Devil Girls Page 4

  “My, it is lovely. Rhoda should be so pleased.”

  Mrs. Purdue’s wide grin of pleasure turned to a sad smile. “I hope so, Reverend. I so much hope so. She’s wanted a new party dress like this for so long. Maybe I should have gotten it for her a long time ago—but it was so expensive, even on sale, and what with the funeral of her dear father, and—and the other expenses. There was many other uses for our little money. I had to save and save and save.”

  Reverend Steele put his arms around the woman’s shoulder comfortingly. “She will appreciate it much more now. After all, had she received it previously, the surprise and the joy of the occasion would already be in the past. Gone—never to be realized again. Now, the joy is yet to be looked forward to.”

  For a moment Mrs. Purdue was puzzled, then she broke out in peels of laughter which made her rolly-polly belly shake in all directions. “Oh, Reverend. Ain’t you the one! You can change anybody’s feelin’s in just one second, the way you talk. You could make the devil forget he’s an enemy of the Lord with your words.”

  Reverend Steele joined her in laughter. “That, my dear Mrs. Purdue, I wish I could make an immediate fact.” He turned toward the door. “But now I must be going. I still have much to accomplish tonight.”

  “Sure. Sure, Reverend. I know how such a busy man you are.” She carefully laid the dress on the bed. “Reverend?”

  He turned to her. “Yes?”

  She spoke slowly. “My Lila wasn’t always such a bad girl. Once . . . once she was a nice girl. She worked hard. She got in with them tramps. She was not always a bad girl.”

  “Of course, she wasn’t, Mrs. Purdue. Even now I hear reports that she is doing fine. Taking her medicine and giving no one any trouble. She’s taking up a trade . . . knitting, I believe.” Reverend Steele hadn’t heard a word about the girl since her trial and conviction, but what was a little white fib if it would make an old woman have faith.

  “She will never come home.”

  “There is always hope. And when she does, she will be a different girl.”

  “I would like to believe that.”

  “Have faith.”

  “I have faith. But the Judge said what was to be.”

  “If she is rehabilitated, there is always the possibility of a change.”

  “Yes . . . yes . . .” She walked to the door near him. “I would not want her back here. She would not be good for my Rhoda. But I do not like for her to be behind bars all the rest of her life. She is young . . .”

  “I will do all I can to help.”

  “Thank you, Reverend.” She paused briefly as he started out again. “Should you see my Rhoda, tell her I want her to come home.”

  “I’ll do that, Mrs. Purdue.” And he went down the stairs, out through the delicatessen and back to the street.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  Lila Purdue waited patiently in the prison hospital. She kept telling herself, over and over, “This is the night. This is the night.” And how well she had planned it. Then on top of her own plans more luck befell her. She learned most of the hospital staff would be attending a convention, and she would be in the hospital on that night. Entrance to the hospital had been easy. She simply inflicted a deep gash on her left leg with a pair of scissors while at her job on the sewing line: an accident caused by her tripping as she rose from her chair to get a drink of water. It was all proper and above suspicion. The gash had been deep enough to cause hospitalization for a day or two, but not so deep as to cause any permanent damage.

  She smiled as she looked around the darkened hospital ward listening to the sounds of sleep, the snoring and the deep breathing. The others had been asleep for hours, but she had no trouble in keeping awake. The thoughts of being on the other side of the fence gave her all the strength she needed to keep her eyes open and her wits about her. Beneath the sheet and light blanket she had been flexing the muscles of her injured leg for hours so they wouldn’t tighten or become stiff. A stiff leg was one thing she could do without later. There had been some pain in the beginning, but the doctor gave her a shot which killed that immediately. She had also been given a sedative which she refused. All in all she was feeling quite good. Why shouldn’t she? Very soon she would be kissing those high grey walls goodbye. There were no walls at the front entrance of the hospital. Only a locked door to which each of the nurses and the doctors had a pass key, just like the matrons. There were no guards in the hospital, only outside the front door, and even then they wouldn’t bother anyone who came out using a key; at least they wouldn’t check very closely. But she also knew her movements had to be swift and sure. She wouldn’t get a second chance.

  The chance came during the ward nurse’s ten-thirty rounds. The nurse was the one Lila had hoped for. Her name was Mary and she was about the same size as Lila. She flashed her light into each of the sleeping faces until finally the light fell on Lila’s open eyes and bright smile. “Hello,” she said.

  “Still awake?” whispered the nurse, then looked at Lila’s chart on the foot of the bed. “The doctor says here you can have a sleeping pill if you want.”

  “No thank you. I don’t like taking pills.” Lila assumed her best behavior and tones. “I only woke up when you came in,” she lied.

  “Alright. It’s always better if you don’t have to take sleeping pills.”

  “Sure, Nurse Mary. But I do gotta take a crap.” She took her hands from behind her head and sat up.

  Nurse Mary was disgusted at the sound of the word even though it was part of the daily expressions, as much in use as the word coffee. “I’ll get you a bedpan. Please don’t curse.”

  “Holy God in Heaven! Did you ever try to take a crap in one of them things?” She felt she had played it pretty smart. “There, is that better.” Then she assumed her sweet-as-sugar voice again.

  “I can walk to the shed house, with a little of your arm to help me.”

  Again the nurse looked to the chart.

  “You ain’t gonna find nothin’ on that chart that says I can or can’t take a crap.”

  The nurse sighed and moved to the side of the bed. She tossed the blanket and the sheet back and helped Lila to put her legs over the side. “Now be very careful, we don’t want that leg opening up again.”

  “Neither do I sister,” and Lila was smiling inwardly at her own private thoughts.

  “Your slippers are just below your feet,” indicated the nurse.

  “See. They even got slippers for me. That proves they don’t care if I walk to the toilet or not. Who in hell can take a crap in a bedpan anyway?”

  Nurse Mary finally laughed softly. “I’m afraid I must agree with you Lila. And yes, I have attempted to use a bedpan.”

  “Pretty crappy, ain’t it? You know, somebody come up with a new kinda’ model, I bet they could make a million dollars on it.”

  “Why don’t you work on that in your spare time?”

  “I don’t have any spare time.” Her eyes narrowed. “The judge gave me hard labor. You should read the record.”

  Lila slipped into her slippers and put her arm around the nurse’s shoulder. She feigned more of a limp than she actually felt so that the nurse’s attention would be completely undivided. “Are we going slow enough?” she asked helpfully.

  “Sure! Sure, fine . . .”

  The bathroom door had no more than barely closed behind them when Lila’s free hand came up with all her might. It caught Nurse Mary smack in the throat. She gasped suddenly for air, her hands clawing at her throat, and at the same time Lila threw her doubled up right fist into the girl’s stomach. Nurse Mary sunk to the floor without another sound. But even though unconscious, her mouth opened and closed rapidly as she fought for air.

  Moments later Lila had dressed in the nurse’s uniform, cap, slip and shoes. She had used the brassiere to tie the girl’s hands behind her back. One end of a nylon stocking tied her feet while the other end was fastened to the water pipes high over their heads. Nurse Mary hung naked, upsid
e down, like a slaughtered pig. The girl’s panties were stuffed into her mouth and secured there by the second nylon stocking. All Lila’s preparations, however, had been little more than a waste of time. Nurse Mary silently choked to death even before she had been strung upside down.

  Lila looked back approvingly to her silent victim, then assumed the poise and walk she had studied of Nurse Mary, which she affected as she walked through the corridors until she found a room marked “NURSES’ ROOM”. Cautiously she opened the door and looked inside. There was no one present. Her eyes quickly searched the semi-darkness of the room and fell quickly upon a long, blue nurse’s cape. Lila quickly threw it about her shoulders, affixed the neck clasp, and after a fast search of the pocket her hand came up with a key ring holding three keys. One was obviously a car ignition key and the other two she judged to be a house key and the hospital pass key.

  She didn’t wait any longer. She didn’t rush off half-cocked, but she wasted no time in making her way along the hall and to the locked front door which was just beyond an unmanned admittance desk. Her first try with one of the keys was all she needed. The door swung open and Lila was on the outside of the high grey walls of the prison.

  As Lila had predicted, there was a guard, but again all the luck was on her side. The guard, in need of a cigarette, was some distance away, in a darker part of the forecourt under a tree, sneaking his smoke. She saw his silhouette turn to her and call out, “Nurse Mary?” And from his questioning tone Lila knew he couldn’t make out her features, so she lifted her arm and gave a lengthy wave. That seemed to do the trick, because he remained where he was. Later, when it was discovered she had escaped, the guard would have much explaining to do. “Screw the screw,” she said under her breath, then made her way through the almost deserted parking lot.

  Even at that there were four cars on the hospital parking lot and certainly the guard would be watching her. How much she wished she had a gun at that moment! She couldn’t go from car to car trying the ignition key she had. If she selected the wrong car the guard would be onto her as fast as she could blink an eye. Logic had to play a big part in her first decision. Her mind whirled. What kind of a car would a bitch like Nurse Mary drive? She was young. Probably had men around her. She was single. She dyed her hair a deep red. And that was the clue. The red convertible parked nearest to her was the best bet.

  The key slipped into the ignition easily and the motor purred softly. It was not a new car, but the motor had been kept in fine repair. So it was that moments later Lila sped along the state highway in the general direction of Almanac, her mind set on vengeance. But the vengeance did not fog her mind into stupidity. She knew she could not retain the nurse’s uniform or the car for very long. She would have to get rid of it. Even if another nurse or an orderly didn’t enter the toilet area before morning, it was certain one of the inmates would be getting up to relieve themselves. The nurses and the orderlies could be timed, but not so the untimeable movements of bowels or kidneys.

  Lila covered fifteen miles in as many minutes. She slowed as she drove through the main street of a small village: little more than a general store, gas station, a greasy spoon café and a beer joint. A wide place in the road found all over the country, generally designed as post office stations for ranches spread out in the rural districts. The village was darkened except for the beer joint at the far end.

  This was as good as any, she figured, as she drove the car off the road and parked it behind the general store. Deftly she moved to the rickety rear door which was padlocked with a rusted hasp-type lock. She smiled broadly as she gave the lock a swift yank. The old lock came free in her hand.

  Moments later she came out of the store dressed in a white blouse, cardigan sweater and skirt. She had taken low-heeled shoes in preference to high-heeled ones for two reasons. First because it had been months since she had worn heels and second, she might have some fast moving to do very soon.

  Once more Lila got in behind the wheel and drove back to the main highway and gave it the gun. The village was soon left far behind her, and she knew that soon the car would also have to be left far behind. But for the time being she kept her foot to the floor and the car zoomed over the state highway.

  Miles more along the highway a set of motel advertising signs caught her attention. And when she came in sight of it, she found it to be dark, except for a small lighted sign which spelled out “OFFICE” and “VACANCY”. She pulled into the driveway and on past the office to a cabin far in the rear. She waited a long time in the car, looking back to the office, but the slight noise of her approaching car did not phase the manager. She got out of the car and threw the key ring far out into the desert, then made her way around the back of a second row of cabins to the road and started walking in the direction she had been previously driving.

  Two miles of walking took a heavy toll on her feet, even with low-heeled shoes. But if she had to, she’d walk fifty blisters on her feet. She was going to reach Almanac and even things out good. Her eyes remained on the road as far ahead as she could see due to an ever present danger of rattlesnakes and sidewinders which left the desert and slithered across the pavements at night. She hadn’t gone that far to be stopped by any viper.

  Then suddenly the distant sound of an automobile came through on the desert breeze. She stopped and turned to look back along the road, and indeed there was a car coming toward her from the distance. She was reasonably sure it was not a police car, simply because of the noise it made. And she also felt reasonably sure it would stop for her. Who would be so unkind as to leave a lone girl out in the middle of the desert in the black of night? She also knew whoever stopped for anyone at night in the middle of the desert had to be out of their mind. Didn’t radio and television announcements always warn against such episodes? Lila hoped whoever was speeding toward her would be just such a sucker.

  The man WAS just such a sucker. His name was—“Jan Calmper at your service little lady,” he said, then added, “Hop in!” The man who stopped in the blue convertible was slight of build and had more hair under his nose as a moustache and on his chin as a goatee than he had on his head. He was perhaps thirty and wore a flashy sports jacket over a dark shirt which was open at the collar.

  “Thanks,” Lila said and got into the car before he could think about changing his mind. She settled herself back in the seat and the man put the car into motion.

  He was silent only a moment. “Who’d leave a pretty little thing like you way out here in the middle of the desert with the jack-rabbits and the rattlesnakes?” He laughed. “Sure couldn’t of been no gentleman.”

  “He left me back up there at the motel.” she lied. “I didn’t go for his kinda’ jazz.”

  “One of them, huh?” His eyes dropped to the road.

  Lila had been around a long time. She knew from the minute she got into the car this guy had planned a pitch as soon as he saw her. But if she let him think she couldn’t be made, all of a sudden he wouldn’t be going in her direction. “Some like it one way. Some like it another. I didn’t like it another . . .”

  The man’s face brightened. “A weirdo, huh?”

  She nodded her head, but was quick to add for his benefit. “Now I ain’t no blue nose, mind you. I been up the road before. But no son of a bitch is gonna make me do things like that to him.”

  Jan Calmper got a sudden twinge between his legs. He suddenly felt he wanted to know. “Like—like what did he want?”

  “I don’t want to talk about it.”

  He wet his lips with his tongue. “Did—did he put his hands on you?”

  “Don’t they all?”

  “And—took down your panties?”

  “Yeah—sure—he jazzed me if you must know. But that ain’t what made me take off . . .”

  Jan Clamper was almost panting. “Oh?”

  “It’s the way he wanted to get cleaned up . . .” Lila then felt she had gone far enough with her story.

  “You going far?” The
sex urge in the man was not going to subside easily.

  “Could be.”

  “North?—South?—East?—West?”

  “Yeah,” she said simply.

  “No place in particular, huh?”

  “Where are you heading?”

  “South West . . .”

  “That’s good enough for me.”

  “You’re a beautiful girl. I wonder just what is good enough for you. I can’t see where anybody would be stupid enough to give you a bad time.”

  “You tell me . . .”

  “Why?”

  “Maybe I’m interested.”

  He put his right arm out and around her shoulders. He lightly pulled at her, but Lila was ready for the move and slid in close to him. His right hand draped over her shoulder and dropped down to cup her right breast. “Not in the car two minutes and already the guy makes with the passes,” she said lightly, and he laughed. But inside Lila was thinking what a silly amateur she had.

  “I don’t see you pushing my hand away,” he said as if he had accomplished the impossible. His charm was irresistible, so he thought. He pulled the car off to the side of the road and stopped. Lila felt she must not give in to easily. She slid away from him. “Playing hard to get?”

  “Plenty. To strangers.”

  “We wouldn’t be strangers if we became better acquainted.”

  “You shoulda’ quit when you was ahead.”

  “When was that?”

  “When you had my tit in your hand.”