The Cesspool

“I suppose not,” I said dubiously.

The thought of a free evening at the Silk and Satin was attractive, and if it was that important to Harlan, I didn’t see any reason I shouldn’t go along.

“It’s all right with me if you want to spend your money,” I told him. “But we’re not having any of this vicarious stuff afterward.”

“No, no,” he assured me. “All I want is to see what she looks like.”

Pulling out his wallet, he counted out a hundred dollars. I knew he didn’t ordinarily carry that much with him, which led me to believe the idea hadn’t been a spur-of-the-moment one, but that he’d come prepared to buy my co-operation.

My evening at the Silk and Satin was much the same as the first, except that I got around to Sally later than I had before. I timed things to take her upstairs about eleven, so that I’d be the last customer she saw. Afterward I lingered in the main lounge until she and several other girls came down dressed in street clothes.

As they all started for the front door, I fell in at Sally’s side.

“I told you I don’t let anyone see me home,” she said quickly.

“I wasn’t planning to,” I told her. “I just happen to be leaving too. I’ll walk you to the corner.”

She didn’t object to that, and we went out together. I held back a little, holding the door open for the other girls so that they could reach the street and disperse before Sally and I went down the steps.

As we reached the sidewalk, I glanced around in an attempt to locate Harlan. I wouldn’t have spotted him if I hadn’t been looking for him, for he stood in the shadow of a doorway across the street. I couldn’t make out his face, but by his size and the glint of his glasses, I knew it was Harlan.

I also knew he was able to get a good look at Sally, because there was a street light immediately in front of the house.

Sally permitted me to walk her as far as the nearest corner, then stopped and said in a firm voice, “Good-night, Pete.”

I grinned at her, tipped my hat and said, “Night, Sally.”

I watched the movement of her hips as she walked away, then turned and went back to speak to Harlan. But he hadn’t waited. The doorway was empty when I got there.

That was the last time I ever saw Harlan Johnson. My next news of him came from a report on the police blotter.

I didn’t expect to see him at the Men’s Bar on Thursday, as that was his regular night off. Friday George and I wondered where he was, but it didn’t occur to us anything might be wrong. Saturday, during my routine check of the police blotter, I ran across a missing report on a Mrs. Janet Johnson. The report had been filed by her husband, Harlan Johnson.

I tried to phone Harlan at the movie house, but a woman there told me he had started his vacation a few days earlier than planned because he was so upset over his wife’s disappearance. Looking up his home number in the book, I tried there, but got no answer.

Two days later the real story broke. Janet Johnson’s body was found floating in the Hudson River. I didn’t get the story assignment because the news broke at nine A.M., and one of the boys on the day trick took it.

But I followed the story. An autopsy disclosed that she’d been raped and then strangled, presumably while on her way home from a neighborhood movie she was believed to have attended the night she disappeared.

The killer was never apprehended. Dozens of suspects were picked up and grilled, most of them known sex offenders, but the police couldn’t pin the crime on anyone. Eventually, the story simply died and was forgotten.

George and I discussed whether or not we ought to attend the funeral, but since neither of us had ever met Janet, we finally settled on sending, a large spray in both our names.

Harlan Johnson never returned to his job at the theater. I phoned it again two weeks after the funeral and was informed he’d taken a job managing a theater in a small town upstate.

It was another six months before I saved up enough money to revisit the Silk and Satin. It was to be my last visit, because the place wasn’t the same. Sally was gone.

According to the redheaded Sara, Sally hadn’t even given any notice. She’d just walked out after work on the night of June third, and never showed up again.

It so happened that that was the night I walked her to the corner, so that Harlan Johnson could get a look at her.