The Lady Killer

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She was on the second floor of the bar, seated alone in a box seat and gazing down onto the first floor. Faintly, through the whirl of cigarette smoke, she could see a waiter in a white jacket standing by the door, a bartender rattling a cocktail shaker behind the counter below her. As for the other customers, they were all either seated at the counter or else in boxes on the first floor, almost invisible in the subdued lighting popular in such places. Upstairs where she was, there was another bar counter behind which a bartender was passing the time polishing glasses; at the corner of the counter, two young men sat face to face whispering to each other.

Nobody was paying her any attention whatever. If they had, they would have probably thought that this girl, wearing no makeup and seeming to be no more than twenty, did not look at all like a typical bar customer.

When she had entered a few minutes before, there had been an oddly disturbed look on her face. There were no vacant places on the ground floor, so she had made her way upstairs. As she climbed, the stairs beneath her feet seemed to rise and fall like waves; she floated on them, feeling hollow as a boat. All the chatter and music, the din of a busy bar, seemed to recede from her; she felt strangely alone in a world as black as pitch.

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