Chapter 31 #2
“If there’s time, one of you can try the drugstore by the college, but in the meantime, will you try the drugstores around here?” Charlie was looking at me.
“Me?”
“It needs to be the least suspicious-looking person,” she said.
I agreed, it would not behoove us for this place to get busted before it’d made so much as a dime, but: “I’ve never even seen one of these things before, Charlie.”
Flossy squinted at me. “Jesus H., Bird,” and in a whisper, “Are you a Mary?”
Everybody at the table was quiet. Even Charlie looked at me. “Yes, Flossy. I am a Mary.”
“I’ll be a monkey’s uncle …” Flossy said. “A Mary running a cathouse.”
“Strangest damn whorehouse I ever worked in,” Ruby said.
“What I need the rest of you to do today is advertise,” Charlie said.
“What does that mean?” I asked and closed my eyes. The sound of that—I did not like the sound of that.
“The girls go to town and hand out these cards,” Charlie said.
“This town?” I asked. “The one with thirteen churches?”
“It’s the only way to get business up and running,” Charlie said and then, to the table, “Give them to boys that look like they go to the college. No men yet. I don’t want any townspeople showing up here until we’ve got this place running smooth as silk.”
“What happens if you give a card to the wrong person?” I asked.
“We won’t,” Charlie said. “The paper said boys’ll start arriving on the Bilbo at eleven thirty today, and there’ll be plenty of specials coming in after that.”
“Good, we’ll go to the station and catch ’em right off the train,” Ruby said. I looked at Charlie—the train station was where she’d been arrested.
“No, keep it to campus and the square,” Charlie said.
“I’m with Rube,” Flossy said, “let’s go to the train station. Get in, get out, get laid, get paid.”
Charlie needed to be firm about this but she was being strangely offhanded. “Charlie, what if the stationmaster sees them or the sheriff?” I said. Everybody at the table looked right at Charlie. It was like I’d blown a silent whistle only prostitutes could hear.
“You had trouble with the sheriff before?” Dixie asked. Esmeralda looked like she might get up and walk right on out of here. Again.
“No, no trouble,” Charlie said, but she snuck a look at me, teeth gritted, that said, Why would you say that?
How was I to know it was a secret? Flossy’d made it sound like a rote event in this business—you got arrested, spent a few days in jail, got out, no harm done.
Though of course Charlie’d been an enormous exception.
“You have made a deal with the sheriff, haven’t you?” Esmeralda asked her.
“We’re working on it,” Charlie said, which was news to me. Esmeralda flattened her mouth but said nothing else. “Alright, everybody, go get ready—and don’t forget, Dr. Kleinkamp will be here at one o’clock.”
There were groans at this, the necessary evil. I followed Charlie to the kitchen.
“Charlie, what kind of deal with the sheriff? Is that something you really want to do?”
“No, I don’t want to spook them though, so don’t bring it up again,” Charlie said. “Listen, the girls should probably borrow some clothes to walk around town in so they don’t attract attention. Is it alright if I give them some of Frances’s and Mrs. Tartt’s?”
If my sister ever found out, she would skin me alive. And that was just for the part about letting them wear her clothes.
“Fine but don’t tell me about it,” I said. “Just do it so I don’t have a choice.”
Esmeralda kindly offered to drive us to town in her fancy car, and the six of us slid over the brown leather seats.
I was in front between Esmeralda and Flossy, with the twins and Ruby in the back.
Pierce-Arrows weren’t rare. I’d seen a few around town, but this one was cushier inside even than Mrs. Tartt’s Studebaker.
It sat like the long leather divan that used to be in her library.
Each window had fussy little curtains, and sure enough, mounted in the dashboard was a shiny chrome radio.
I’d read in one of Frances’s movie magazines that Katharine Hepburn drove one of these.
Flossy opened a little burled wood cabinet in the back that was mirrored inside. “Jeez, Es, where’d you get this thing?” she asked. I was dying to know myself.
Beside me, Esmeralda just shrugged, like the car embarrassed her. “It was a gift from my father.”
“Well, it’s the bee’s knees,” Flossy said, running her hand over the woodwork.
As Esmeralda started the car, she murmured, “I despise it.” She’d changed into a rose-colored silk dress with cap sleeves and a gorgeous pair of calfskin heels.
The twins had on Frances’s floral dresses with drop waists that were a little short on them.
Their four skinny, white-stockinged legs stuck out at the bottom like broomsticks.
For Flossy, Charlie’d picked out Frances’s navy-blue dress with the white collar, the one Frances had worn the day I’d arrived.
Frances loved that dress. But at least it was plain enough so if Frances’s friends spotted Flossy, they wouldn’t recognize it.
When Charlie’d handed Ruby Mrs. Tartt’s nile-green skirt and top to wear, Ruby’d said, “Where we picking these johns up, the School for the Blind?” She and Mrs. Tartt both had big chests and wide hips, and the color did light up Ruby’s eyes.
Sort of like a green-eyed animal … that you ran from in the night.
“I look like somebody’s granny in this getup. ”
“Not yours,” Flossy’d said.
Flossy was leaning back, telling the twins how this worked. I could smell my sister next to me, coming from that navy-blue dress.
“Don’t ever tell a wallet right off what you’re selling, he could be a snitch. If he looks legit, say some pretty girls are having a special party and don’t forget to bring cash.”
“But don’t come on too strong,” Esmeralda said. She drove fast on Lamar, in black leather driving gloves. “Their mamas and daddies have been warning them since their first chin hair to watch out for a certain kind of girl.” The twins nodded but said nothing.
On the right, we passed the deserted Percy mansion, which might as well have had a sign on the front that read THIS COULD BE YOU NEXT.
A minute later, on the left and up a gravel road, I glimpsed the blue two-story orphanage.
I felt bookended by reminders of why in the world I would ever do something as risky as this.
Esmeralda turned right onto the square and drove slowly around the courthouse.
I scanned the stores for any faces I knew—Pripp, Jack, Garnett, anybody who should be avoided—but the square was strangely empty for a Friday at lunchtime, except for a few folks in front of City Grocery and some old men eating peanuts on a bench.
“I don’t see no college boys here,” Ruby said. “All I see are grampas and fat housewives.” Down the alley, where the tattered men waited on work, this was empty too. Half a mile away, the train whistle blew three furious bleats.
“This is horseshit,” Ruby said. “Es, drive us to the damn depot where the boys are.”
“No,” I said, looking back at Ruby. “Charlie said no.”
“Who’s gonna suspect us?” Flossy said. “She’s got us dressed like darn nuns. Es, follow that car up there.”
Esmeralda made a quick right turn off the square and followed the car ahead of us, and five minutes later, we could see the train station up ahead.
“I knew it,” Ruby said. The depot was surrounded by people and motorcars, dusty taxicabs, rickety pony carts tied up to hitching posts.
Drivers stood in the tall grass talking and gesticulating; men with sleeves rolled up leaned on wheelbarrows.
Peering up the empty track were bands of barefooted little boys, colored and white, here to see the trains of students coming in.
A marching band in blue coats and tall hats with feathers stood by the tracks, ready with their shining instruments.
The air felt full, expectant, not just with something coming but with something almost here.
“Alright, let’s ankle it, girls,” Flossy said, opening the car door, and the others did the same, except Esmeralda, who said she’d be staying in the car. After a second, I got out too—two rules, that was it: Don’t give cards to grown men and don’t go to the depot, and here we are.
A Ford breezed past us with boys in shirtsleeves hanging out the windows.
An old woman on the other side of the tracks, so off the depot property, had a sign that read Pecan 3 cent bag.
The newspaper had been real clear: “Soliciting is NOT allowed.” I envied her that all she was selling were pecans.
“Hitch those titties up, Rube,” Flossy said, clacking her teeth together to get them back in place.
“No! No titty hitching,” I said. “And be careful, and don’t forget, stay away from the stationmaster—”
But they were already walking away. I watched, helpless, as the twins, Ruby, and Flossy weaved through the crowds to go prostitute in Frances’s and Mrs. Tartt’s clothes.
I decided to walk myself back to the bank since there was now a line of traffic to get to the train depot.
At the first desk, I told pretty Eleanor that I needed to speak to Jack Walsh.
“May I ask what this is concerning?” she said, as a bubble practically appeared above her head: ’Cause I know y’all don’t have a red cent.
For maybe only the second or third time since I’d agreed to this terrible idea, I thought, But we might soon, Eleanor, and we sure as hell won’t be putting it in this bank.
“I’ll wait for him outside his office. I won’t be long.”
I helped myself to the chair the sad man with the sad red ribbon had sat in, a hundred years ago. Through the glass, I could see Jack in his office, sitting across from someone whose back was to me. At a nearby desk, a woman’s fingernail clack-clack-clacked on a machine.