Jail Bait

Jane got to her office at nine. She worked as one of the secretaries in the claims department of an insurance company. Mr. Stoller, her boss, arrived at five after. He gave her his usual grave good morning.

She was hard at work on the bi-monthly summary when the phone rang. It was Howard.

“Oh, hi,” she said.

“Jane, did you see the headline in the paper? GIRL SPOTS KILLER. You know what it sounds like? It sounds as though you could give a positive identification. There’s a pretty good chance there’s a man in this town who would dearly love to see you as dead as Fredmans!”

“No!” she whispered, realizing in horror that it was true.

“I don’t know how you go about getting anybody put in protective custody, but I’m going to try. In the meantime, use every precaution, hear? Don’t go to lunch. That guy, if he can read, knows where you work. Wait for me tonight inside the building. I’ll be around as soon as I can make it.”

“I can get home.”

“You do as I tell you!”

“Now you’re roaring at me!” she said icily and banged the phone down. As soon as she did, it rang again. This time it was a long-distance call from a magazine. The editor said he wanted to send a staff writer and photographer to write up her experience with the murderer — and he wondered if she had any objection to being photographed in a bathing suit. She told him she wasn’t interested. Another man phoned and said he owned a place west of the city and he wanted to know if she could sing. She hung up on him. A woman called and said they were equipped to make a professional screen test of her at a nominal cost. A young man phoned and asked for a date. Jane phoned the switchboard and told them to please tell everyone that she had taken the rest of the day off.

After that she finished the report without difficulty, eating lunch at her desk.

At thirty seconds before five she swept her desk clear, centered the roller on the typewriter, thumped it down into its well, snatched her purse, and, at the stroke of five, put her hand on the doorknob and said good night to Mr. Stoller.

The elevators were crowded going down. When she got down to the lobby floor she looked anxiously around for Howard, but could not see him. She moved over into a far corner beyond the directory board and stood with her back against glossy, artificial marble and watched the elevators emptying the building. She looked so long and so anxiously for Howard that she kept imagining she could see him as he came sideways through the people hurrying in the opposite direction.

At five-thirty there was a less determined flurry of exits. Jane began to bite her lip. She began to feel conspicuous.

The October dusk came quickly. The lobby seemed bigger than before, gloomier. Jane was glad of the presence of the girl operator. There was a buzz and the girl pulled the doors shut and worked the lever that sent her upward. Jane hunched her shoulders, purse tucked under her arm, elbows in the palms of her hands. She shivered. Car headlights went by in the street. It was the time of day when traffic thinned.

A stocky figure appeared outside the glass doors, silhouetted by the street lights. Jane dropped her purse. It made a great crashing sound in the marble stillness. The figure shoved the door open and came in and it became a strong-looking old woman who turned and waited for a companion. Cleaning women, Jane guessed. She picked up her purse.

The women went through a heavy door that, said “Fire Exit.” Once they were gone, Jane hauled the door open cautiously. It was far too dark and creepy in there. Dim lights on the landings. Concrete stairs with metal treads. She let the door swing shut.

The elevator came down and a portly gentleman glanced at Jane and walked toward the night. The glass door swung shut behind him. The elevator operator looked at Jane.

“Face it, honey. You been stood up,” she said.

“I guess I have,” Jane said. “Do you know where I could phone?”

“Right down on the corner, honey, in the drugstore.”

“I mean, inside the building.”

“Get in, honey. There’s a phone in that crummy little dressing room they give us girls.”

The girl ran her up to the second floor. “Go all the way down there just as far as you can go and it’s the last door.”

Jane came to the door at the end of the hall and opened it. She found the light switch and turned it on — and let out her pent-up breath. Two sides of the windowless room were lined with gray steel lockers. The rest of the space was used for plumbing. The phone was on the right, with numbers scrawled on the wall on all sides of it — hundreds of numbers and comments. The dreary phone book hung in dejected tatters. The room seemed haunted by broken slip straps, worn girdles, and cheap perfume.

She phoned the cab company that advertised radio cabs, remembering that it was supposed to be safer because the driver could always call in case of trouble and his dispatcher could call the police. She gave the address and a voice told her the cab would be right along.