UNION STATION
Beth lived two lives... one in the light, one in the dark. They started and ended at Union Station.
It was 1943... dark times with a world at war. And the kind of disappearances the police don’t put more than a token effort into investigating. When a friend disappears and then other women, Beth fears they’ve been killed, and she’s next on the killer’s list. She has to take things into her own hands. Despite the risk of her secret life being revealed... she must avenge her friend and defend herself.
“Thanks, this is really interesting. Beautiful descriptive prose.” –Doug [Douglas Preston is the New York Times best-selling author of 26 novels and several nonfiction books on history, science, exploration, and true crime.]
“Vivid and sensuous storytelling, Dennis.” –Vicki Tyley
“You are pushed forward on a ‘fated’ path... all those intricate details... Is this a movie?! You try, but you cannot untangle yourself... amazed at the turn of events... and a deeper layer shows.. which is painful... and I love it! Thank you, Michael [a reader that shared the story with her], for introducing this great writer ... expanding our lives!” :) --N. Azadi
“As usual, it was extremely well written. I, as I am sure was true for most readers, felt your detailed descriptions enabled me to picture a scene in my mind as if I was actually watching a movie! You very effectively kept the reader on seat’s edge in the final pages of the story, wondering how everything would play out. And the ending with - DELETED SPOILER PART OF THE COMMENT- was an absolutely brilliant touch on how to bring the whole story to closure.” –Jim Zumwalt. James G. Zumwalt is the internationally bestselling author of Bare Feet ~ Iron Will - Stories from the Other Side of Vietnam’s Battlefields, The Juche Lie | North Korea’s Kim Dynasty, and Doomsday Iran: The Clock is Ticking.
“Just finished reading Union Station, Dennis. For a short story, it packs quite a punch. The characters are well developed and believable.” --Hazel Payne
“You did an excellent job with this one, Dennis. You really carved a complete story...” --Michael Koontz
“Awesome!!! --Susan Gabriel
“Love it!” -Kim O’Brien
This story—in my EVERY PICTURE TELLS A STORY Collection—resulted from discovering the public domain photo used in the cover and including it in one of my ‘Pick a Picture Get a Story Written’ contests.
Chicago 1943
Union Station
The massive structure on Canal Street stood on the west side of the Chicago River between West Adams Street and West Jackson. Its Bedford limestone Beaux-Arts facade, Corinthian-style columns, polished marble, and magnificent Great Hall stunned first-time visitors and pleased jaded travelers—thousands—daily. A terminus; trains did not pass through it. Rail passengers traveling through Chicago must change trains to reach their destinations. Union Station was an end and a beginning.
Five days a week, Elizabeth Holloway crossed through the Great Hall’s morning shafts of dark-to-light-to-dark again. The sunshine through a vaulted skylight above the long wooden benches illumined people and cast others in shadow. She wondered about those who chose to sit in the dark; did they hide something, too?
You wouldn’t know Beth was a dancer, a stripper. Plain horn-rimmed eyeglasses that were only glass provided a bookish look to her features. Her long mane of hair, coiled in a tight bun. Clothes too large, she slumped to lessen her height, always wore a loose jacket, and rounded her shoulders forward to hide ample breasts. Spring and summer were the hardest; the heat made her long for lighter clothes. But those would never conceal her curves.
At work, she was well-buried in the wartime growth of the now massive Acme Industrial secretarial and clerical pool with 72 other women. Most were unprepossessing, and she tried her best to be one. She had little, if any, contact with male employees or executives, most of which were old or 4F; they weren’t going off to war. But some women with watchful eyes and rapacious appetites had discovered her and made oblique offers. She could handle them, though.
The morning sunbeams slanting through the skylight landed on the sleek floor like the spotlight at The Marquis. Beth recognized the fat cop standing in one of them, talking with another policeman. She walked past, and he didn’t glance at her. He had done more than that Saturday night at the club. His badge got him a stage-side table on a busy evening. He was there when she had stepped out and gone through her grind. Four empty shot glasses stacked in front of him, and Doris bringing him another full shot with a beer chaser. His hand had shifted his pants at the crotch as he ogled her.
That night, The Marquis had been crowded. Most of the older men wore civilian clothes, the young all in uniform. A sprinkling of women, too. She was used to an audience that looked long and lusted at her on stage, but nothing like since she came up with what Eddie called her ‘shtick.’ Who’d have thought a mask and costume would’ve made such a difference?
After the second or third night, word had spread, and the club was packed by the time she went on. She didn’t flash her nips much anymore—they loved when she did—but the place still rocked. And the money flowed. Eddie upped her weekly pay and let her keep half of the tips. He was good that way. To keep the show fresh, she varied the music and the dance. Eddie even found a guy—the poor bastard—who looked like Hitler and did stage stunts. She’d high-kick him around and get in a couple of good fake punches, too. The crowd loved it. Daddy’d been a boxer when he was younger and sober, and since he didn’t get the boy he wanted, he had taught her a thing or two. She made it appear real. And the money flowed.
To think it all had started with Peeping Tommy Smith and a comic book:
Beth had caught the rustling that day a month ago—knuckles banging on wood—at the fence. She rose from sunbathing, this time remembering to hook her top in place first. The partition she had put up around her backyard was too high to see over, but she’d seen the loosened boards creating gaps. She had moved toward that side that separated the Smith’s yard from hers. The sound had stopped. She bent down to peek through the hole just in time to see Tommy running around the corner of his house, pulling his pants up as he went. He was home alone a lot during the summer; his mother on a factory night shift, slept most of the day. She suspected he was also outside her bathroom window from time to time, late at night, when she showered before bed. Something had to be done about him, and that had been the trap to spring.
That night, she opened the window and turned on the radio in the bathroom. Beth loved music—the echoing effect in her low-end concert hall—and turned it up. The music coming from that window would draw him like flies to sugar. She turned on the water. Soon the tiny room was hot, wet, and steamy, like a 16-year-old boy’s dreams. The night breeze picked up, and the gauze drapes billowed in and retreated, the draft almost drawing them through the window.
Wearing a black leotard, she had stationed herself outside in the night shadows, under the eaves. Her hair was wrapped in a dark scarf, her face tilted down but her eyes up to view the fence closest to her house’s corner and back wall. Moonlight illumined that section, and Beth had seen three of its broad white boards swing away, still attached at the top, leaving an opening at the bottom large enough for an average-sized boy.
Tommy had ducked through and straightened once inside her yard. Following the back wall, he had stopped at the bathroom window. The boy had carried something in his right hand that now hung at his side. As he flipped it over on the ground, in the light cast through the window, she saw the compartments inside and the letters P E P… on the side. The rest were in the shadows. He stepped on it, giving him an extra five or six inches and a sightline into the bathroom. As the drapes flowed in the wind, they almost touched his face. He unbuttoned one strap of his overalls and slid his hand inside. The flap of material swung away and exposed the left cheek of his ass. The kid wasn’t wearing any underwear. That’s when she had stepped forward and whacked him with the broom. She had trimmed the rough straw down earlier, so it was spikey. By the yell Tommy cut loose with on contact, it got the job done. She had gotten in another swat as he shot through the opening in the fence and hollered, “You can pull on your pecker all you want on your side of the fence, Tommy Smith, but not in my yard.”
She had walked back to the window and bent to pick up the bottle crate: PEPSI-COLA, she read in the light from the window. Something rolled up lay on the grass beside the box; she grabbed it on her way inside. She had set the crate on end by the pantry door and unrolled what must have fallen from Tommy’s pocket. A comic book: Wonder Woman Number One—Summer Issue. Well, if Tommy wanted it back, he’d have to ask, but she didn’t think he’d be brave enough for that for a few more years, maybe not then. The woman with the colorful costume on the cover caught her eye. She brought the comic with her to take a real bath and closed the window and curtains.
The next morning, she had thought about the comic book and the story she’d read about this Wonder Woman. She liked it was about a strong female character and so different from other comics and stories on the news and magazine racks. She even looked like her, except her hair was a lush chestnut, not black. She’d had an idea. What was it that Eddie at the club said, “Girls that make it—that make enough moola to leave before they’re old and sagging—they got more than just big bazooms.”
Eddie was a small man from South Philadelphia with a bowtie that wriggled beneath his Adam’s apple when he talked. A deep and gravelly voice was his only distinguishing feature, and he always referred to women’s breasts one way. “Ya got nice bazooms, Honey. But lotsa girls do. Ya got to put them with something else—a shtick—to be great.” He tapped his head… “It ain’t all about whatcha got down there… ya got to have something up here, too.”
Maybe she could create a character, a mysterious woman who was tough and sexy, for a stage act, she had thought. A standup… standout woman who fought for what was right. She had taken the comic out and studied the woman on the cover, and the idea had formed. Beth could make a costume like that; she was good at design, sewing, and creating in cloth. She wanted to start her own clothing design studio and that was what the extra money from dancing went toward. When Beth had saved enough, she was headed to Hollywood to set up a shop. But she couldn’t copy this Wonder Woman character exactly.
She had put the comic on the kitchen table, and next to it had been the newspaper and a magazine with an article about Bundles for Britain. The words GREAT BRITAIN stood out in large bold type on a Union Jack background. She had picked up the pad she sketched designs on, “What about….”
Eddie had loved the idea.
“Here she is, folks, new to The Marquis. A woman with the courage of Athena and the breasts of Aphrodite. Let me introduce to you, for the first time in the US of A… Lady—Great—Britton.”
The spotlight had come on to reveal her center stage with bare shoulders squared, hands on hips, legs spread slightly wider than her shoulders as she beheld the crowd. The loud chatter and noises had faded as she scanned the room, eyes lingering on each table for a second. The gold lion’s paws, emblazoned on her red strapless modified corselette, cupped the curve of her breasts, pressing them together. The skirt’s white, inner red, crossed and diagonal stripes created a center point on the second most viewed part of her anatomy, which was so decorously covered. The knee-high boots added three inches to her 5-foot-10 frame. She weighed 158—firmly molded and contoured—pounds. In costume, wearing a wig of luxuriant black hair, she had exuded the sexuality of a strong, confident woman.
The persona and a set more floor-show than bump and grind made the crowd roar. Beth closed each routine by tossing her gold mask into the crowd. They loved her.
* * *
The beer-belly laughs from the fat cop brought her back as he and the other policeman separated and went in opposite directions. Her eyes swept the station. There was time until her train, and she picked a seat at an equinox, where dark and light met. If she leaned her head one way, you could see her face, and the other direction hid it. Wearing her hair in a tight bun made the classic line of sculpted cheeks, brow, firm chin, and perfect lips more prominent. A striking profile when the light caught her face. One reason she kept her face down most of the time and rarely made eye contact.
Beth heard the first call for her train and rose from the bench to head to her platform. Today was another day of typing and filing. Another lunch of doodling designs in her drawing notebook and daydreams of when the work she hated and the pretending would end. Two more years to put up with it and adding another $5,000 in the bank would be enough to start her new life. Maybe the war would be over; unless the rest of ‘43 and 1944 was grim as ‘42… then who knew how long it would last. Still, she planned—war’s end or not—for her new beginning.
The Marquis
“Thanks, sweetie.” Annie pirouetted, and the dark red silk-lined cape Beth had made for her swirled, lifting—a quick peek before settling—to reveal a flash of naked-but-for-pasties pale flesh underneath. Her ‘bazooms,’ Eddie would say, made a substantial shelf for the fabric to drape from. Annie was a few inches shorter but stacked, too. If not for her natural jet-black hair, she and Beth would seem sisters. Ready to go, they each went through their sets. Afterward, back in the shared dressing room, they dressed in street clothes.
“Want to burn one with me before you go?” Annie asked, looking over her shoulder as she walked toward the rear exit door. Beth nodded and followed. Since Charisse, ‘Cherry,’ Mayhew, had accidentally set fire to the dressing room trash can, Eddie made them smoke on the small landing where the backstage door exited into the alley. Beth didn’t care much for cigarettes but took the Chesterfield Annie offered and lit up, blowing smoke at the naked lightbulb in its fixture over the club’s back door.
The other girls were okay but aloof after Beth froze them out by not answering questions about her life outside the club. Annie never questioned or smirked when Beth changed into her day-job clothes after her last set. So, Annie became her only friend. She enjoyed chatting with her for a few minutes before heading to the train station. Jacket off, Beth leaned back, too tired to mind the grittiness of the metal handrails slimed with condensation, soot, and street dirt sucked into the alley.
“I think I got me a date.” Annie smiled around the white cylinder in her mouth. The butt end already red-smeared by the thick coating of lipstick she had put on in the dressing room. “He had Eddie slip me this.” Reaching into her blouse, she took a $20 and $10 from her bra. “Eddie kept the other ten-spot… but I bet the guy’s got more,” she winked.
Beth disapproved of Annie’s kind of date. That wasn’t a way she was willing to go to make more money. “You need to be careful. One of these days, you’ll….”
“I know… I know, mama. Don’t worry; I can take care of myself.” Annie flashed the knife she carried. Its razorblade’s gleam disappeared as quickly as it had appeared. “There he is.” Annie dropped the cigarette butt and squashed it with the toe of one high-heeled shoe. Beth followed her eyes. The Chevy two-door coupe’s dark blue paint glinted as it crept into the barely-wide-enough alley under the lights spaced every thirty feet. Annie tapped her arm. “He told me to be alone. Can you….” She flipped her hand at Beth in a fly-shooing motion toward the door as the car stopped short of the landing just beyond the bright glare of the bulb.
“Okay, I’ll scoot inside and leave when you’re gone.” Beth stepped in but kept the door cracked. Over the car’s roof, in the dim light reaching it, she saw the man get out and take his hat off. Butch-waxed blond hair caught the faint light as he dipped his head toward Annie, but she couldn’t see his face because of the handrail. He called to Annie with a trace of an accent. “There’s my dark beauty. Tonight, I’ll show you a lovely time.”
Three Nights Later
“Anyone hear from Annie yet?”
Eddie shrugged his almost nonexistent shoulders. “Not a peep.”
“Has anyone gone to her place?” Beth asked, tugging at the costume’s bodice to ease the squeeze.
“Honey, youse know that isn’t something you gals tell us—I know you live on the Northside, but we don’t ask about no addresses. Just like with real names… it don’t matter.” Eddie was pacing, bouncing on the balls of his feet as he did when wound up. “Girls. They come, and they go.” His forlorn expression showed how he felt. He turned to leave and said half to himself and maybe half to her, “But I like Annie and you, kid.”
Two hours later, Beth finished her last set and still marveled; it was unbelievable. Eddie had delivered close to $100 in tips to her just that night after taking his cut. During her show, every eye was on her. Sometimes even Joey, the bartender, came from behind the bar to stand near the stage and watch. He was a stoic, harsh, and heavy man who doubled as the bouncer, something he did with quiet efficiency.
She came out of the alley to the street. As she walked for several minutes before hooking a cab at the Night Owl Cafe, she looked ahead, and half a block up and across the street was the car. A shiny blue Chevy coupe with broad whitewall tires. Topped with spikes of blond hair, the driver’s head leaned toward the windshield over the steering wheel. The car slowed and stopped at the Rhythm & Moves Club. A tall, dark-haired girl came from around the corner and climbed in. The Chevy rolled on through street lights and shadow until out of sight.
The Marquis
Two Nights Later
Beth was up next. Eddie stood by her offstage, waiting for Cherry to finish.
“Benny Manzo at Chez Marseille tells me two of his girls no-showed the last five nights.” He scratched his right eyebrow. “One of them was a long-timer; been with him since ‘41….” He shook his head. “Louis over at the Rhythm says Leila—I know her for like two or three years—is gone, too.”
She thought about what Eddie had said as she stepped onto the stage. The blond man sat—center table—right in front, close. The lights spilling from the set caught his face as he leaned forward, showing a long, partially healed cut on his right cheek. The kind she’d seen her dad get when shaving with a straight razor in his unsteady hand. But this wasn’t a nick. The thin cut—a slice more than a slash—ran diagonally from the plane of his cheek near the outer corner of his eye to the crook of his mouth. He stared up at her, eyes flat, cold, a scrim of blue ice over deep water. The mouth smiled but didn’t stir those depths. The pull of his curled lips crinkled the cut, twisting its straight line; a little spot of fresh-bright blood showed. His waxed crewcut’s blond spikes like the tines of a pitchfork. The eyes and the hair jarred her; she had seen him somewhere even before the night that Annie disappeared. But where?
The man flagged the waitress, getting her attention and then pointing at his empty glass, a flash of sapphire from the massive ring on his left hand. The memory stopped her, still-framed in the spotlight. She realized where she’d seen him.
Beth noted guys like him at the train station and in the cars. Their eyes tracked and followed every woman around them, gauging, measuring, and… imagining. It was all there in how he studied them. He always sat with his shoulder and forearm shifted out when women moved in the aisle. Maybe the occasional brush of a female thigh gave him a thrill. When she boarded, his eyes swept over and then disregarded her. She had paid him no mind after that but had seen him stroking his chin, the ring flashing, as he examined other women every weekday morning on the 08:05 train.
She moved to the music. The man never blinked, never took his eyes off her. Doris brought his drinks, and he paid for each with a $5 bill, not looking at Doris as he waved off the change. The set ended, and his eyes followed her as she stepped through the curtain backstage. Eddie nodded to her when she paused in his doorway. “Eddie, you mind if I take off now?”
He scratched his left eyebrow. “Let me check and see if Gloria’ll stay and take your second spot.” He scribbled a line in the little notebook he kept on the dancers. “Gimme a minute, and I’ll come see ya.”
She entered the dressing room and sat at the makeup table she shared with Annie. A moment later, a knock came at the door, and Eddie stuck his head in.
“Sure, go ahead. I guess keeping ya to one set tonight is okay. Don’t want to give ‘em too much of a good thing.”
“Thanks.” She unsnapped her top, and Eddie closed the door. He never hung around when the girls dressed or undressed. The other girls who had worked at different clubs told her most managers weren’t like that. She’d asked Eddie once about it, and sounding embarrassed, he had told her: “It ain’t proper; youse are like my family.”
Beth dressed and became the dowdy secretary again. Opening the rear door, she stepped onto the landing under the stark light. She spotted the blue Chevy not far down the alley, parked in the twilight area between an unloading dock lamppost and the club’s lonely back-alley bulb.
The figure of the driver straightened. Square on facing her, his features indiscernible, just a lighter shade within the shadows. An orange-red ember traveled an arc from low outside the driver’s window to inside the car. The glow grew with the man’s intake, a scant reveal of his mouth, chin, and nose tip. The ember ebbed and reversed its path to dangle out the window where the faint gray cigarette smoke twined around a big gold ring, a dim twinkle from its faceted stone.
Stepping back inside, she locked the door and went to Eddie’s office. “Hey, Eddie….”
He glanced up and blinked. He’d never seen Beth in street clothes, her natural reddish-brown hair in a bun, and the glasses she wore to work. He blinked again, and his eyes widened. “Honey?”
“You mind if I go out the front tonight?” That was a rule. The working girls weren’t allowed at the front—only when on stage—and never around the customers inside the club. But no one would bother her like this except to wonder what a frumpy dame was doing there.
“Okay…” He shook his head and fluttered his eyes again, then looked up. “Are you alright?”
“I’m fine, just nervous about those missing girls. And there’s some guy parked in the alley.”
“Okay,” he nodded, “and I’ll have Joey go check that guy out.”
“Thanks, Eddie.”
He paused a moment, then followed her, shaking his head. At the bar, he called to the far end near the front door. “Hey, Joey….”
Union Station
Beth entered the terminal and saw the only other person she could call a friend. Maybe she even considered him someone who could be more than a friend. And he was someone she could ask about the missing girls.
“Early tonight, huh?” Danny asked.
Beth had caught a cab right in front of the club—something she never did; it might connect her separate lives—but had the driver drop her three blocks from the station. A late evening storm had kicked up, and she had run the last block.
“I must look a mess.” She tried poking loose strands of hair back into the bun.
“Not at all.” Danny handed her his handkerchief. “You got water drops on your glasses.” His eyes went to the white cloth in her hand, then back to her face. She slipped the glasses off, ducking her head. Hastily wiped, she put them back on and handed the square of cloth back to him.
“Thanks.”
He tucked the hanky back in his pocket. “You just have time to make the next train.” He sounded sad at telling her.
“I think I’ll take my regular and sit here for a breather.”
The smile lifted his face. He wasn’t Cary Grant-handsome but cute and fit. Not like the slob of a cop, she heard talk about him. She’d asked him about that: “Why does that fat cop,” she pantomimed a huge round belly in front of her, “call you choirboy?”
Danny laughed. “Snorlowski?” He repeated her big belly gesture, and she nodded. “He’s one of the old-timers lining their pockets over the years. A little payoff here; some dough to look the other way at different times. He thinks I’m a fool because I won’t do that.” He studied her, shook his head, and half-smiled. “The money’s there to be taken, but you know… some things are just going too far. No amount of money is worth doing it.”
Beth had nodded but cringed inside. What would he think of her if he found out what she did at night? She realized he’d asked her something. “I’m sorry… what was that?”
“You want some coffee?”
“Sure,” she smiled back.
In five minutes, he returned with two steaming Dixie cups. “I put in cream and sugar for you.”
Beth looked up, smiled, and took a cup from him. They had done this dozens of times over the past year, and she had fallen in love with him 5-10-15 minutes at a time.
“The coffee, okay?” He slid his nightstick from its loop, took his cap off, and sat beside her, setting the baton across his knees and hat on his lap.
She sipped, scalding her tongue. “It’s fine, thanks.” She needed to ask him about what was happening to some of the dancers but couldn’t think of a better way; she wasn’t good at being devious. “Do you know anything about girls… women… gone missing?”
Danny’s quirked eyebrow signaled curiosity at being asked something unexpected, but he answered. “In the city? Before I left the precinct earlier, I heard something about a woman’s body being found this morning; but nothing about women missing. Why? Do you know someone that’s missin--?”
“No… no.” She cut him off. “I just overheard some women talking.” She couldn’t press without leading to questions she didn’t want to answer.
“You’re a puzzle, Beth.” His eyebrow worked again, and he laughed. But to Beth, it sounded tinged with even more curiosity. She looked away but could feel him studying her. She knew he wondered why she was open in some ways and so closed and secretive in others. Sometimes his eyes had a sharpness, probably right then. A sign he wanted to ask more, dig deeper, but he never pushed her too hard. She was glad when he broke the awkward silence so she could look at him again.
“Is tonight a permanent change, or will you still work late?” he asked. “You look so tired….”
“No. I’ll still be working late hours.” She wished it wasn’t so.
Danny’s grin widened and showed uneven but bright white teeth. His natural smile and his eyes always stirred her. “Piling up the money for your dress shop?” he asked.
“Not a dress shop—yes, I’ll sell dresses and other clothes, too. But I want to design,” she said too sharply.
“I know…” he patted her arm, “just teasing you.”
Those little things, his manners and mannerisms… consistent with their light touch. Just listening and showing he cared what she thought. That’s what she had come to love most about him… the man.
The stillness between them returned. Danny lifted the nightstick from his knees, and one hand slowly twirled it. But his fingers seemed stiff tonight. He dropped it with a clatter, a red flush on his face as he held his cap with one hand and leaned to pick up the baton. “So. How long before you have enough saved to start your business?”
“Another two, maybe three years.” He seemed relieved until she added, “Then it’s California; here I come.”
The nightstick hit the floor again. “You’re going to move!” He didn’t bend after it.
Beth regretted that slip, but she replied to the ‘why’ he hadn’t asked. “That’s where I can find a fresh start… and do what I want.”
Beth didn’t see his smile had vanished as he retrieved the police baton. They each drank from their cups. The quiet came back and extended into long minutes. “Won’t you get in trouble sitting here for so long?” Beth asked, thinking he looked tired too, but she wished they could sit there all night.
His expression grew more severe. “I’m not worried. There’ll be word soon, and then I’ll ship out. I’ve argued with the precinct for a year to take me off the essential personnel list. And I want to fight and not be put in the military police.”
“I wish you didn’t feel that way,” she caught his questioning look, “I mean, so eager to get into the war. It’s too horrible to think about you in it….”
“I can’t stay stuck here forever, Beth.” Danny leaned back and closed his eyes. “I think you know what that feels like.”
She relaxed beside him, enjoying the press of his shoulder against hers. His left hand rested on his thigh close to hers. Folded hands in her lap, her right elbow brushed his left. Her eyes fluttered and settled, shutting as her chin dipped.
The second and final call jolted both of them upright.
“Dammit!” Beth cried.
Danny was on his feet, his hand on her elbow. “Come on, you can make it.”
They ran for the platform and skidded to a stop as the brakes released; the railcar door still open but about to close. Her glasses flew off and landed with a crack on the concrete. She jumped through the door, its closing almost catching her jacket. Danny walked the platform, speeding up to match the car’s pace. He had her glasses in his hand. Her face, framed in the window as the car lights flickered then stayed on, wasn’t that of an eyeglass wearer suddenly without their glasses. Danny stopped mouth agape. She saw him stare as the train moved down the line.
The Marquis
The Next Night
“Ya got a fan talking and flashing some green,” Eddie patted her shoulder, then made a money-rubbing gesture: thumb and forefinger sliding over each other. “He said he wouldn’t miss ya tonight.”
She peeked through the curtains. There he was—the blond man—right in front. Her music came on, and she stepped on the stage. During the routine, she only glanced at him twice but was sure his eyes had never left her. She turned as she worked into her closing, not looking at him… or anyone. When she did check, he was gone.
Her set was the last of the night, but she lingered in the dressing room. She jumped at the knock, and Eddie stuck his head in. “Quittin’ time, Honey… Joey’s already gone, and I got to lock up.”
“You mind if I walk out with you, Eddie?”
“Nah, but I turn south, and you go north, Honey. I can’t walk youse all the way home.”
“Just through the alley to the street, and then I’ll grab a cab.”
On the street, Eddie turned left. “Be careful, kid… I don’t see no cabs. It’s slow even for a weeknight; not much of anyone out tonight.” He stopped and turned back toward her. “Ya want I should open up and call you a taxi?”
“Thanks, Eddie, but the Night Owl’s only four blocks up. I’ll call one from there.”
“Okay, kid… g’night.”
The Owl had a sign on the door, closed for remodeling, and there were still no cabs in sight. She’d have to walk it. Beth heard a car coming up fast from behind and turned as the blue Chevy slid to a stop on the street beside her. The blond-haired man got out of the driver’s side.
“I know who you are… ‘Lady.’ Get in.” Beth spun around to run. “You want to say bye to your friend?” She stopped and glared at him as he went to the passenger side window, reached in, and lifted. Eddie’s bullet-shaped head and thin shoulders showed. He was unconscious, a lump and bruise already forming under his right eye. The blond man held a black-hilted dagger and waved it under Eddie’s throat. “You get in, and I leave him here… alive. You don’t…” he made a sawing motion with the knife.
“Don’t hurt him.” She walked over and opened the door. The man pulled Eddie from the car. She had to step over him as she slid inside.
“Roll up the window.” She did, and he dragged Eddie from the gutter and onto the sidewalk, the knife still at his throat. Before the blond man released him, he warned: “Don’t move unless I tell you to…. Or I’ll come back and cut his spindle-necked guinea-ass throat.” She nodded, and he came around and got behind the wheel. The Chevy moved slowly down the street, headed north, then picked up speed.
“Where are you taking me?”
“Not far.” His cold eyes glinted as they stopped at a traffic light. The knife gripped in one hand that rested on the steering wheel; its blade gleamed red under the glow. “Tonight… I’ll show you a lovely time.”
“Like the other girls, you son of a bitch!”
“You’re my last one; I got some bigger hunting to do in this war.” His free hand reached into his jacket pocket and flashed a letter, ORDER TO REPORT FOR INDUCTION… in block letters at the top.
She went for the door handle. The blond man reached with the knife and stabbed two inches into her thigh, twisting it. She screamed, and he hit her in the face. Her head cracked against the side window glass, dazing her. The light turned green, and he stomped on the gas. The coupe surged forward. His grin, exposed under the streetlights, was grotesque… it promised more pain.
This time of night—early morning now—the roads were empty. Ten minutes later, he turned onto a side street near the train station. A block down the side street, he crossed a lane separating two warehouses, stopped just beyond, and then reversed to back into it. Many of the lights on the sides of buildings along the alley were out, and the car slow-rolled into two spaces that formed a black void bordered by lighted rectangular-shaped areas. He turned the key, and the engine stopped; its tick-tick-tick cooling of metal sound lasted for what seemed like forever to Beth. She pressed her hand over the gash in her thigh.
The blond man grabbed her left arm and pulled her toward him. “What’s this?” He squeezed her wrist and forearm again, sliding up the sleeve of her jacket.
She had kept her costume’s new forearm cuffs on. The bright metal ran from her wrist to halfway to her elbow. He ran his finger along the seam. At the three points where the halves joined, the hinges had rough edges she had planned to file smooth when she got home. His hands tore her shirt open, and one went to her left breast—squeezing hard as his fingers found the nipple, rolling it and pinching hard. She groaned.
“You like that, don’t you? You enjoy playing dress-up. All you sluts like that… don’t you?”
She spat at him, and when he flinched, she twisted her torso and slammed her right forearm against his face. The seams jagged hinge tore open the long cut Annie had given him. “Enjoy this, you sick fucker.” She punched him hard in the balls, then was out of the car… running north.
Union Station
Beth staggered into the station’s main concourse and headed to the women’s room. Inside, she wiped the blood from her leg and pressed a pad made from toilet paper into the wound in her thigh. She reapplied her makeup and straightened her clothes. Thankful for the too-large blouse, she closed the rip with safety and bobby pins. Maybe no one would see it with her jacket buttoned. Especially Danny.
But he wasn’t there. A gray-haired policeman was at Danny’s usual post.
“Danny Doyle? I think he got orders today to ship out; all the young guys are getting called up.” The officer shook his head, scrutinized her, and stepped closer. She had limped up to him, hoping she’d well-covered the bruise blooming on her cheek. “Are you okay, Miss.… You don’t look so good.”
“I fell on the steps outside, but I’m fine. Thank you.…” She turned and headed to the platform for her train. Waiting, gripping her thigh to hold the wadded tissue in place, she thought, I can’t go to other cops. Everything about me will come out. Danny was gone—later, she could wonder why he had not said goodbye—but some friend might tell him the news about the secretary-stripper mixed up in an attack and a murderer who had killed no telling how many young women.
That thought jolted her; she’d just acknowledged for the first time that Annie must be dead. And she and the other missing—likely dead—women weren’t high-profile debutantes or even considered middle-class ladies some alderman would raise a ruckus over finding. That’s why Danny had heard nothing. No one cared about ‘them.’
Beth had listened to the slob cop—what’d Danny say his name was—Snorlowski once claim, snickering, “Them girls is begging for it.” No doubt his belief while he watched ‘them girls’ every Saturday night and played pocket pool with himself. As if the women—she included—were fair game and being manhandled, raped, or killed was okay.
Maybe Annie and the other girls played a risky game to make more money than they could any other way. But Annie didn’t deserve to die because of it. And that blond-haired man, whoever he was, would get away with what he had done—tried to do to her, and would likely try again—once he reported for duty. Escaping into the war, he’d never be caught and never pay.
No. Beth couldn’t count on anyone for justice or for protection. It was up to her.
Union Station
The Next Morning
It wasn’t her usual routine. Beth was dressed to the nines and not going to work. The form-fitting dress, one of her own designs, hugged her like a boy clinging to a long-lost dog returned to him. It emphasized her assets. The short jacket was loose enough to move easily but not throw a blanket over the merchandise. She had not replaced the broken glasses last seen in Danny’s hand but wore her black wig, brushed, so each strand caught the light and gave off a cobalt sheen.
Crossing the station was much different. She forced herself not to limp despite the pain and the tight bandage around her thigh. The click of her heels was loud—and distinct—in her ears. She felt the weight of eyes on her as she never had while dancing naked at The Marquis.
Beth saw Snorlowski ahead, talking to a man—his back to her—in a gray coat wearing a dark fedora. His piggish eyes locked on her; they moved from her feet to her face. Undressing her as she passed them, the slob cop’s head turned to follow her. The side-glance at the man he was talking to shocked her. Danny, here … now… but not in uniform! She slowed and heard him tell the slob: “Yeah. I had my physical yesterday and ship out Monday.” Danny saw her and stopped talking to stare. She walked faster.
* * *
Beth stepped into the train car and scanned the passengers. The man had his hat off, and she spotted the blond crewcut’s rows of sharp needles. She took the closest seat behind him. Close enough to see the red line of a fresh haircut razor burn across the nape of his neck. After a couple of stops, the seat next to him emptied, and she stood and moved toward it. “Excuse me, is this seat taken?”
His eyes appraised her up and down… then up again. Slowly. The blond man smiled, not bothered by the bandage covering the re-opened cut on his face. “Yes, by you,” he shifted, forcing her to rub against him as she took the seat. He turned her, “Do you have far to go?”
“Oh, I always go as far as I can…” She returned his smile and leaned forward. Keeping her arms tight at her sides emphasized the cleavage rising beneath two undone buttons on her blouse. “I enjoy a fine ride.” It made her skin crawl to say it.
Beth knew the timing. Regular as clockwork, the southbound would come down the tracks parallel to her train in four minutes. It was time. She baited the hook further, eased her leg over to rest against his, rubbed his calf with hers, matching the train car’s rocking, and then stood. “It’s too stuffy in here; I think I’ll get some air.” As she moved past him to the aisle, she paused and pressed briefly but firmly against him. “Care to join me?”
His grin made her shudder; she remembered it under the streetlights. She led him to the front of the car and through the door. There was a little platform between the train cars where they connected. Passengers weren’t supposed to linger there, but no one ever said anything if they did; no one paid attention. She checked her watch. One minute.
The car swayed and rocked, and she leaned into him. His hands reached for her breasts. She blocked him with her left forearm, and he felt the metal. She slid the cuff of her jacket up, revealing the bracelet. His eyes widened. “Have a lovely time…” she told him and shoved. In that frozen moment, in his eyes, she saw he knew. The southbound shrieked by, and she did too for effect. Someone pulled the emergency stop inside the car behind her, and the brake’s screaming eclipsed hers.
It was done, and she fought the bile rising in her throat. Wanting to retch, she stepped inside and turned to meet the conductor hustling toward her from the connecting car. “What in the hell, lady?” he stopped in front of her, thinking she had pulled the emergency cord. Bracing to play her part, she was about to explain when behind her came a voice she recognized.
“A man moving between the cars fell from the train.” It was Danny, and he had his badge out. “I saw the whole thing. I’ll talk to her and get details.” She looked at him, white-faced, as he gave the conductor his badge number and precinct information. “Ask for a copy of my written report later today; just contact the desk sergeant.”
At the next stop, Danny reported in and, with his badge out again, got them on the next train back to the station. She couldn’t talk, and he didn’t make her. Tears had smeared her makeup, and he handed her his handkerchief. She wiped them away, taking makeup with them, revealing a fist-sized, now purple and black, welt. They pulled into the station. Danny took her arm and steered her from the platform into an alcove off the concourse, away from the passengers coming and going.
She had to try with him. “Officer, I don’t….”
“Bob Woodridge told me a scared girl, looking like she’d been roughed up, asked for me last night.” Danny reached into a pocket and took out a pair of glasses—hers—that had been taped together. He carefully slid them on her. Looking into her eyes, he stroked her forehead and lifted the wig from her head. “When you walked past… I knew it was you, Beth. So, I got rid of Snorlowski and followed.” He softly touched her bruised cheek. “I checked yesterday and was going to tell you tonight. There are six girls, dancers, missing, who worked in clubs—strip clubs—around town.” Danny paused, his face tightened, and his voice heated. “Most cops pay little mind to reports like that. The beat cops told me: ‘Those girls go missing all the time; they pick up and move on or latch on to some sugar daddy.’ So, I talked to the managers from the clubs. Three said they heard the missing girls were last seen meeting a blond-haired man.” He paused, and a dozen, maybe two dozen, heartbeats passed. Beth didn’t—couldn’t—look at him. Finally, he lifted her chin so she would. “Was that him?” he asked.
Beth nodded, and fresh tears flowed. Careful of the bruise, Danny wiped them away. “Telling me everything will not make me love you any less, and no one else will ever know.” He wrapped her in his arms and held her for a long time as people came and went at Union Station.
September 20, 1946
Woodland Hills, California
Miss Elizabeth D. Holloway was married this day to Daniel Lewis Doyle. Paul E. Dunston of St. Paul’s Catholic Church conducted the ceremony. The bride chose a white dress of her own design for her wedding. The groom, recently discharged from the U.S. Army, wore his class A Army uniform. He entered the service in June 1943 and served with distinction in the Pacific Theater of Operations. Mr. Doyle is employed by the Los Angeles Police Department with the rank of Detective Lieutenant. Mrs. Doyle is the proprietor of Designs by Dede, a clothing design studio.
August 2, 2023
Woodland Hills, California
Elizabeth Dede [Holloway] Doyle passed away in her sleep on July 30. She was preceded in death by only one day by her beloved husband of nearly 77 years, Daniel. Dual services will be held at Heritage Gardens at 10:00 AM on August 5. She is survived by four daughters, 12 grandchildren, and four great-grandchildren and is loved and missed by all.
August 9, 2023
Santa Monica, California
A middle-aged woman called downstairs, “Mom….”
“What, Diana?” a voice replied.
“It’s Grammy’s trunk. You know, the sealed one she left you, you found in her closet.”
“Did you get it open?”
“Finally.” Diana looked down at the red, gold, blue, and white costume she had lifted out. Underneath were two metal sleeves, like long, broad, shiny bracelets, and a faded nightclub show card with a picture of a young, dark-haired woman wearing the costume. “Mom… who was Lady Britton?”
# # #
The original 1943 photo I wrote the story from:
