Face to Face Read Free Page B

hours—I don’t know how he got my phone number, because it was a new one and still wasn’t in the book—before he called me. He handed me some transparent story about being awfully impressed by my talent, and how he knew he could pull some strings for me, and wouldn’t I like to talk it over? And I fell for it—the oldest line in show business!—knowing all the time that I was letting myself in for trouble … The funny part of it was that he did manage to get me an audition—and the part—in an off-Broadway play. To this day I don’t know how, except that the producer was a woman. Men have nothing but contempt for him—or jealousy—but women can’t seem to resist his charm. I suppose this producer was one of them, although she’s an old bag with a personality like a buzz saw. Anyway, he sweet-talked her into it. The way he did me.”
    The girl with the sorrel hair half shut her eyes. Then she picked a cigaret out of her bag, and Harry Burke leaped with a lighter. She smiled up at him over the flame, but not as if she saw him.
    â€œHe kept turning up … Carlos has a persistence that batters you down. No matter how careful you are … I fell in love with him. In a raunchy sort of way he’s beautiful. Certainly when he pays attention to a woman she feels that she’s the only woman in the world. It becomes total involvement—I don’t know—as if you’re the absolute center of the universe. And all the time you know he hasn’t an honest bone in his body, that he’s pulled the same line on hundreds of women. And you don’t care. You just don’t … I fell in love with him, and he told me the only thing in the world that would make him happy was to marry me.”
    Ellery stirred. “How well-heeled are you, Miss West?”
    She laughed. “I have a small income from a trust, and with what I can earn here and there I just manage to get by. That’s what fooled me,” said the girl bitterly. “He’s never married except for money. Being poor, I began to think that in my case his protestations of love might be, for once in his life, the real thing. How naive can you get! I didn’t know what he really had in mind. Until one night, a little more than seven months ago …”
    For some reason Glory had gone up to her Newtown cottage, and Carlos had seized the opportunity to see Roberta. It was on this occasion that he had finally shown his hand.
    Roberta had known about his premarital agreement with his wife, and that the five-year mark had been passed—by that date he and Glory had been married five and a half years. According to Carlos, Glory had torn up their agreement at the expiration of the five years, as she had promised; so that now, if anything were to happen to her, he would inherit at least one-third of her estate under his ordinary dower rights; more, if she had named him in her will, about which he seemed uncertain.
    At first, the West girl said, she had not seen what he was driving at. “How could it occur to any normal person? I told him truthfully that I had no idea what he was talking about.” Was there something wrong with his wife? Was she incurably ill? Cancer? What?
    Carlos had said easily, “She is as healthy as a cow. Dios ! She will outlive both of us.”
    â€œThen do you mean a divorce settlement?” Roberta had asked, confused.
    â€œSettlement? She would not give me a lira if I were to suggest a divorce.”
    â€œCarlos, I don’t understand.”
    â€œOf course you do not, palomilla mía. So like a child! But you will listen to me, and I shall tell you how we can be rid of this cow, and marry and enjoy the milk from her udders.”
    And, calmly, as if he were relating the plot of a novel, Carlos had disclosed his plan to Roberta. Glory stood in the way; she had to be knocked aside. But as her husband he would be the first to be