The Kill-Off Read Online Free PDF Page B

Pete.”
    He left. I finished with the washrooms, and went back to his office.
    I pulled a chair up to the air-vent, took off the grate and crawled up inside the duct. I crawled through it slowly, squirming along on my stomach, brushing all the dust and cobwebs and dead bugs in front of me. It was so hot and stuffy I could hardly breathe, and I kept sneezing and bumping my head; and I was just about one big muddy smear of sweat and dust. I crawled through all the duct, the branches and the main, and came out at the rear of the building.
    I dropped down to the roof of the blower shed. I started up the big four-horse motor, tightened the belt to the fan, and went in the back door of the men’s room.
    I looked at myself in the mirror, and, man, was I a mess! Dirt and cobwebs from head to foot. I started to turn on the water at one of the sinks, and then I stopped with my hand a couple of inches away—kind of frozen in the air. I stood that way for a few seconds, listening to the piano, to Rags, listening to her. Then I turned toward the door, picking up my broom sort of automatically, and went out into the ballroom.
    It was pretty shadowed in there, and there was just the swivel-necked light on over the piano. So, for a second, I thought it was Janie up there singing. Then I started across the floor, and pretty soon I saw it was another girl. She had the same kind of voice as Janie, and the same kind of candy-colored hair. But she was quite a bit bigger. I don’t mean she was any taller or that she probably weighed any more, but still she was bigger. In certain places, you know. You could see that she was without even half-way studying the matter. Because it was still pretty warm there in the ballroom, and Rags was stripped to the waist. And all she had on was a bra and a little skimpy pair of shorts.
    I thought she was a mighty good singer, but I knew Rags wasn’t pleased with her. I knew because he was putting her through Stardust, having her rehearse it when he’d always told me that no singer needed to. “That’s one they can’t bitch up, see?” he’d told me. “They can do it with all the others. But Stardust, huh-uh.”
    He brought his hands down on the keys suddenly. With just a big crash. She stopped singing and turned toward him, her face hard and sullen-looking.
    “All right,” Rags said. “You win, baby. I’ll send for Liberace. Me, I’m too old to run races.”
    “I’m sorry,” she mumbled, not looking a darned bit sorry.
    “Never mind that sorry stuff,” he said. “Your name’s Lee, ain’t it? Danny Lee, ain’t it?”
    “You know what it is,” she said.
    “I’m asking you,” he said. “It’s not Carmichael or Porter or Mercer, is it? This ain’t your music, is it? You’ve got no right to bitch it up, have you? You’re goddamned right, you haven’t! It’s theirs—they made it, and the way they made it is the way it should be. So cut out the embroidery. Cut out that bar-ahead stuff. Just get with it, and stay with it!”
    He picked up his cigarette from the piano, and tucked it into the corner of his mouth. He brought his hands down on the keys. He seemed to kind of stroke them—the keys, I mean. But yet there was no running together. Every note came through, clear and firm, soft but sharp. So smooth and easy and sweet.
    Danny Lee took a deep breath. She held it, the bra swelled full and tight. She was nodding her head with the music, tapping one toe. Listening, and then opening her mouth and letting her breath out in the Stardust words. Soft-husky. Pushing them out from down deep inside. Letting them float out with that husky softness, still warm and sweet from the place they’d been.
    I looked at Rags. His eyes were closed, and there was a smile on his lips. I looked back at the girl, and I kind of frowned.
    She didn’t hardly have to move at all, to look like she was moving a lot. And she was moving a lot now. And if there was one thing that burned Rags McGuire up, it was