“Don’t kid me, lady. Besides I have other things to do besides playing dear Uncle Ned to a pair of newlywed lovebirds.”

“Oh, a tough guy, huh?”

“I have to be,” Lowry said gaily. “I’m going out among ’em now. Nothing ever happens here.”

Jailbait Girl

JAILBAIT GIRL

Originally published in the September, 1959 issue of
GUILTY DETECTIVE STORY MAGAZINE

It was a real sweet set-up, Janey thought. It was one of the niftiest, coolest cons anybody had ever thought up. She stood in front of the mirror, combing her hair, admiring the youthful beauty of her body.

Behind her Charley said, “Hurry it up. It’s after eight. We want to catch our mark before it gets too late.”

“Don’t rush me,” Janey said evenly. “I hate being rushed, Charley.”

Deliberately and slowly she finished doing her hair, and reached for the filmy underthings lying crumpled on the bed. She smiled in pleasure at the sight of her nakedness in the mirror. Her body was lean but full in the places that counted, with firm, high breasts and flaring hips.

It was the body of a girl in the first ripeness of youth. When she wore her sweater-and-bobby-sox outfit and kept her hair in an adolescent-style ponytail, she could pass for being only sixteen or seventeen.

She knew how to turn on that dewy-eyed, virginal look. It was her biggest asset in trade. Actually she was almost twenty-three, but she could pass for sixteen any time she wanted to.

“Come on,” Charley said impatiently, as she fumbled with her buttons.

She glared at him. “I tell you, I don’t like to be rushed. Don’t bug me, Charley, or I’ll get sore at you. Remember, I can do this act without you, but you’re nowhere without me.”

“Is that a hint?”

“It ain’t nothing. I’m just telling you not to get on my nerves. I gotta look cool for this performance tonight, you dope.”

He sighed loudly but said nothing else until she was finished dressing. Right now she looked nothing like a teenager, with her hair done up fancy, her eyes darkened by makeup, her dress cut low in front to show her assets. This was going to be the fifth time in the last two months they had worked the gambit. So far they were four for four, a perfect batting average. It was easy to make the suckers come across, Janey thought. Most of them were down here alone to get away from their wives for a while, and the last thing in the world they wanted was to get hauled up on a statutory rape charge.

Of course, if somebody ever called their bluff—