Nothing to Lose But My Life Read Free

There was only a handful of diners; no one paid attention to me.
    The waiter wore a monkey suit, and he looked almost unhappy when I ordered no more than a steak and salad. I asked him what the festivities were all about.
    “Mrs. Mace, the blond lady, is having a birthday.”
    I decided to have a bottle of Dutch beer and some hors d’oeuvres while I waited for the steak. He went away, happier with me. I turned my attention to the party, interested in seeing what five years had done to those I knew.
    Charles Conklin, separated from Hoop by Tanya Mace, looked almost as I remembered him. He was a man of medium height, with a round face that gave him an almost cherubic look. He was neat and dapper and pink-cheeked. He really seemed quite boyish until you saw his eyes, and then the hardness that had taken him so far so fast in the business world was apparent. They were the kind of eyes that would look on a widow as something to foreclose a mortgage on rather than as something to make a pass at.
    On his right was his wife, Sofia Proctor Conklin. A pretty woman of thirty, she was as I remembered her. Everything was correct—the dress, the hair, her way of eating and drinking, of inclining her head when she spoke to Conklin on one side or to her sister, Enid, on the other. She had been Jen’s maid of honor, her intimate friend, and I had come to know her and all the Proctors quite well. She had always seemed to me to represent the epitome of the Junior League; I had the feeling that she always would.
    Enid, at twenty-six, looked as if the world had given her everything it could muster and she had taken it all. She was not beautiful; her features were too irregular. But she had life and spirit in her face despite a drawn, nervous look. Dark hair fell in almost an unruly mass to her shoulders, contrasting sharply with Sofia’s precise hairdo. Her evening gown plunged just to the edge of good taste. She had changed more than any of them but she was still Enid, the harum-scarum kid. She had that look about her.
    When she reached for one of her wine glasses, I saw her sister’s hand reach out and touch hers, stopping her. Enid’s reaction was an expression that said she wanted to go to hell and why were they stopping her. But she drew her hand back and said nothing.
    The Colonel was the same as far as I could see. Gross in the belly and in the jowls, his gray hair a little thinner but no more wrinkles around his blue eyes. The smooth smile, the hearty laugh, all were as they had been. He sat as straight and stiff as he walked, his shoulders back as if fearing to lean forward would cause his stomach to drag him onto his face. His title came from some state militia in the Midwest. He clung to it, lived up to it, usually talked as if he were giving orders to a regiment. I was delighted to see him looking so healthy. I wanted nothing to happen to him until I had my chance at him.
    Enid Proctor interested me because she was one way of getting at Nikke. But Tanya Mace, who completed the circle, interested me most because she was the way of my getting at the Colonel. She represented the person with whom he was most deeply involved emotionally. I studied her carefully.
    The picture of her in my dossier failed to do her justice. She was almost beautiful. She was tall, a big woman, with a fine bosom and hips, and with a head of pale blond hair that looked like spun platinum. On anyone else it would have seemed artificial; on her, no one could dispute its genuineness. She wore it drawn back, revealing the sharp, bold outlines of her face, and knotted at the back of her neck.
    Only her mouth threatened to spoil the picture. It was heavy, almost but not quite out of proportion with the rest of her. Once she turned so that I saw her full face and the line of full, sensuous lips struck me as forcibly as did the light in her large, green eyes. It was a strange sensation. She saw that I was watching her, yet she gave no indication. She might have