The Early Ayn Rand

As he entered, Jinx dashed gaily to meet him. He gasped- She was wearing his best violet silk pajamas! They were too big for her and she draped them gracefully in soft, clinging folds around her little body.

"Hello, darling!" she greeted him. "Why so late? I've missed you terribly!"

"Why... why did you put these on?"

"These? Pretty, aren't they? Well, you didn't leave me anything to change and I was tired of wearing the same dress for two days!"

She led the way into the living room, and he stopped short with another gasp. The living room had been thoroughly cleaned, and not a single object stood in its former place. The whole room had been rearranged to look like a very impressionistic stage setting. The window curtains were hanging over the davenport, forming a cozy, inviting tent. The sofa cushions were capriciously thrown all over the floor. Jinx's colored silk scarf hung on the wall over his desk, like an artistic banner. The fishbowl stood at the foot of the davenport, and some incense that she had unearthed in one of his desk drawers was burning in it, a long, thin column of blue smoke swaying gracefully like a light, misty scarf.

"What did you do that for?" he muttered, amazed.

"Don't you like it?" She smiled triumphantly. "Your room looked as though it needed a woman's influence badly. I thought that you ought to have a little beauty in your hard life, to relax after a day of danger and gun-shooting!"

Laury laughed. She looked at him calmly, with a sweet look that seemed too innocent to be trusted.

"By the way," she said casually, "you better disconnect that phone. You left it here and I might have called up the police, you know!"

Laury's face went crimson, then white; with one jump, he snatched the phone and tore the wires furiously out of the wall. Then he turned to her, puzzled.

"Well, why didn't you?" he asked.

She smiled, a smile that seemed at once indulgent, cunning, and perfectly naive.

"I wanted to," she answered innocently, "but I had no time, I was too busy." And she added imperatively: "Take off your coat. Dinner is ready."

"What?"

"Dinner! And hurry up, 'cause it's late and I'm darn hungry!"

"But... but..."

"Come on, now, help me pull that table out!"

In a few seconds he was seated at a neatly arranged table covered with one of his pillowcases, there being no tablecloth in the house. And Jinx was serving a delicious dinner, hot, steaming dishes whose tempting odor made him realize how very tired and hungry he really was after this exciting day.

"Now, don't look so dumbfounded!" she said, settling down to her plate. "I'm a good cook, I am. I got the first prize in high school. I don't care much about cooking, but I like first prizes, no matter what for!"

"I must thank you," Laury muttered, eating hungrily, "although I didn't expect you to …”

"I bet you haven't had a homemade dinner in ages," she remarked sympathetically. "I bet you're used to eating in dingy pool parlors and saloons, where you meet to divide the loot with your gangsters. See, I know all about it. They must have pretty tough food, though, don't they?"

"Why... y-yes... yes, they do," Laury agreed helplessly.

After dinner, she asked for a cigarette, crossed her legs in the violet silk trousers, like a little Oriental princess, and leaned comfortably back in her chair, sending slowly graceful snakes of smoke to float into space.

"Get me a drink!" she ordered.

"Oh, sure!" He jumped up, eager to serve her in turn. "What do you wish? Tea, coffee?"

She smiled and winked at him significantly.

"Well, what do you wish?" he repeated.

"Well, now, as though you didn't understand!" She frowned impatiently.

"No, I don't understand. Surely, you don't mean to say that... that you want... liquor?"

"Oh, any kind of booze you've got will do!"

Laury stared at her with open mouth.

"Well, what's the matter?" she asked.

"I never thought that you would... that you might... that you..."

"You don't mean to say that you haven't got any?"

"No, I haven't!"

"Well, I'll be hanged! A crook, a real crook, with nothing to drink in his house! What kind of a gangster are you, anyway?"

"But, Miss Winford, I never thought that you..."

"You've got a lot to learn, my child, you've got a lot to learn!"

Laury blushed; then remembered that he was the kidnapper and had to show some authority.

"Now, don't disturb me," he ordered, sitting down at his desk before the typewriter. "I've got something very important to write... Here," he added, "you might be interested in this!" And he threw to her the day's newspapers.

"O-oh! Sure!" she cried. "The papers!"

She jumped on the sofa, the cushions bouncing under her, folded her legs criss-cross, and bent eagerly over the papers, her tousled hair hanging down over her face, almost touching the wide sheets.