Chapter 7

She felt someone shaking her. She didn't know if she was dreaming or not and tried to push the insistent hand away. Her head throbbed with a pounding headache and her eyelids felt as if they had been coated on the inside with sand.

Then, with her eyes still closed, she tried to remember where she was. What had happened to her. She stirred beneath the covers, and the movement made her hurt all over... there was a searing pain between her thighs, and she felt as if she was covered with bruises. What had happened to her? Why did she hurt so badly?

And then the memories slowly sifted through her thoughts, cutting her like razor-edged knives. As the young girl began to regain her consciousness, the events of the night before slowly began to fall into place.

"No... no... not again... not again!..." Her scream shattered the soft sunlight and stillness in the room and caused the man at her side to jerk his arm and knock off the glass at the side of the bed.

The clatter of the glass and sound of her own scream opened her eyes, and Laura saw the man's face only inches from her own.

"No... No!... get away... please... Noooooooo!..."

"Shhhhhh... Laura, don't be frightened. I won't hurt you." The mans voice was soft and gentle, and somehow the girl could sense the sincerity.

"Laura, this is Cassis Mornay. I won't hurt you." He took her by the shoulders and held her tenderly, her wracking sobs muffled against his arm.

"Oh, it was so horrible... they raped me... Over and over..." her voice trailed away against him. It was several moments before he felt the girl's shuddering begin to die out.

"Harry, bring Laura some of that coffee. And some brandy."

The other man, the kindly bartender from the bar below, finished pulling the cords of the draperies and walked into the kitchen.

Almost an hour later, the three of them sat in the sunlit room. Laura lay propped up against a pillow in bed, and the two men sat at the coffee table by the divan in the bedroom

Laura had regained her composure and now she listened to the tall distinguished-looking man on the couch

"Laura, you don't have to talk if you don't want to. Harry has explained a lot of things to me, and I can probably guess the rest."

He got up and came over and took her by the hand. "I'm sorry that I didn't know last night. I swear I thought you had come up here because you wanted to." He paused. "I thought you were just another of the girls we sometimes use."

He refilled her coffee cup, and laced it lightly with a little more cognac. She accepted it gratefully and looked back at him, trying to comprehend what was happening.

A few moments after he'd awakened her she'd realized that she was still upstairs in his suite, but the rooms were empty of all the people who had been at the party. Then she'd seen the sunlight pouring through the open window and had known the party had ended hours earlier.

She sat there in bed, looking around at the ruinous aftermath of the orgy and then back into the kind face of the man at her side.

"Mr. Mornay, I didn't want to do anything... it was Deke Vito who made me do it." The grey-haired man felt the shudder pass through her as she mentioned the gambler's name.

"I didn't want to... he forced me... and then... Johnny?... where's Johnny?..."

"Shhhhh... Laura, don't worry about anything. I've taken care of it all. Both Johnny and Deke Vito. Here, drink your coffee and get dressed. I left a bathrobe in that bathroom for you." He handed her the cup and got up.

"Mrs. Dutton, don't you worry about a thing," Harry said from the other side of the room.

"Thank you... thank... Harry." But her voice was interrupted again by her tears.

"Go ahead, get it all out of your system. We'll be in the living room," said Mr. Mornay.

They left her, shutting the door quietly behind them. And she lay there for a few moments until the last tear had fallen. Then she rose and went into the bedroom.

Minutes later, under the stinging spray of the shower, she rubbed away the shame and the degradation and she felt as well as she could under the circumstances.

She wondered what Mr. Mornay had meant about Johnny and Deke Vito. She'd only seen Mr. Mornay once before, but when he'd come over to speak to her before the party began she had sensed the air of gentility about him, and she had been attracted by his tall handsome appearance.

It's so wonderful of him to do... to worry about me, the thought. I wonder how he found out what was happening. It must have been Harry...

She came into the living room, wrapped warmly in the robe he'd given her, and both men stood as she entered.

"Here, Laura, I've ordered Eggs Benedict for all of us and it should be up in a minute." He motioned for her to sit across from him and turned to accept a cigarette from Harry.

"Laura, I'd better tell you exactly what's happened. Most of it's due to Harry here. You can thank him, because I wouldn't have known otherwise."

"Well, Mr. Mornay, I just thought it was time someone told you what was happening in your clubs... and when that greasy bastard made his play for Mrs. Dutton, I couldn't stand it any longer."

"Harry, I don't how you knew... and I wish there was some way I could thank you. Please call me Laura, won't you?"

"Yes, Mrs. Dutton... I mean..."

"Laura, I'll start from the beginning..." But the tall man was interrupted by the sound of the chimes at the door.

"Just a second, Laura, that must be our breakfast. He rose and pushed a button by the bar and the front door opened.

They spoke very little as the waiter served the breakfast, and it wasn't until later, with the coffee, that he continued;

"It's something that most people don't know about, and shouldn't, but most of us who run casinos as large as this have to deal with some pretty unsavory characters. The only difference is that these characters have a considerable amount of money. I've always thought before that if I didn't follow the practices of the other casino owners that I'd lose too much money. What the hell, I figured if I didn't provide these guys with what they wanted they'd just go to another club.

Just one of the things they demanded were women. Beautiful girls that the house paid for and private little parties where they could have their fun to take away the sting of their losses."

He paused to refill the coffee and pour a little more brandy. "I've never had anything against prostitutes. There's certainly enough demand for them, I just didn't know where to find them. This is all long before you time, Laura, but bear with me because it'll explain a lot of what happened."

She nodded, intent on his words, and waited for him to continue. He had such a beautiful voice and as he spoke she realized that he wasn't as old as she had thought. At a first glance, he appeared older, but now she realized that it was his silver-grey hair. He spoke again, and she lifted her eyes from her coffee cup to watch him.

"As I said, I didn't know where to find the right girls, and then a friend of mine down in Las Vegas recommended Vito. I brought him up here and he seemed to be working out alright. He wasn't exactly my type of person, but I had to admit that he was able to supply what I needed." He laughed. "What the hell, I didn't really expect to get a Stanford Man to supply me with a bunch of whores.

"At any rate, because it was a business that I didn't particularly want to get mixed up in, or even know much about for that matter, I gave him full rein."

She watched him turn and pat Harry on the shoulder. It's strange, she thought, Harry's so much older but Mr. Mornay treats him like a son.

"If it hadn't have been for Harry, it might have gone on that way forever. I'm here so rarely, as you know--though that'll be changed--and I never suspected that Vito was doing more or less than I told him. It seems that he'd taken this whole disagreeable business of prostitution and made a sucker out of me.

"When I'd get back from a trip I'd ask for the cost figures on the parties, etc. and pay it without question."

He turned to Harry.

"As a matter of fact, Harry, I ought to be mad that you didn't tell me earlier, it sure had cost me a bundle." Then he laughed.

"I'm only kidding. I did some checking with the other club owners this morning and I found out the risk you took by telling me even now."

"Mr. Mornay... I..."

"Harry, why don't you and Laura start right now by calling me Cass? I know it's a silly name, but it's better than Cassis." He laughed again, and Laura thought how much different his laugh was than the others she'd heard in the past few days. Vito's, Goldman's...

"Mr... uh, Cass, I wasn't really afraid of Deke Vito, I just didn't know how you'd take it. I mean I thought that maybe you already..."

His voice dropped in confusion.

"You mean you thought that I already knew," he chuckled, "that I was part of the whole deal."

He turned to Laura, "Harry's done us all a tremendous favor, and I think he'll find that I'm able to show my appreciation. Well, let me continue, I'll try to make the whole thing a little shorter. It seems that over and above what I was paying him, Deke was raking money off the top of the figures he'd given me and giving the girls less. And, now that I've looked into it, I've found that was just one of the rackets he was running. Another was blackmailing girls like yourself, and even bigger, the squeeze he was putting on the entertainers he's booked here."

He paused to light another cigarette, and as he did Laura wanted to ask him about Johnny. The mention of entertainers had jolted her back into the memory of her husband. Poor Johnny, he's probably worried to death. Wait until he finds out all the wonderful news!

"Laura, the gist of all this is that no one in one of my clubs, or any of the other owners for that matter, will ever have to worry about Deke Vito or any of his henchmen again. I've seen to that!"

He seemed to be thinking intently for a moment before he continued, "I'm afraid I had to use a few gangster tactics myself. I didn't want to, but it was nothing I could turn over to the police, and violence seemed to be the only thing Deke Vito knew."

Cassis Mornay put his hand on her shoulder. "Laura, you've found the friend you have in Harry, but there's someone else who thinks you're awfully special." He shook his head. "This morning after talking to Harry I called Black Jack."

Both Harry's and Laura's heads lifted in surprise at the giant Negro's name.

"I asked him about what I'd been told and he confirmed it. Then he asked me what I planned to do with Vito and when I said I hadn't decided, he mentioned your name."

She looked at him, puzzled, wondering how much Black Jack would have told him.

"He asked me if I knew what Deke Vito had done to you and when I told him I wasn't sure I knew everything--for a moment he really did look like a great wild animal--then he told me Vito had been terrible to you and would I mind if he personally escorted him out of town."

He stopped for a moment. Then he got up and walked over to the bar.

He mixed them all a drink, and came back. "Deke Vito won't be doing any fancy gambling or playing with women again after Black Jack finished with him not with those hands and that face." He paused, raising his glass. "Well, enough of that. I think we should drink a toast, a two- fold toast! First, because we're rid of Deke Vito and all the troubles he caused, and secondly..." He tapped Harry on the shoulder... "to our new casino manager!"

Harry sputtered in his drink, and Laura clapped her hands in delight,

"Oh, Harry! That's wonderful!" she cried, and kissed him on the cheek.

"Mr. Mornay... you didn't have to... I mean, well, hell..." His voice was lost in the rim of his glass, and they could both see the dampness in the corners of his eyes.

"Harry, goddamn it! My executives call me Cass, is that understood?" Mornay said menacingly, with a twinkle in his eyes.