Live Girls Read Free

worry. She was concerned about Vernon. He was acting ... different. He wasn't himself. He came home late from work, sometimes not until dawn, and then only to take a shower and go back to work. He didn't eat, lost his temper easily, and he was so very pale. At first, she told him, she'd thought he was having an affair. Then she'd become afraid for his health.

    “He's always been so stoic,” she'd said to Benedek as they sat at his kitchen table having coffee. “He would never tell me if he were ill. Even seriously ill. Please, Walter, you have a vacation coming up, don't you? Do you think you could ... oh, just spend some time with him, maybe? I don't know what, really, but he needs something. Some one . And I don't seem able to get through to him. Could you help me, Walter? Please?"

    Poor timid, dowdy, bighearted Doris who, when she was a young and single woman, could have done so much better for herself than that doughy, pudgy-fingered businessman with his clipped speech and his permanent frown. Benedek sighed and shook his head, remembering how lively his big sister had been when they were kids, and how different Vernon had made her.

    Benedek had not talked to his brother-in-law. He hadn't even tried. He'd never been comfortable with Vernon Macy. They had always rubbed one another the wrong way. But he did have some time on his hands, a few weeks of long-awaited vacation from his job at the Times . So he'd followed Vernon one morning, staying out of sight. The man had not gone to work, but to Times Square, straight into a dark little place called Live Girls. Benedek's years as a reporter had sharpened his eye and he'd had no doubt that morning as he watched his brother-in-law walk through that black curtain with such purpose that Vernon Macy not only knew where he was going, but had been there before.

    Benedek had followed him a few times after that, and each time Vernon had returned to Live Girls. That disturbed Benedek, although he wasn't sure why. Neither was Benedek sure exactly what it was about that dark, inconspicuous little peep joint that unsettled him so. Maybe it was his reporter's intuition, a hunch. But Walter Benedek, in all his years of reporting, had never for a moment believed in intuition or hunches.

    He had not spoken with Doris about her husband since she'd asked for his help a couple of weeks ago. He knew she would ask him about it over breakfast, and he didn't know what to tell her. He supposed that the news of Vernon's seedy pastime would be better than no news at all. It would at least assure her that he was not sick, was not seeing another woman. At least, not in the way she'd suspected.

    But with the relief would come the hurt in her face. Her top lip would curl under like an old leaf and tears would glitter like diamonds in the corners of her eyes.

    Doris would be very hurt.

    The elevator whispered to a halt and the doors slid open. Benedek turned left down the corridor. He stopped outside his sister's apartment and punched the button beside the door. He decided, as he heard the muffled buzz inside, that he would tell Doris that Vernon was simply going through the much-talked-about midlife crisis, a second adolescence of sorts. Benedek wasn't entirely satisfied with that story, but it would have to do. He didn't think he could bear those glittering tears.

    He waited for the familiar sound of movement behind the door, the rattle of locks being unfastened. All he heard was the television.

    “...and Jerry Mathers as the Beaver,” the announcer was saying happily over the perky theme music.

    Benedek punched the button again.

    The television continued to play loudly inside.

    His bushy eyebrows drew together tightly above his nose as he raised a big hand and rapped his knuckles on the door several times.

    “Follow your nose,” the television sang, “it always knows ... the flavor of fruit..."

    This time, Benedek made a fist and pounded on the door, calling, “Doris? Janice? It's