Read 1965 - The Way the Cookie Crumbles for Free Online Page B

old lecher, against whom she had to lock her bedroom door.
    One evening, some four months ago, a smiling dwarf had been waiting outside her tenement block in a red Mini Cooper. Ira was returning from the Public Baths where she had spent a luxurious hour soaking her beautiful little body in hot water, washing her hair and generally preparing herself for the jive session she always attended on a Sunday night.
    At the sight of her, the dwarf slid out of the car and planted himself in front of her. He was wearing a brown sports jacket with patch pockets, grey flannel slacks and a brown baseball cap worn at a jaunty angle over his right eye.
    ‘If you’re Ira Marsh,’ he said, his smile bright, his eyes watchful, ‘I want to talk to you.’
    She stared down at the little man, frowning.
    ‘Out of my way, Tom Thumb,’ she said sharply. ‘I’m fussy who I talk to.’
    Edris giggled.
    ‘It’s about your sister Muriel. Don’t be snooty, baby. Muriel is a special pal of mine.’
    Already the women sitting on the iron balconies of the tenement block were staring down at these two. The kids had stopped playing their street games and were converging on them, hooting and pointing at Edris.
    Ira swiftly made up her mind. She knew her sister only by name. She found herself suddenly curious to know more about her. She stepped to the car and slid into the passenger’s seat. Edris trotted around to the driver’s seat and drove down the street, followed by a screaming bunch of kids who were quickly left behind.
    ‘My name’s Ticky Edris,’ he said as he drove. ‘I’m putting together a little job that could make you and me some money.’
    ‘Why me?’ Ira said. ‘You know nothing about me. Why me?’
    ‘There’s nothing I don’t know about you,’ Edris returned. He slowed by a vacant building lot and pulled up.
    A month ago in one of her blue moods, Muriel had mentioned her youngest sister. ‘I’ve never even seen her! If I hadn’t run into one of the old crowd living near my home, I wouldn’t have known she was born. Think of it! A sister as old as my daughter, and I’ve never even seen her!’
    It was this random remark that had given Edris the key to a problem he had thought up to now insoluble. He had got in touch with an Inquiry Agency in New York and had instructed them to find out everything that was to be found out about a seventeen-year old girl named Ira Marsh. For two hundred dollars, the Agency came up with a five-page report that had given Edris the information he needed and the firm conviction that with this girl, handled right, his problem was practically solved.
    From a number of less important details, he learned from the report that Ira Marsh was a wild one. She had a J.D. rating with the local police, but had been smart enough never to have come up before a judge. She was known as an expert shoplifter and store detectives never let her out of their sight when they saw her come in. She was associated with the Moccasin gang, a leading mob of teenage terrorists who were continually clashing with the police and rival gangs in the district. The leader of the Moccasins was Jess Farr, an eighteen-year old thug who had hacked, coshed and cut his way to his present indisputable position. Six months ago, the report stated, Farr had been going round regularly with a girl named Leya Felcher. She was the same age as Farr, a tough, handsome virago who had imagined her position as Farr’s mistress was unassailable. Ira had decided she wanted Farr and she wanted Leya’s position. In a crowded cellar under a warehouse, watched by the male members of the gang with Farr as the prize, the two girls, stripped to the waist, fought nail-tooth-and-fist in the longest and bloodiest battle the Moccasins had ever seen.
    Ira had known that she would have to fight for Farr and she had taken the precaution of training for the battle. For three weeks, she had lived like a Spartan and had paid regular visits to Mulligan’s Gym