Manhunt. Volume 5, Number 5, May 1957

And then suddenly I found her staring right back at me without moving. It made me feel uncomfortable. I lowered my eyes and shifted in the chair.

She moved then. Shrugging into her coat, she walked toward the front door of the library. For a moment I sat mesmerized, then I started after her, leaving the book I had been reading open on the table. Outside the front door of the library, I put on my heavy jacket and stood on the top step watching her. She was crossing the street in front of me. I went down to the sidewalk. She opened the door of a blue convertible parked at the curb on the opposite side of the street and slid under the steering wheel. I caught a flash of nyloned legs before the door closed. And then, without looking my way, she was gone in a surge of power.

I was suddenly a different guy. I wasn’t teaching physical education to a bunch of kids at a small midwest college. I didn’t have a wife named Anne. And I didn’t have a nice, warm, little apartment two blocks off the campus.

And all because that girl was burned in my mind. I couldn’t stop thinking about her.

After my final class Friday afternoon, I went straight from the gymnasium to the library. But the girl wasn’t there. Nervous and sweating, I hung around for over an hour, waiting.

The girl didn’t show. My disappointment was so bitter I walked downtown to Joe’s to drown it. An icy wind seeped right through my coat and crept into my bones, and the first snow of the season was coming down. It was a lousy day. Gray, cold, snowing, and no girl. I had to get the girl out of my system, but I didn’t know how. I had another beer. Drinking didn’t help. I walked out of Joe’s at ten minutes after nine.

I saw the convertible as I hit the street. It was parked at the curb right in front of me. There was a shadow slumped behind the steering wheel and I saw a red cigarette glow in the dark. Then the shadow moved and the car door in front of me opened.

“Get in, Matt,” the soft voice of the girl said.

I got in without saying anything. It was a neat car, new, with safety belts and all the trimmings. The girl dropped her cigarette out of the wing window, kicked over the motor of the convertible and pulled away from the curb into the line of traffic. At the first stop light she said, “I’ve been waiting over an hour.”

“How did you know I was at Joe’s?”

She laughed softly. “I know plenty about you, Matt Lane — now. I’ve made inquiries.”

I twisted on the seat, opened my coat, and purposely put one knee against her thigh.

She didn’t even give me a glance. “My name is Edie Jackson,” she said. “My home is in New Orleans. I came up here to school because I wanted to be out on my own.”

The windshield wipers whisking the snow from the window made the only sound in the car.

I got out a cigarette and fired my lighter.

“Light two,” she said.

She didn’t ask me to light two cigarettes. She didn’t say please. She just said, “Light two.”

I lit two and gave one to her. She glanced at me then and smiled.

“Do you always get what you want?” I asked.

“Almost always. My father is a very wealthy man. And he dotes on me.”

“Other than your father?”

“Almost always.”

“Like now?”

I saw her frown. “What do you mean?” she said.

“You saw me looking at you in the library yesterday afternoon and for some reason you decided I was for you.”

She laughed softly.

“You’ve got it twisted, haven’t you, Matt?” she asked. “Turn it around. You want me.”

I didn’t say anything then. I couldn’t.

“Do I shock you, Matt? If I do, you’ll have to get used to it. I’m like that. I say what I think, and I do what I want to do.”

“I’m not sure I like you,” I said slowly.

“But you want me. And that’s what counts.”

She turned the car off of the main thoroughfare onto a sidestreet. We eased along another block, and then she turned into a driveway. I had a look at the house as the headlights swept over it. It was a small place with an attached single car garage. She drove the convertible into the garage and switched off the lights. A light in the back seat popped on when she opened her door.

I reached out suddenly and grabbed her wrist. She had one long leg out of the car. Twisting in the seat, she looked at me and I saw her tiny mocking smile.

“You’re taking a lot for granted, aren’t you, Miss Jackson?”

“Am I?”

We sat there a long time without moving, measuring each other with our eyes. And then she said, “I live here Matt — alone. Your wife is out of town. Now, do you want to come in for a drink?”

“How old are you?”

“Eighteen.”

“You’re jailbait. I’m twenty-four.”

Her face clouded and she gently twisted her arm out of my grasp. “That’s something else you should know about me, Matt. I’m a woman. I’m eighteen in years, but I’m twice that age otherwise. I’ve had men, plenty of men. Not boys still wet behind the ears, Matt. I hate fumbling, sniveling boys. When I want somebody, he is a man!”

She got out of the car then and stood beside the open door, looking in at me. “Coming?”