Nellie Hopkins paced anxiously in the back of the alley by the side entrance to New Amsterdam Theater in Manhattan. It was quite dark in the alley, and Nellie was glad of it. She was waiting for someone who didn’t know she was there. She didn’t think they wanted her to be there either. Every so often she sprang from her shadowed spot against the theater and took a peek to see if anyone had come out of its beautiful doors.

It looked about time to go glance at the doorway again. Nellie spread the cigarette she had been smoking on the icy concrete and went off.

She saw the doors swish open as the doorman opened them for someone, and a tall, dark man chatting in nonchalant tones with the doorman.

Nellie gasped exultantly. She had found one of the two persons she had wanted to see.

The man was tall, with a fine, lithe figure. He was clad in a superbly cut tux with all the trappings of a man about town. He walked efficiently out of the New Amsterdam, reaching in his pocket for his platinum cigar case.

Nellie’s chest was heaving excitedly as she quickly stepped out of the alley and in the man’s way.

“Hello, Dan. It’s been a while, huh? Two months at least.”

Danver Henssler’s lazy hazel eyes took a short gaze at the woman. His lean handsome face was as indifferent as it always was as he glanced at a former girlfriend.

“Little Nell? What are you doing peddling your goods at this time of night and in this part of town? Any likely customers are over at the Midnight Frolic.”

“I, I ain’t peddlin’ anything- see, haven’t got anythin’ with me- I help the old apple lady in the day though- just thought you or Hanger- and the mob- might be around now- just like always, on your way to The Blue Tanz or some place- you know?”

“Hanger and I and some of the gang are at the Frolic. I came out here to get some air. It’s hard to breathe easy in there. Very loud. Everyone popping’ off the girls’ balloons with their cigars.”

Remember-remember the good times we used to have? Nellie had been inching closer to Danver began to roll the nice-smelling cigar he had chosen from his case earlier between his long, slender fingers.

“Gee, I remember when high-hats used to pop my balloons.” Nellie blinked at Danver, appealingly, she thought, with big and blue and bloodshot eyes. “Gee, I’d give anything to work in the Follies again.”

Danver set the cigar firmly between his lips and lit it with his monogrammed lighter. “I’m not going to pull any strings for you.”

“ Aww, how come?” She had been inching closer to him all the while, and now her chipped pink fingernails started picking at his coat lapels.

“You’re a washout, Little Nell.”

Nellie’s eye looked as though they would burst out of their sockets; her hands now shook the lapels.

“No, I ain’t! Never, never, never, nev-er, I can dance, I’m young, I’m pret-ty!”

“You’ve always been heavy-footed. You’re almost thirty and you look nearer forty now. You’re a washout.”

“Remember the good times we used to have Dan? Remember when I-”

“I’ve had better times since.”

“But, Dan, Dan, I want a job! Like I used to have!”

“Why didn’t you think of that when you shot Hanger?”

Nellie panted humidly on Danver’s chest. “I was crazy then, I was so mad, mad at him, mad at ev’rybody-”

 “You’re still crazy.”

“How is Hanger, huh? I wish I could talk to him, I wanna see him, I got things to say to him-“

Danver began to disentangle himself from Nellie’s grasp.

“Dan, Dan, Dan-”

Danver deftly wrenched Nellie’s hands away from his coat. In one powerful, merciless movement she hurled across the alley, hitting a trash can.

“Don’t come around me looking for help anymore. You’ve got a job as long as this town has streets for you walk.”

Danver set off into the neon-lit night, leaving Nellie to snivel against the rubbish, aching and crying for the life that had been hers and the life she was now to lead.