Devil Girls Page 3

  She snapped to him with the glazed eyes which demanded immediate action. “Now, Lark. Now. Goddamn it, now! You got my girls. You got me. We’ll get your stuff. Now, damn it, get me the stuff now . . . I’ll do what ever those whore bitches want. I’ll kiss ’em. They can kiss me. They can screw me, they can jazz me. They can whip me. I’ll take the high heels in my back, my stomach. I’ll take the whip . . . the paddle. They can kiss my ass for all I care. Just get me a fix. Get me a fix before I die right here on the sidewalk.”

  He put his arm almost fatherly about her shoulders. “Now we can’t let that happen, can we? I wouldn’t want to see you dead on the sidewalk. I need my little Dee-Dee too much.” He propelled her lightly toward the door he had previously came from. “Come on, the girls will make you well again. In a minute or two you’ll be flying over the city. You’ll like that, won’t you? And all the time you’re flying, the girls will be getting their kicks too—now won’t they?”

  “Oh yes . . . yes . . . yes . . .” Her voice was deep in ecstacy . . . her mind was racing ahead to the excitement presented to her. He opened the door and she saw the same glaze-eyed whore.

  “She’s all yours Gloria,” Lark said, and the girl with a stone-like glare moved to the doorway and slapped Dee’s face, then put her arm around her shoulders and led her off into the darkness of the hall.

  CHAPTER THREE

  Ruggedly handsome Sheriff Buck Rhodes raced his police car toward the well-lighted two-storey school building. He screeched his brakes on the gravel in front of the main entrance and behind one of his deputy’s cars and a black sedan he knew belonged to school principal, Hal Carter. The sheriff wasted no time in mounting the several stone steps and threw open the big doors. Just on the inside he was met by his deputy.

  “Where are they Bob?”

  “Room nine.”

  “Who’s there?”

  “Reverend Steele, Hal Carter and the teacher taught in the wrecked room. June O’Hara . . .”

  “I don’t know her.”

  “She’s new on the job. Took over the job of the dead teacher yesterday morning. They flew her in from Houston.”

  Buck let the information sink in a moment before he spoke again. “Okay, Bob. I’ll take over now. You better get back on patrol. No telling what else might happen tonight the way things are going already.”

  “Right,” said the deputy, and moved quickly toward the front doors.

  The Sheriff’s footsteps made hollow, echoing sounds on the marble-like floor of the empty corridor as he searched out room nine and entered. Both men he knew well, but he had not expected the extra sight he saw. She was a young woman of perhaps twenty five and very beautiful. She wore a fluffy pink angora sweater and a soft brown skirt. He tipped his hat. But before he could speak, Hal Carter, a balding man in his early fifties, stepped up beside them. “Miss O’Hara this is Sheriff Buck Rhodes. Our law enforcement in Almanac.”

  She extended her hand and tried for a smile, but it was a troubled smile. “It is nice to know you Sheriff Rhodes, even if we do meet under such drastic circumstances.”

  “Ma’am,” he said, lacking other words. Then turned to survey the wrecked room. “They sure made a mess out of this place, didn’t they?”

  “Vandals,” said Mr. Carter and made it sound like a full curse. “The taxpayers will certainly put up a howl about this.”

  Buck sighed. “Try and tell them what to do about it, and you’ll hear them howl even harder.”

  Miss O’Hara spoke softly. “What can be done Sheriff?”

  “I’ll tell you what can be done,” cut in Carter. “Sheriff, get your men out and pick up every occupant in every hot rod and every hamburger joint on the street. That’s what to do.”

  Reverend Steele stepped into the group. “Come now, Mr. Carter. They aren’t all to blame.”

  Carter spun on the clergyman. “You condone these horrid actions, Reverend Steele?”

  “Of course not. But you can’t condemn them all for the actions of a few.”

  “Well I say there are just a few too many. Lock every one of them up and you know the right ones are there.”

  Miss O’Hara spoke softly, but there was no smile on her face. “In early Chinese law there was such an Emperor as you would have the sheriff be. If there was one murder and he had eight suspects, he ordered all of their heads to be cut off. He also knew in that way he had the right one. Is that the way you would have it, Mr. Carter?”

  Mr. Carter mumbled something under his breath then angrily turned to glare out of the window. Sheriff Rhodes directed, then, his full attention on the girl. “I understand you teach this particular classroom Miss O’Hara?”

  “Yes. This is a class in Ancient History.”

  “I see. Thus the Chinese puzzle,” he grinned broadly and her smile came up to match his. “Yes. That and old Charlie Chan movies.”

  “I preferred the Mr. Moto series.”

  “You would. He was the more physical type,” and she laughed showing a perfect row of white teeth outlined by her rouge-red lips. Her eyes sparkled brightly.

  “Miss O’Hara. You are a mighty lovely woman when you smile.”

  “Well, thank you Sheriff Rhodes.”

  Carter spun on them. “What in blazes is this—a social in Lovers’ Lane?”

  Buck did not look to the man. He kept his smiling eyes on those of the girl. “We have one of those here too. Only it looks out over the desert instead of a moonlit lake.” He drifted his eyes toward the Reverend and winked before he looked back to Miss O’Hara. “Any of the kids in particular give you a special kind of trouble since you’ve been here?”

  “No more than usual I’m told. I’m afraid the boys in this class aren’t quite what one would expect to find at a Sunday school picnic.” She let her eyes drift toward those of Reverend Steele, thinking perhaps she had phrased her explanation into a sore spot.

  Mr. Carter cut in, breaking the spell. “As Principal of this school, I can say that goes for the girls also. Their short skirts and tight sweaters. Marijuana parties. The girls are just as bad as the boys.”

  Buck kept his eyes on the girl. “You knew that Miss Long was murdered?”

  “I heard.”

  “Do you know why?”

  “There have been rumors.”

  “Then let me put the rumors straight.” Buck talked in light, even tones. He had no intentions of shocking the girl, only telling her what she was in for. “Miss Long was attacked by juveniles. She was murdered because she learned about a shipment of dope coming in by water. But it would seem they are not satisfied with just putting her in her grave. Tonight her automobile was burned, and . . .” he let his arm sweep the room slowly, “her former school room has been wrecked. You, in taking her place, may be putting yourself in jeopardy. It’s her classroom and you are taking her place. In their warped minds you might become a symbol of her. Oh, not you especially. It would be so with anyone who had taken her place.”

  “Am I supposed to be frightened?”

  “You’d be some kind of nut if you weren’t—just a little,” smiled Buck for the first time in several minutes.

  “I’ll cross that bridge when I come to it.”

  “Juvenile delinquents,” mumbled Mr. Carter. “She said they were. They all wore masks. The whole kit and kaboodle of them should be locked up.”

  “It’s certainly apparent many of them are not interested in school,” Miss O’Hara said softly. “In the two days I’ve been here I’ve had to keep on an average of four boys a day in after school.”

  “Ahh,” said Buck strongly. “There we put another point strongly against you. Maybe the boys didn’t like being kept after school.”

  “The little b . . .” and Mr. Carter caught himself. “They have to be punished. Miss O’Hara was perfectly in the right in doing what she had to do.”

  “I don’t deny that.”

  “Then what are you driving at Buck?”

  “I only say, it’s one more point
we’ve got to look out for. It might very well have triggered the actions that happened in this room tonight.”

  Miss O’Hara came forward seriously. “Are you implying that I’m responsible for this?”

  Buck calmed her. “Not in the usual sense of the word. You see, any little thing can trigger a warped mind. Those who would murder a helpless woman such as Miss Long certainly wouldn’t stop at wrecking a school room or burning a car.”

  “And my keeping certain ones after school could be directed to violence?” June O’Hara was not angry. She was interested. It was an all new adventure to her as in the past five years as a teacher she had always had sedate, well protected schools, with mostly well behaved children. This type of affair was all new to her and she had an open mind for the advice of those in authority who know.

  “You’re teaching a rowdy class in a rough school in the toughest gulf port town in Texas. Most of these kids don’t appreciate going to school during the proper school hours let alone one minute longer. It all adds up to their retaliation against authority. You’ve got a bad bunch, Miss O’Hara. A lot of them bad—through and through.” Again Buck let his arm sweep slowly around the wrecked room. “The ones who did this have no respect for anyone or anything with a sign of authority.”

  “You’re wrong about that, Sheriff Rhodes,” she said simply, then turned and indicated the flag still neatly placed in its standard. “The flag hasn’t been touched.”

  CHAPTER FOUR

  Reverend Steele looked ahead to the gaudily-lit street which spread out, ahead of him, toward the black Gulf waters beyond. He shook his head sadly. Not because of the dozen or more beer joints and the same amount of bottle shops, or the red light district, or even the people. “Weak is the flesh,” he quoted silently. It was the street itself which vexed him. As dirty a street as had ever lined the march of a trail drive was the only way it could be explained. There was never anyone who wanted to see something done about it. A year before he tried to get the merchants to pool some money and rebuild and remodel, and with a second choice, each one could take care of his own frontage. The plans never got off the ground. None of the merchants felt their profit justified any added expense. With the truth of the matter laid at the fact they were getting all the profit that could be gotten out of the area as it was. Why should they dish out anymore expenditures! And who in hell cared what the street or the front of the buildings looked like—certainly not the customers.

  Light moans of pleasure from a man and a woman issued from an alley and he stopped. He tried to penetrate the deep blackness, but it was impossible and there was no point in an investigation. He knew what was going on. A dirty blanket or a discarded mattress, stretched out in the alley filth. A man and a woman, probably drunks or bums, maybe a street walker and her john; possibly a couple of teenagers. Once he had investigated such an affair; he had the jagged knife scar in his side to prove it.

  Reverend Steele turned his footsteps back to the street. A crowded street but a lonely one. He accepted a greeting here and there from well-wishers, but those were few and far between. The single theatre was doing a capacity business for its double horror feature bill, and he recognized a few of the teenagers waiting in the lobby for seats. He gave his usual, friendly gesture which, also as usual, was greeted by the turning of their backs to him. He hadn’t expected any different. It had become the general thing to do. He was a symbol of all they had come to reject. In most cases they didn’t know why the rejection, but it had started somewhere and steadily grew until it was the thing to do.

  His footsteps passed a couple of beer joints then he paused in front of the large plate glass window which denoted Jockey’s Place. A hamburger and coke joint owned by a short man, almost a midget, who in his earlier years had been a race car driver and jockey of some renown. Then there was his final fall in a stretch run which crippled his left leg and put him out of the sports world for good. Jockey’s Place boasted a ten stool counter and several wooden tables and chairs with carved initials and symbols scratched there by the hordes of teenagers who, over the years, frequented there to hear Jockey tell his exciting adventures; most of which were tall tales from his fertile mind, but his face and name on many sports posters plastered on the walls, gave credence to his stories.

  The real color in the place came from a multicolored jukebox with blinking lights, which blared the latest teenage conception of music. Although Reverend Steele didn’t approve of the Place’s atmosphere, he could find no harm in Jockey who seemed to be a right sort, misguided perhaps, but a right sort. It was better that the kids gathered there than on street corners. Jockey served no beer in the Place, and Reverend Steele knew for a fact Jockey had personally, and violently, turned down all offers of gambling devices and other paraphernalia which might tend to demoralization of the juveniles. Jockey wasn’t the best influence on the younger set, but then again he was far from being the worst.

  Reverend Steele walked on again, another block, until he saw a rather plump woman in her late fifties. Her faded house dress, but clean apron, floated around her knees as she swept the street in front of her small delicatessen.

  “Good evening, Mrs. Purdue,” the clergyman greeted her pleasantly.

  The woman stopped her sweeping action and looked with tired eyes to the smiling man. “What’s so good about it Reverend Steele? My back is killing me, my feet are so bad I can hardly stand in shoes. My ulcers will be putting me in the hospital again one of these days. Nothing but work, work, work, all the time. Twelve hours a day in the store, alone since the mister went to his rewards . . . can’t find Rhoda no place . . . she don’t like the store you know. Her own dear departed father’s delicatessen that was responsible for bringin’ her up, feedin’ and clothin’ her, and she can’t stand the sight of it. It just ain’t good enough for her now. A salami, she says, is for the jerks—oh, that girl of mine . . .” Then a sudden hope sprung into her eyes. “Have you seen her tonight, Reverend?”

  “As a matter of fact I did,” he said, then added. “But it was perhaps an hour or more ago.”

  Mrs. Purdue’s face fell again. Her voice was hard in the honesty she felt. “With them tramps she’s been hangin’ around, I’ll bet!”

  Caught off guard momentarily, Reverend Steele let his own eyes drop briefly. “Well . . . she was with girlfriends.”

  Mrs. Purdue threw up her hands, then let the end of the broom settle back to the sidewalk again. “Just as I thought. Them tramps.” The woman shook her finger in Reverend Steele’s face. “Mark my words! Rhoda is gonna turn out just like her sister Lila. Just like Lila,” she emphasized. “Spendin’ the rest of her days in jail.”

  “Now, now, Mrs. Purdue. Rhoda is not a bad girl. She has never been in any serious trouble. You must realize Mrs. Purdue, she is growing. Things which were pleasant to her once may not mean the same any longer. As they grow they have more interests . . .”

  “Sure . . . she’s got interests . . . like hangin’ around street corners with the tramps . . .”

  “There is good in all of us.”

  “I ain’t talkin’ about folks like us. I’m talkin’ about them, Reverend Steele.” Then again hopeful. “Can’t you get my Rhoda goin’ to one of your clubs or somethin’?”

  “I’d like nothing better than to do just that.”

  “She won’t go!”

  “Rhoda has a very strong mind of her own.”

  Mrs. Purdue shook her broom. “Maybe I should weaken her mind a little with this.”

  “I don’t think that would be the right psychology.”

  “Ha! Psychology. Meterology—Salami! Twenty years ago we used this,” and once more she waved the broom. “You didn’t hear about none of the things like goin’ on today with the kids.”

  “Perhaps you have something there Mrs. Purdue.” And he meant it. Many had been the time he’d have liked to just grab out and shake the love of God into some brat’s head, or taken a paddle to beat the devil out of their pants. “In the meant
ime, I think we’ll have to do it in the present, more conventional way.”

  “You think the way you like Reverend, and do it. And I’ll do the way I think it. And I think everybody today got it all wrong. The kids got it too easy. Too easy to make money, to get cars, to leave home. But someday I take her over my knee and put the paddle where it belongs . . . I’d . . .” But she cut off and let a coy smile come to her plump features. “Reverend Steele. Would you like to see the birthday present I got for my Rhoda?”

  “Is it her birthday?”

  “Saturday!”

  Reverend Steele affixed his most glowing smile. “Mrs. Purdue, I would like nothing better than to see what you’re giving her.”

  Soundlessly she turned and entered the well-lighted delicatessen. She leaned the broom up against the door and led the clergyman through the thin aisle between counter and refrigerated, glass-enclosed meat dispensers. Cheeses and salami along with straw-covered wine bottles hung from the ceiling, making a perfume of its own. At the rear of the establishment she opened a small door to a stairway which led to her living quarters on the second floor. “Forgive the place, Reverend. With all the work in the store I don’t have but Sunday afternoon to do my cleaning . . .” She glanced back to him. “Sunday is my only day.”

  “I understand, Mrs. Purdue.”

  “After church, you know . . .”

  “Of course, Mrs. Purdue.”

  The second floor living quarters were comfortable and clean, aside from Mrs. Purdue’s apologies. The furniture undoubtedly had been purchased at the time she and Mr. Purdue had been married, it was old and faded, showing the usage of the years. But she had kept it in good repair. “Some coffee?” she asked as they passed through the kitchen toward a back bedroom.

  “No thank you, not just now, Mrs. Purdue.”

  Her room, her bedroom, held a scarred wooden chair, a four-poster bed and a night stand with a cross. Reverend Steele removed his felt hat in reverence, remembering suddenly he should have taken it off when he first got to the stairway leading to the lady’s rooms. However, Mrs. Purdue took it for a religious meaning as she saw his gaze. “Sometimes, He is my only comfort,” she said with deep respect and meaning. Then she reached down under her bed and brought out a large department store-type box. Carefully, she untied the ribbons, then took the lid from the box. She held up a fluffy party dress of pale blue. “Maybe, you think, she’ll like this? For the dances sometimes she goes to?”