and I found out the risk you took by telling me even now."
"Mr. Mornay… I…"
"Harry, why don't you and Laura start right now by calling me Cass? I know it's a silly name, but it's better than Cassis." He laughed again, and Laura thought how much different his laugh was than the others she'd heard in the past few days. Vito's, Goldman's…
"Mr… uh, Cass, I wasn't really afraid of Deke Vito, I just didn't know how you'd take it. I mean I thought that maybe you already…"
His voice dropped in confusion.
"You mean you thought that I already knew," he chuckled, "that I was part of the whole deal."
He turned to Laura, "Harry's done us all a tremendous favor, and I think he'll find that I'm able to show my appreciation. Well, let me continue, I'll try to make the whole thing a little shorter. It seems that over and above what I was paying him, Deke was raking money off the top of the figures he'd given me and giving the girls less. And, now that I've looked into it, I've found that was just one of the rackets he was running. Another was blackmailing girls like yourself, and even bigger, the squeeze he was putting on the entertainers he's booked here."
He paused to light another cigarette, and as he did Laura wanted to ask him about Johnny. The mention of entertainers had jolted her back into the memory of her husband. Poor Johnny, he's probably worried to death. Wait until he finds out all the wonderful news!
"Laura, the gist of all this is that no one in one of my clubs, or any of the other owners for that matter, will ever have to worry about Deke Vito or any of his henchmen again. I've seen to that!"
He seemed to be thinking intently for a moment before he continued, "I'm afraid I had to use a few gangster tactics myself. I didn't want to, but it was nothing I could turn over to the police, and violence seemed to be the only thing Deke Vito knew."
Cassis Mornay put his hand on her shoulder. "Laura, you've found the friend you have in Harry, but there's someone else who thinks you're awfully special." He shook his head. "This morning after talking to Harry I called Black Jack."
Both Harry's and Laura's heads lifted in surprise at the giant Negro's name.
"I asked him about what I'd been told and he confirmed it. Then he asked me what I planned to do with Vito and when I said I hadn't decided, he mentioned your name."
She looked at him, puzzled, wondering how much Black Jack would have told him.
"He asked me if I knew what Deke Vito had done to you and when I told him I wasn't sure I knew everything – for a moment he really did look like a great wild animal – then he told me Vito had been terrible to you and would I mind if he personally escorted him out of town."
He stopped for a moment. Then he got up and walked over to the bar.
He mixed them all a drink, and came back. "Deke Vito won't be doing any fancy gambling or playing with women again after Black Jack finished with him not with those hands and that face." He paused, raising his glass. "Well, enough of that. I think we should drink a toast, a two-fold toast! First, because we're rid of Deke Vito and all the troubles he caused, and secondly…" He tapped Harry on the shoulder… "to our new casino manager!"
Harry sputtered in his drink, and Laura clapped her hands in delight.
"Oh, Harry! That's wonderful!" she cried, and kissed him on the cheek.
"Mr. Mornay… you didn't have to… I mean, well, hell…" His voice was lost in the rim of his glass, and they could both see the dampness in the corners of his eyes.
"Harry, Goddamn it! My executives call me Cass, is that understood?" Mornay said menacingly, with a twinkle in his eyes.
"Yessir, Mr…"
"Harry, I want you to go home and relax. I've got some big plans I want to go over with you tomorrow." He laughed, and shook the shorter man's hand as they both rose.
Moments later, he came to Laura's side.
"Cass, that's wonderful, no one could have deserved it more than Harry." Then she sobered momentarily, "Cass, where's the phone? I have to call Johnny. He'll be so delighted with the news, and he must be terribly worried about me."
She saw a strange look cross his face, and then he gently pushed her back against the couch.
"Laura, I have to talk to you about Johnny…" He stopped when he saw the fear in her eyes. "No, don't worry, he's alright."
The sudden tenseness went out of her shoulders. "What is it, Cass. What do you mean about… Johnny?"
"Laura, Black Jack told me a few things about Johnny and Vito, about the contract and some other things. It wasn't very pleasant, but I realized Black Jack would have no reason to lie." He paused, but continued before the young girl was able to pose the question he saw in her eyes.
"Laura, I had to test Johnny. I talked to him this morning. Naturally, he denied having anything to do with offering you to… well, anyway, I asked him if he still wanted that contract in San Francisco. I told him he had a choice."
"Cass, what do you mean? Offering me to… to Deke?" She saw the brief nod of agreement in the man's gray eyes. "Cass," she said, as soon as she was able to continue, "what choice…? What did you offer him?"
"Laura, I told him he had his choice between you and the contract. I told him he could either stay here as long as he wanted, with you and a raise, or go to San Francisco without you."
He took both her hands in his, and looked at her before he softly added: "Laura, he left on this mornings plane." He paused, "I'm sorry."
He held the sobbing girl in his arms for several minutes until she stopped crying. He wanted to comfort her, but there were no words, and he just sat helplessly and watched her stare out the huge picture windows.
When she turned back to him, her eyes were dry and determined. She picked up her drink, downed it, and handed the glass to him for another.
He stood at the bar, waiting, and then she finally spoke. "Cass, I should have known all along. There've been so many signs, but like a foolish schoolgirl I ignored them…" Then the tears came again. "I don't know what to do! Everything's been so rotten, I feel so used! I just can't go home to my family and listen to all their, I told you so's. I just can't face them."
"Laura, you're not going home. You're staying here. And, nothing's happened to you that a little clear thinking won't erase. None of it was your fault. You gave everything you had for a man you thought loved you. You were wrong. But, it's not a mistake you can't get over."
She looked up at him as he walked over to her. There seemed to be so much strength in him, she thought.
He handed her the drink, and took her hand. He lifted her to her feet and the two of them walked over to the window. It was quiet for a moment and then he turned her face to his.
"Laura, you'll be able to forget it. I swear to God I won't let you remember it!" He tried to laugh off the obvious seriousness in his voice. "I mean it's pretty much my fault that it happened in the first place. I feel like I'm the one to blame."
She turned and put her head on his shoulder. The tears were gone, and she felt a certain serenity in his arms…
Black Jack picked her up at the beauty salon, standing by the rear door of the Rolls until she was inside. She leaned forward to tell him to drop her off at the casino when she felt a sudden shudder. It wasn't cold, though it was down to about thirty-five degrees outside. Then she realized that the movement of sliding the glass window aside to speak to him had reminded her of another night almost five months earlier… a long trip down from the home of Harry Goldman; another Rolls Royce…
At least, she thought as she leaned back into the warming softness of the seat, I'll never have to go through that again.
She walked into the casino and decided she'd rather have a drink downstairs at the bar instead of having to make her own upstairs. She walked over to the curved cocktail lounge and took a seat at one of the stools.
The bartender was a young man, Freddy – and he nodded cheerfully to her and rushed over to serve her. As he set the napkin in front of her she noticed the undisguised admiration in his eyes and she smiled inwardly. Then she thought she felt another reaction, a reaction she was becoming very used to. Mostly with younger men. When they saw her with Cassis, there was always first the approval of her looks – but then she could almost see them wondering what she was doing with a man twenty years older than herself. She could even see some of them preening their feathers as they convinced themselves that they could take her away from the older man if they really tried.
She wanted to shout to them that they were fools, that they weren't fit to shine Cass' shoes, but her anger was soon dissipated by the pleasure she could see in the grey-haired man. He never noticed the second reaction, only the first – and she knew how proud it made him feel.
She rarely thought of anything that had occurred before she met Cass. He had been right. Time did erase a lot of bad memories, especially ones that her mind fought so hard to keep out.
In a club, even one as large as this casino, it was impossible to keep secrets and it had seemed that everyone had known that she was going to move in with Cass Mornay a few days after that party – they had known even before she did!
It had been a wonderful five months. Everything she had ever wanted, especially the total affection and absorption of the man she lived with. He had remained true to his word; Harry became manager of the entire casino and it was rumored that soon he would be in charge of the others Cassis owned, and the practice of providing whores for the big spenders had been completely discontinued with very little adverse effect.
The click of ice in an empty glass broke her train of thought and she called Freddy over and told him to make her another. As she sipped her drink, she slipped back into her reverie.
He's been so good to me, she thought, in every way. He treats me wonderfully and our love life, if not being as wildly erotic as what I'd experienced, is all I've ever wanted.
As she picked up her drink again she felt a slight twinge as she noticed the absence of a ring.
I wonder if someday he'll ask me. It's not as if I'm ashamed of living with him… it's not that. I know he loves me. I know I could make him happy whether we're married or not.
I love him so much, so very much. After Johnny, it's so wonderful to be with someone I know I can trust. To never have to worry again. But I won't rush him, she thought, I know he doesn't want anyone else…
The mention of Johnny in her mind turned her thoughts to the stories she'd read lately. The divorce had been accomplished very quickly and quietly by Cassis, and through it all there had never been any correspondence between her and the singer she'd married.
About three months ago his name had started appearing in columns and in Variety. Just as everyone had prophesied, he was becoming very big. She'd even heard that he'd begun filming a movie – and everywhere she turned there were more of the scandal sheets linking his name with some starlet or heiress.
It's strange, she thought, when he walked out of my life that day it was like he'd never existed. The mention of his name or one of his new recordings no longer meant anything to her.
I'm growing up, just like Hollywood, she thought. Soon I'll be able to invite him to one of my parties and call him 'dahling'.
She sipped her third martini and asked Freddy for the time. It was still early, too early for Cassis to be home. He'd said something about a meeting in the morning and had told her that he thought he'd be in late.
Later, as she wandered through the casino she decided to see if Harry was still there, but no one answered in his office. I miss him at the bar, she reminisced, I never have a chance to talk to him anymore.
Laura stopped at one of the roulette tables and played for about an hour.
She'd never gambled before until she'd met Deke Vito, and still never played anything except roulette. There was some perverse desire deep inside her that made her want to finally beat the wheel that had wreaked such vengeance on her. It didn't happen very often that she did win, but when she did the proportion of satisfaction made all of her playing worthwhile.
Tiring of the wheel, it wasn't one of her winning nights she thought ruefully – she called the show room and told them she'd like a table for the dinner show.
That's one thing at least, I'll never have to wait in line for a show in Reno. Not with Cassis Mornay, as my guardian and especially after we're married.
She sat at a small, but choice, table and listened to one of the big new groups to hit the country – The Gold Coast Trio. When she finished her steak and a small bottle of imported Pommard French wine, she decided that she'd wait upstairs for Cassis. She knew how delighted he was when she was there waiting for him instead of the center of attraction at one of the tables downstairs.
Maybe I can talk him into going away. We can get out of this cold weather for a while. To the islands or something. I'd like to have him alone and completely to myself for a while. Who known.
She waited for the small plush elevator to take her up to the top floor, to the suite she'd come to love.
As she inserted the key in the door, she thought she heard music inside. Oh damn! He's home already and I wasn't here to meet him. She stepped into the softly lighted living room and looked for him.
"Cassis. Cass, I'm home." Then she heard the shower and decided to fix them both a drink while he was in the bathroom. She iced the glasses while she made the martinis and then took them into the bedroom.
She put the glasses and the shaker into the ice bucket by the bed and then smiled at an inspiration that came to her. She went into the other bathroom and checked her makeup. When she touched it up to her satisfaction she smiled at her reflection in the mirror. Hell! I can always take it off in the morning. Tonight's too important to worry about a little makeup.
Laura hummed softly to herself as she undressed and put on the black lace negligee that looked like a sensuous Roman toga. It was Cass' favorite.
Then, she moved the ice bucket closer to the bed and poured herself a martini. She heard the shower stop and knew that he'd be out any minute and hurriedly jumped under the covers. Then she had to get up again because she didn't like the lighting.
She had barely gotten under the silken sheets again when he heard the bathroom door opening. She felt the laughter in her heart as she turned and held the glass out to him…
"Hi, darling… look, I made you a… WHO ARE YOU?" She screamed and grabbed at the fallen sheet as she realized that the man in the bathroom doorway wasn't Cassis Mornay!
"I'm sorry, Laura," the man chuckled softly. "I didn't mean to frighten you. I didn't know you were home yet."
"WHO ARE YOU? What are you doing in my bedroom…? Cass…! Cassis!"
She cried out, screaming and hoping that Cass would come in.
"I'm sorry, Laura. Cass won't be home for a while. I took him to the airport this afternoon. He has to go to Paris for a few months and gave me the key." He smiled in obvious anticipation as he looked down at her voluptuous form under the thin sheet. "He told me to take care of you," he said as he dropped his robe to the floor.
"Oh, by the way," he added as he put his hand possessively on her shoulder, and slid into bed beside her. "I'm one of Cass' better customers! And he said you'd know how to amuse me until he got back!"