I'll Get You For This

  I decided it'd be interesting to have a session with her, providing two strong men were outside the door to rescue me if the going got too tough, and if she left me enough strength to scream for help.

  The Basque was a turn on his own. He was tall and broad and unpleasantly strong looking, and as lithe as a jungle cat and twice as dangerous. His brown, lean face was coldly savage, and there was a chilled expression in his eyes that didn't make you feel you wanted to slap him on the back.

  Miss Spence handed over the keys to the hall porter as if he was the invisible man, and then strolled across the lobby, with Gomez tailing her.

  As she walked, she managed to make her hips quiver, and all the men in the lobby, including me, peeped at them.

  Half way across, she paused to ask her boy friend for a cigarette. He was lighting it for her when a loudspeaker extension crackled into life.

  "Paradise Palms Police Department," said a tinny voice. The loudspeaker hummed slowly, then spluttered to sound: "Repeat as of nine fifteen on Herrick killing. Wanted: Chester Cain. Description: six foot one—a hundred and ninety pounds —about thirty-five—dark hair—sallow complexion—wearing grey suit, grey soft hat. Probably trying to get out of town . . . don't take any chances—he's dangerous. Anyone recognizing the wanted man should report at once by telephone to the Police Department. No attempt should be made to apprehend this man unless you are armed. That is all."

  Miss Spence threw down her cigarette and stamped on it.

  "Haven't they caught that bastard yet?" she demanded angrily.

5

  Jai alai is the fastest and toughest sport in the world. It is played with a cesta or basket, strapped to the player's right hand. The curved, three-foot basket has a maximum depth of five inches. A player can wear out three or four baskets during a contest. The hard, rubber-cored ball or pelota, slightly smaller than a baseball, is covered with goatskin.

  The ball is driven with such speed that it sometimes breaks a leg or arm. The playing court or cachet is spacious, its green walls rising to the high-netted skylight of the auditorium. Where the concrete of the cacha floor ends in the red foul line and meets the wooden floor of the auditorium, there is a vertical wire screen which protects the tiers of customers.

  The server drops the ball, catches it on the rebound, and hurls it with a terrific forehand stroke against the wall. The opposing player has to intercept the ball with his basket and keep it in play. The players move like lightning, their cesta-lengthened hands reaching out miraculously to intercept and return bullet-like rallies of the ball. The pelota continues in play until it falls in illegal territory, or a contestant fails to make good a return.

  There are few ball games calling for greater strength, endurance and skill, and it is said most jai alai players die young. If they're not sooner or later severely injured by the ball, their hearts give out.

  I had followed Miss Spence and her boy friend in their Cadillac sedan to a large coral-tinted stucco building, which turned out to be the jai alai headquarters. I had watched Miss Spence leave her boy friend at the player's gate and enter the auditorium. I had tagged along behind her.

  Now I was sitting beside her on a plush seat in the front row of the first of the tiers behind the wire screen, looking down into the floodlit cacha.

  Four energetic young Spaniards were dashing about the floor slamming the almost invisible ball back and forth, and performing acrobatic miracles. The crowd seemed to be getting a big bang out of them, but I was more interested in Miss Spence.

  She had spread out on the flat plush top of the balcony wall a program, a pair of binoculars, her hand-bag, a carton of cigarettes and her orange scarf. The heady perfume of No. 5 Chanel brooded over her nick-nacks, herself, and of course, me.

  Sitting so close to her—the seats were cut on economical lines—I could feel a subtle warmth from her body, and her perfume had a distinct effect on me. I wondered vaguely what she would do if I enfolded her in a Charles Boyer embrace.

  The four Spaniards finished their game and walked off the court to a scattering of applause. They looked jaded and hot. If I'd been in their place I would have been carried off on a stretcher, with a dewy-eyed nurse in attendance packing ice around my temples.

  There was an interval, and Miss Spence looked around the auditorium as if she expected the rest of the audience to stand up and sing the National Anthem at the sight of her. They didn't.

  She looked to her right, and then to her left. As I was on her left, she looked at me. I gave her a sad, coy leer, and hoped it would unhook the disdainful expression on her face. It didn't exactly do that, but it registered enough for her to study me.