The Empty Trap by John D. MacDonald

public figure, and I hadn’t talked. Windsalla approved on both counts. It was a fat year until they moved in on him and returned him to Mother Italia. He wanted me to come with him. Not Sylvia. The parting gift lasted two months. Next the mink. Then the jewelry started going. Through connections I got into some clubs, but I couldn’t last. Two weeks ago I was singing in a very sour little club in the east fifties, holding my own only because I had some very blue material. I was billed as the ex-darling of mobland. And I felt very ex indeed. Harry saw the billing and came in. We’ve known each other for years. Afterwards I went to his hotel. We both got off on a crying jag. Old times and old faces. It seemed a very solemn and wonderful idea to get married. By morning he still meant it. At the end of the waiting period, he still meant it. So here is Sylvia, back in the big feather bed after a cold bad time.”
    “A hard gal, through and through.”
    “Right down to bed rock, Lloyd. I’ve got a heart like a stone.”
    “Poor defeated woman. My addition says you’re allof twenty-six. Close to the end of your life. Slippers and rocking chair for you, Sylvia.”
    “Do tell me the exciting story of your life?”
    “Do you go for drama, conflict, tension?”
    “Oh, very much!”
    “Here it is. I was born twenty-nine years ago, the younger of two boys, in Royalsville, a thriving city of six thousand in eastern Ohio, near Youngstown. I attended the public schools there, starring in basketball, track and baseball. My father was a druggist. At the time of his retirement he owned three stores. My parents now live in Bradenton, Florida, in what is advertised as the largest trailer court in the world. My brother is married and has four children and operates a mill and lumber yard in Portland, Oregon. I attended a famed school of hotel administration, and was kept out of a couple of wars because of some healed spots on my right lung from a touch of tuberculosis I never knew I had. Upon graduation I worked for a large hotel chain, then got out to become an assistant manager of an independent. I’m a pretty good hotel man, and I’ve had breaks. I’m damn young for this job, and damn well paid. I save money. I exercise regularly. All my vices are moderate. My relatives all think I am in a wacky profession and they keep hinting I ought to get married. I came close once, but she was all the time smelling of spearmint, a flavor I can’t abide. She married an associate professor of philology, and my spies inform me that she weighs a bouncing hundred and ninety. I hope my story hasn’t been too gripping.”
    He smiled at her but the smile faded when he saw she was looking very solemn, almost sad. She had that shine in her eyes that indicates tears are close. “You know, you did that well. You did just what I deserve. I think you did just what I needed, Lloyd.”
    “What do you need?”
    “I need to stop feeling so damn sorry for myself all the time. I’ve felt that way for years. I wanted to shock you. I wanted you to come up with a lot of asinine questions. But you put me very neatly in my place. Ithought I was being dramatic. I guess I was being silly.”
    “Just a little bit silly. Not enough to count.”
    “All I ever really wanted was a guy with one drug store who could maybe build it up to three. You’re going to be good for me, Lloyd. You have … balance.”
    “And you are the young wife of a man who owns the major piece of a very thriving hotel managed with imagination and integrity by a sterling young man who, back in the days of the tap center in basketball, was known fondly as Leaping Lloyd. So just be a young wife. Now you’ve gone legit. Now you’re as square as the rest of us.”
    “All right,” she said. “Young housewife. Shake, fellow square.”
    “Walk you back?”
    “You run along and manage the hell out of this place. I’m going to have this kind man mix up another of these juicy