Chapter 30 #5
“Clocks,” Flossy said. “Every key’s gotta have a clock.” I listened for anything that might help me run the front, doing my best to decipher what Flossy was saying:
“Every key (room) is gotta have a clock so the wallets (customers, also known as johns) can see for themselves we ain’t skimming time (stopping early), and don’t forget, we could sure use us a premiere girl in this crib (the most expensive girl in the house), a sheba so hot (pretty) you could fry a egg on her face.
” Flossy pointed a pink chipped nail at Charlie.
“Even if they can’t afford her, they like to know she’s here with somebody who can spring for a better dish than the one they ordered. ”
Though that last part was surprisingly self-evident, it was such a strange new language, it felt like foreigners had invaded my quaint village, but instead of wearing proper English shoes and stiff shirts, they wore tight dresses and no drawers.
Flossy’d taken to wearing Frances’s pink silky bathrobe, crossed tight at the top but I knew—I’d seen when she walked—that she was drawer-less underneath it.
At the end of the table, Trixie served herself more peas and more cornbread and shoveled it in her mouth, and Dixie did the same.
They both seemed to be starving to death.
They’d bathed, and Charlie’d given them huge white button-down shirts of Henry Tartt’s to wear as dresses until they found something better.
There was something I’d been wondering since the interview.
“If y’all were working in Texas, how’d y’all hear we were hiring?”
They looked at each other. “We’d left Texas for some personal reasons so we was already headed in this direction,” Trixie said.
“We made it far as Natchez when we heard about y’all.
” I did not like that “heard about y’all” part until I remembered Flossy had sent word to a friend in Natchez.
“We stopped to earn a few bucks at a house down there, but, uh …” She glanced at Dixie again.
“It was time to move on,” Dixie said. A lock of soggy hair fell down against her cheek. She tucked it behind her ear, and I saw a curved scar around her left eye.
“So where you headed after this?” I didn’t want to sound like I was prying but I was definitely prying. Something about them leaving Texas had me wary.
“Anywhere he ain’t,” Trixie said.
That hung in the air a second. “Is … he coming after you?” And what happens if he finds you? I didn’t add.
Dixie smiled for the first time, though there was no joy in it. “No ma’am, I can assure you he is not.”
I looked from one thin face to the other, waiting for more, but Dixie turned to Trixie, and they started talking privately. I guess I’d be asking Charlie what this meant.
I turned back to the left side of the table.
Ruby, who was sitting next to Flossy, was now wearing a faded black cotton dress, though it was really more of a slip, with thin straps that cut into her freckled shoulders and revealed probably four tight inches of cleavage.
She was puffing a cigarette while she ate, setting the cigarette next to her food between drags.
On the white underside of her arm, I saw the track of scars, knobby and dark pink but thankfully not fresh.
For a few minutes everyone ate like any old supper, forks clinking on plates.
No one seemed to show any shame about what they were here to do, and why would they?
They were all equal parties to the crime.
As they served themselves more cornbread and gravy, I sensed a light relief in the room, that was quickly growing more relaxed, maybe to be gathered at a table with others like themselves.
Human beings were, after all, drawn to the familiar but these were lawbreakers.
Did throat slitters get together like this?
Or train robbers or child twiddlers—Going out to see the gang, honey—for the relief of not being judged for a few hours?
Across the table, Ruby took a deep drag off her cigarette, lifted her chin, and blew her smoke directly into Trixie’s face on her left. Maybe I’d imagined the camaraderie.
“Cut that out, Rube,” Flossy said.
She did it again, this time at Dixie, across from her.
“Excuse me, but the owner of this house doesn’t want you smoking at the table,” I said. I had no idea if that was Mrs. Tartt’s rule or not, but it sounded better coming from her. Ruby acted like she hadn’t heard me, set the cigarette on the side of her plate, and ate the rest of her cornbread.
Flossy and Charlie were talking again. “By the way, Kleinkamp said he’ll be here tomorrow at one,” she told Charlie. Kleinkamp was the doctor who’d tested girls at Priscilla’s. Flossy’d telephoned him this afternoon. “But bad news. He wants five dollars a girl.”
“But you said he only charged two fifty!” Charlie said.
Flossy shrugged. “He knows there ain’t so many doctors who’ll tend to gals like us anymore.
But we gotta test before we open, Charlie—clap, syph, preggers, bad attitude, the full board.
” She turned to the twins. “Which reminds me, I gotta show you two how to pull a prick for the clap. Very vital information, even if you think he’s a Mary. ”
Dixie didn’t know this one either. “What’s a Mary?” she asked.
“Virgins, Marys, lotta these college boys are, which of course lessens our chances a dying from a horrible disease, but you can’t be too careful in this biz.”
On that appetizing note, I reminded myself that the raciest thing I’d be selling for my front on Saturday night was sassafras root beer. But I couldn’t shake the image of the sick woman on the porch today. That is what this business can do to you.
When Charlie got up to go to the kitchen, Flossy said, “Jesus, I gotta eat something besides cornbread and gravy.” She shifted her jaw side to side like a boxer preparing for a fight. “Pass that bacon, would ya, Rube?”
Ruby took the platter of bacon and dumped it all on her plate, putting back half a piece somebody’d torn off.
Ruby hadn’t even eaten the two pieces she’d already served herself.
This was too much for me. “Hey, that is rude, share that with Flossy,” I said.
“And I told you, there’s no smoking at the table. ”
This time, Ruby smiled. She had squinty little green eyes but meaty red lips. “Lemme put it out for you then,” and she crushed her cigarette out on the little half of bacon and passed the platter over to Flossy. “Here ya go, dick ditch. Ain’t that what your sister calls you?”
“No—no—you can’t say that!” I said to Ruby. “Do not call Flossy a—a—”
“You stick that up your ass, ya stinky hooker whore,” Flossy said back to her.
“No, Flossy! We don’t call Ruby a stinky hooker whore while we’re at the table!” I stood up. “You know what, no dessert for you and no dessert for you,” I said, pointing at each of them, and took my plate into the kitchen.
“Ruby needs to wash her mouth out with borax, and Flossy does too,” I said to Charlie.
“I’ll talk to her,” Charlie said and took my plate and set it beside the sink. She dried her hands on a dish towel and leaned on the counter. “We’ve got a lot to do if we want to open by Saturday.” I nodded. It was already Thursday. “I could use your advice on how to handle Mr. Binny.”
“What do you want grumpy old Mr. Binny for?” He certainly didn’t need to know anything about the business.
“I was thinking we could hire him and his band, but what’s he like? I’m not sure how to put it to him.”
Mr. Binny? “He’s grumpy! He’s old! He’s Mrs. Tartt’s driver to the beauty parlor, so he’s loyal to her!”
“Good point,” Charlie said.
“Which part of that point is good? We can easily find another band to play, Charlie.”
“We could, but he’s a taxi driver, Birdie. He’ll be driving the college boys out here and back, and unless he’s stone-deaf, he’s going to hear what they’re coming out here for. Wouldn’t you rather we hire him to keep him quiet since he’ll find out anyway? I think he’s perfect.”
“Whatcha talkin’ about in here?” Flossy asked, coming through the swinging door.
“That the taxi drivers know before anybody else,” Charlie said.
“True,” Flossy said.
I groaned. I was doing that a lot lately, but I guess Charlie was right. Why hire somebody else who otherwise might never find out about the business? I wanted to keep the circle of who knew about this as small as possible.
Flossy’d set her plate by the sink and was looking at the pound cake I’d already sliced. She smiled at me with her big false teeth. “Sorry ’bout the talk in there at the table.”
I put a piece on a plate and handed it to her. “Take it.” Then I handed her one for Ruby too.
“You think we should put another ad in the paper?” Charlie asked. “Try and get a few more girls in?”
“No.” I couldn’t imagine going through that again and every time somebody saw that ad was another chance for us to go to jail. “Let’s see how it goes with what we’ve got.”
“Will you ask Silva to call Mr. Binny to come by tomorrow?” Charlie asked.
It wasn’t really my decision but it seemed like no matter how hard I dodged and ducked to keep out of Charlie’s side of the business, I just kept on stepping right in it.