Night of the Toads by Dennis Lynds Read Free Book Online Page A

her?’
    ‘I started with that in mind. Only now—’
    ‘Now you want to help her? That’s good, Dan.’
    ‘Maybe not good for her. Maybe she doesn’t want to be found. She’s a complex girl. You look at her, at how she lives, and she’s a standard show-biz hustler. Hard at twenty-two; cool and calculating. Snubs her sister, sleeps around, sponges off men, has a ‘good’ address she can’t afford, poses nude to draw attention. The main chance. Standard hustling.’
    Marty nodded. ‘From the little I know of her.’
    ‘No.’ I drank some Irish. ‘The girl I met wasn’t hard; just direct, honest. Not calculating, but realistic. She didn’t have to stop McBride, risk trouble, but she did. With that thin man in the cafeteria she was gentle, warm. Her apartment is warm, real; no front inside. She works like a dog for The New Player’s Theatre. It looks bigger than anything else in her life. A real theatre company, and that’s not a standard hustler. They work only for themselves, number one, onward and upward. Anne Terry has dreams of art, Marty, not silk sheets.’
    Marty finished her martini. ‘Add that she’s good, too, Dan. Very good, not just a body on display. I’ve seen her.’
    ‘Okay,’ I said. ‘Two faces. In Vega’s apartment she was like any hustler out to use Vega. On the street she said she really liked him, and I believed her. She said it was ‘too bad’ that she really liked him. As if she was saying she couldn’t afford to be real! As if the face she shows the public is manufactured —a product to sell herself!’
    I hunched forward in the booth. ‘A girl married at fourteen to some Carolina dirt farmer. She grows up, and somewhere she gets a dream—theatre. She comes to New York. So she manufactures an Anne Terry to sell for any buck, short term; and behind that façade the other Anne Terry works hard for the real long term. Two worlds: the high-life hustler, and the dedicated actress.’
    ‘Not so rare,’ Marty said, ‘and not so split, Dan. She probably likes both worlds a little. Does it help find her?’
    I sat back. ‘Makes it damn near impossible. What world do I look in for an answer? I don’t know, but I’ve got a hunch the gaunt guy in the cafeteria is a key. He doesn’t fit.’
    Marty thought about it. I waved to Joe for another drink. Marty wanted one, too. At least I’d made her forget her own troubles for now. She sipped her drink this time, thoughtful.
    ‘He sounds like a farmer, Dan. Maybe her husband?’
    ‘A man she married at fourteen? He didn’t act like he’d come looking for her, and there’s no sign of a husband around. No one even hinted at a husband. She lives alone. She—’
    It slid into place. Just like that. The answer. She took her pay by the week. She turned every dollar, worked too much, but had no bank balance. No income tax forms at her place. Gone every weekend, even from Ted Marshall. Every Friday she drew cash—fifty dollars, always the same.
    ‘She’s got another place,’ I said. ‘Marty! Another place, and she supports it! Every Friday she goes somewhere with cash. She doesn’t miss often. It even takes her away from The New Players’. It has to be damned important to her.’
    ‘Actresses work weekends, Dan. We have to.’
    ‘Maybe it hasn’t come up. Has she had an acting job? The New Player’s, okay—maybe the few times she missed were when The New Player’s were performing weekends! It’s important, and she pays. Always fifty dollars—rent, maybe, or food money?’
    Marty was doubtful. ‘That important? A husband?’
    ‘Maybe he’s sick, maybe she loves him. I don’t know. I do know that this time she hasn’t come back, and she expected to.’
    I went to the telephone. Sarah Wiggen was still at home, still nervous, but she didn’t sound still alone.
    ‘Boone Terrell?’ she said when I asked about the husband. ‘I suppose he’s in Arkansas. He lives down there.’
    ‘Anne divorced him?’
    ‘I