Sidney Sheldon - The Naked Face

Judge Murphy looked at Carol, then at the sheet of paper in front of him.

“ ‘Carol Roberts. Soliciting on the streets, vagrancy, possession of marijuana, and resisting arrest.’”

The last was a lot of shit. The policeman had shoved her and she had kicked him in the balls. After all, she was an American citizen.

“You were in here a few weeks ago, weren’t you, Carol?” She made her voice sound uncertain. “I believe I was, Your Honor.”

“And I gave you probation.”

“Yes, sir.”

“How old are you?”

She should have known they would ask. “Sixteen. Today’s my sixteenth birthday. Happy birthday to me,” she said. And she burst into tears, huge sobs that wracked her body.

The tall, quiet man had been standing at a table at the side gathering up some papers and putting them in a leather attaché case. As Carol stood there sobbing, he looked up and watched her for a moment. Then he spoke to Judge Murphy.

The judge called a recess and the two men disappeared into the judge’s chambers. Fifteen minutes later, the bailiff escorted Carol into the judge’s chambers, where the quiet man was earnestly talking to the judge.

“You’re a lucky girl, Carol,” Judge Murphy said. “You’re going to get another chance. The Court is remanding you to the personal custody of Dr. Stevens.”

So the tall mother wasn’t a mouthpiece—he was a quack. She wouldn’t have cared if he was Jack the Ripper. All she wanted was to get out of that stinking courtroom before they found out it wasn’t her birthday.

The doctor drove her to his apartment, making small talk that did not require any answers, giving Carol a chance to pull herself together and think things out. He stopped the car in front of a modern apartment building on Seventy-first Street overlooking the East River. The building had a doorman and an elevator operator, and from the calm way they greeted him, you would think he came home every morning at three A.M. with a sixteen-year-old black hooker.

Carol had never seen an apartment like the doctor’s. The living room was done in white with two long, low couches covered in oatmeal tweed. Between the couches was an enormous square coffee table with a thick glass top. On it was a large chessboard with carved Venetian figures. Modern paintings hung on the wall. In the foyer was a closed-circuit television monitor that showed the entrance to the lobby. In one corner of the living room was a smoked glass bar with shelves of crystal glasses and decanters. Looking out the window, Carol could see tiny boats, far below, tossing their way along the East River.

“Courts always make me hungry,” Judd said. “Why don’t I whip up a little birthday supper?” And he took her into the kitchen where she watched him skillfully put together a Mexican omelette, French-fried potatoes, toasted English muffins, a salad, and coffee. “That’s one of the advantages of being a bachelor,” he said. “I can cook when I feel like it.”

So he was a bachelor without any home pussy. If she played her cards right, this could turn out to be a bonanza. When she had finished devouring the meal, he had taken her into the guest bedroom. The bedroom was done in blue, dominated by a large double bed with a blue checked bedspread. There was a low Spanish dresser of dark wood with brass fittings.

“You can spend the night here,” he said. “I’ll rustle up a pair of pajamas for you.”

As Carol looked around the tastefully decorated room she thought, Carol, baby! You’ve hit the jackpot! This mother’s looking for a piece of jailbait black ass. And you’re the baby who is gonna give it to him.

She undressed and spent the next half hour in the shower. When she came out, a towel wrapped around her shining, voluptuous body, she saw that the motherfucking ofay had placed a pair of his pajamas on the bed. She laughed knowingly and left them there. She threw the towel down and strolled into the living room. He was not there. She looked through the door leading into a den. He was sitting at a large, comfortable desk with an old-fashioned desk lamp hanging over it. The den was crammed with books from floor to ceiling. She walked up behind him and kissed him on the neck. “Let’s get started, baby,” she whispered. “You got me so horny I can’t stand it.” She pressed closer to him. “What are we waitin’ for, big daddy? If you don’t ball me quick, I’ll go out of my cotton-pickin’ mind.”

He regarded her for a second with thoughtful dark gray eyes. “Haven’t you got enough trouble?” he asked mildly. “You can’t help being born a Negro, but who told you you had to be a black dropout pot-smoking sixteen-year-old whore?”

She stared at him, baffled, wondering what she had said wrong. Maybe he had to get himself worked up and whip her first to get his kicks. Or maybe it was the Reverend Davidson bit. He was going to pray over her black ass, reform her, and then lay her. She tried again. She reached between his legs and stroked him, whispering, “Go, baby. Sock it to me.”

He gently disengaged himself and sat her in an armchair. She had never been so puzzled. He didn’t look like a fag, but these days you never knew. “What’s your bag, baby? Tell me how you like to freak out and I’ll give it to you.”

“All right,” he said. “Let’s rap.”

“You mean— talk?”

“That’s right.”

And they talked. All night long. It was the strangest night that Carol had ever spent. Dr. Stevens kept leaping from one subject to another, exploring, testing her. He asked her opinion about Vietnam, ghettos, and college riots. Every time Carol thought she had figured out what he was really after, he switched to another subject. They talked of things she had never heard of, and about subjects in which she considered herself the world’s greatest living expert. Months afterward she used to lie awake, trying to recall the word, the idea, the magic phrase that had changed her. She had never been able to because she finally realized there had been no magic word. What Dr. Stevens had done was simple. He had talked to her. Really talked to her. No one had ever done that before. He had treated her like a human being, an equal, whose opinions and feelings he cared about.

Somewhere during the course of the night she suddenly became aware of her nakedness and went in and put on his pajamas. He came in and sat on the edge of the bed and they talked some more. They talked about Mao Tse-tung and hula hoops and the Pill. And having a mother and father who had never been married. Carol told him things she had never told anybody in her life. Things that had been long buried deep in her subconscious. And when she had finally fallen asleep, she had felt totally empty. It was as though she had had a major operation, and a river of poison had been drained out of her.

In the morning, after breakfast, he handed her a hundred dollars.

She hesitated, then finally said, “I lied. It’s not my birthday.”

“I know.” He grinned. “But we won’t tell the judge.” His tone changed. “You can take this money and walk out of here and no one will bother you until the next time you get caught by the police.” He paused. “I need a receptionist. I think you’d be marvelous at the job.”

She looked at him unbelievingly. “You’re putting me on. I can’t take shorthand or type.”

“You could if you went back to school.”

Carol looked at him a moment and then said enthusiastically, “I never thought of that. That sounds groovy.” She couldn’t wait to get the hell out of the apartment with his hundred dollars and flash it at the boys and girls at Fishman’s Drug Store in Harlem, where the gang hung out. She could buy enough kicks with this money to last a week.