Джон Макдональд - More Good Old Stuff

Jud swung the door open. Kelz shoved Jane inside and the door clamped shut, the lock clicked. Kelz grinned at Davo and said, “She’s nice and close to you, Bill. You ought to like that.”

They went back up the hall. Jane stood looking across at Bill, her lips parted. Then, as she felt the women gather around her, she turned quickly, her back against the bars.

The big woman who had grabbed the cigarettes said, “You got ten bucks, angel?”

“What for?” Jane asked.

“Sort of an entrance fee, angel.”

“I haven’t got it.”

“Now that’s too bad, angel, because that means you got to work out the ten bucks. This place is filthy. You’ll clean it twice a day and get a dime a day until you’re paid up. Get to work, angel.”

The woman reached out, grabbed Jane’s wrist and yanked her back into the cell.

Kelz had left a few small bills in Davo’s pocket. Davo called across, “Hey, you with my cigarettes. I’ll pay her shot.”

He wadded up a five and five ones and threw them across. They disappeared into the same place the cigarettes had.

The big one said, “Now I’d call this a real sweet situation. We got a case of love here. Now you look close, mister, because we got a treat for you.” She turned her head. “Bring her up here.”

Somebody shoved Jane up close to the bars.

“What’s your name, angel?”

“Jane.”

“There’s a lot of wear and tear on clothes in this tank, angel, and they get sort of dirty. Seeing as how you’re fresh meat, you got to turn your clothes over to the ones who have been here longer. You’ll get clothes in exchange.

“Now, I wouldn’t fit into anything except maybe your stockings, so I’ll take those and you can have mine. Let me see now, you’re about the same size as Mabel. Get over next to her, Mabel. Let me see. Yeah. They’ll fit. Peel down, sister.”

Jane didn’t move.

The big one took a step closer to her and lowered her voice. “I’m the boss here, angel, and I told you to peel. Do it nice or we’ll give you a treatment that’ll make you wish you had that pretty face back in one piece.”

Jane gave Davo one despairing look, and slipped out of her suit coat, fumbling with the snaps on her blouse. She took the blouse off as Davo turned away, stood looking at the wall under the window.

The big one called over, “What’s the matter, mister? Don’t you want a good look?”

Davo neither answered nor turned. His ears burned with shame and he knotted his fists. He heard them giggling and making coarse comments about her. He tried not to listen, tried not to think of what they were doing to her.

At last Jane was dressed in the clothes Mabel had taken off — a sleazy crimson dress with a torn sleeve and food spots on the front of it. On her feet were broken, run-over black shoes, white cracks showing the cheap cardboard underneath the shiny surface. Her legs were bare.

The big one said, almost softly, “You did fine, angel. Here’s a cigarette. Light it for her, Penny. Now just don’t try to buck the system. Keep your mouth shut. You’ll sleep on the top deck there in the corner. Don’t yell, grab for food or argue with anybody. I got a hunch you’ll be here for a long time. The next girl comes in, maybe you’ll get some of her stuff. Now climb up into your bunk and stay there until I tell you that you can come down.”

Jane walked off without looking over at Davo. When she was out of sight, he climbed into his own bunk. He found that he was sweating heavily and there was a sour taste in his mouth. His hands trembled as he lit a cigarette. A cockroach scuttled across the floor. The morning traffic began to be heavy in the street outside. The rumble of trucks shook the ancient building. The women were quiet. He could hear the deadly sobbing of the young girl with the smashed nose.

Jud came in to see Davo just before noon. He stood laughing against the bars, grinning cheerfully at his prisoner. “Get you something to eat, Davo?” he asked finally.

“Sure. Not much. And get a lunch for Miss Fay over across the way.”

Jud grinned. “She won’t get any of it, chump, unless you buy for all of them, and she may not get any even then. Those dames can eat like horses.”

“I want to talk with Miss Fay, Jud. Suppose you bring her over into this cell when you come back with the food.”

“That’s against the rules, Davo. No can do.”

“Just a few minutes. Just — say, twenty bucks’ worth of time for us to talk.”

“With twenty bucks, mister, you can make your own rules. We run this place honest. We got your dough out front, and when I take twenty, I’ll make the debit on your sheet. You don’t have to worry about me taking more than the twenty.”

“Sure. You don’t want the place to get a bad name.”

He was back in forty minutes with the watery soup and hash for the women’s tank, and with two hamburgs and coffee for a dollar for Davo. He said, “Now?”

“Yes, as soon as she eats.”

Jane had been listening. “I couldn’t eat, Bill.”

Davo said, “Now, then. Bring her over.”

Jud leered at Davo, shut her in with Davo. The whole front of the little cell wasn’t a door. There was a small part of it cement, forming a corner where Davo and the girl could get out of sight. She came quickly and quietly into his arms and her body was trembling. The women across the way made such a howling, jeering racket that he couldn’t talk to her. He stepped to the doorway, looked across at the big woman and said loudly, “How about a break?”

The woman shut them up and Davo went back to Jane. The dress they had given her smelled soiled. The bruise on her face was purple.

“Who hit you, darling?”

“It was my fault. They caught me in a phone booth in an all-night drugstore. I tried to get away.”

“I can’t tell you that everything is okay. Things couldn’t be worse.”

She looked up at him quietly. “I know that, Bill. I’ve always tried to talk a good game. The hard little gal in the politics business. I don’t feel hard now. I feel all soft inside.”

“Don’t let it lick you, Jane.”

“It won’t lick me.” Her arms tightened around him, and she leaned her unbruised cheek against his chest.

He said, “I should have told you before that I love you. This is going to be a long engagement. That is — if you want an engagement.” He tried to say it in a joking manner but his voice was too hoarse.

“I want it, Bill,” she said.

“You’ll get out before I do. You’ll probably be here for at least six months.”

“When I get out, I’ll get you out,” she said fiercely.

“Take it easy. We’ve got to do this time like the boys tell us to do it. After it’s over we’ll go away.”

“Bill, maybe we’ll—” She stopped.

“We’ll what?”

“Forget it.”

“What were you going to say?”

“I was going to dream out loud.” She tried to laugh. “This isn’t a good place for dreams, is it, Bill?”

“As good as any,” he said bitterly.

Jud looked in. “Okay, kids. Back home for you, girlie.”

She was gone and he was alone again. He ate the cold hamburgs, forcing the food down, drank the chilled coffee.

They came in at five o’clock, Kelz and Jud. They were grim and silent. They took Davo out of his cell. Kelz turned to the big woman. “Where’s the girl’s clothes, Annie?”

“She give ’em away.”

“Get them back on her, quick!”

“Who says?”

“I say it. Unless she’s got her own clothes on in three minutes, I’ll take you downstairs myself and work you over with a hunk of pipe.”

Jane changed in a dark corner of the big cell. One of the girls tripped her as she walked to the door.