Ed McBain - Pusher

The euphemistic use of the word by members of the Vice Squad was prescribed by law, since that law demanded that no arrest for prostitution could be made by a detective posing as a prospective client until the alleged prostitute's "privates" had been exposed. Whether or not Maria had picked up the term from her Vice Squad associates, or whether it was a modestly maiden expression she herself had invented was a question for debate. She did have a good many Vice Squad associates—with some of whom she had going business arrangements, and with others of whom she had got into trouble. The trouble had been either of a legal-sexual nature or a socio-sexual nature. The Vice Squad because of its unique pincerlike position was thought of by many prostitutes as the Vise Squad. Again, this was a euphemism.

There were many euphemisms in Maria's business. She could discuss sex the way most other women discuss the latest fashion trends, except that Maria's discussion would have been far more coldly dispassionate. But she could discuss sex and generally did in no uncertain terms with other women in her trade. She discussed sex differently with men.

A man seeking her body was, when she discussed him with the other prostitutes, a "John." But in the polite society of a brew shared between male and female in a polite neighborhood bistro, Maria invariably referred to a client as a "friend."

When Maria said, "I have some very important friends," she did not mean she could have a speeding ticket fixed. She simply meant that many of the men who, euphemistically, slept with her were perhaps both wealthy and respected.

Nor would Maria ever stoop to describing in a vulgar manner the services she performed. Maria never "slept" with a man. Maria, euphemistically, "stayed with a friend."

Whatever she did, and for whomever, she did it with a strangely detached attitude. There were, she realized, a good many more respectable ways of earning money. But Maria needed about forty dollars a day to feed her habit, and girls of Maria's age—unless they were movie stars—simply didn't earn that kind of money. It seemed provident to her that she had come fully equipped with a readily marketable commodity. And, following the age-old hand-in-glove practicality of supply and demand, she dutifully set about supplying whenever there was a demand.

There was a demand for Maria.

The suburban housewives, knitting and sewing, secure in the golden circle of their own wedding bands, would have been surprised to learn just how much of a demand there was for Maria. They might, in all truth, have been shocked.

For Maria had a good many friends who enjoyed the innocent, high-school-girl look about her. Being with Maria was like being a boy again, and even suburban housewives know that every man is just a little boy grown up. Maria's friends ranged from wealthy executives to file clerks, and her places of assignation ran the gamut from plush-lined private offices to blankets thrown on a factory floor. When she operated within the confines of the 87th Precinct, she generally enjoyed the rental of a room supplied at the rate of $3 per friend. The rooms were rented by various and sundry people, but usually by old women who derived their sole sources of income from such rentals. Maria did not enjoy working uptown. Her prices, because of the clientele, had to be lower there, and that meant entertaining more friends in order to accrue the boodle necessary for her daily drug requirement.

To say that Maria despised the sex act would be untrue. To say that she enjoyed it would be equally untrue. She neither enjoyed it nor despised it. She tolerated it. It was part of her job, and since there were many white-collar workers in the city who neither despised nor enjoyed but simply tolerated their jobs, her attitude was understandable. Her tolerance was helped by the peculiar ability of narcotics to quell the normal sex appetite. So, armed with the double-barreled shotgun of understimulation through narcotics and indifference through prostitution, Maria stalked her game and quite miraculously led the game to consider her a hot-blooded huntress.

Her stalking, by three o'clock in the morning, left her a little weary. She had thirty-five dollars in her purse, and an eighth of heroin in her hotel room, and hell, it was time to call it a day. But thirty-five dollars was not forty dollars, and forty dollars was what Maria needed for her next day's supply, and so her relief at the day's work being over was partially clouded by a reluctance to quit when that additional five dollars was still lacking.

It was perhaps this reluctance that led to a chain of events that put her in the hospital.

She was walking with her head ducked against the wind, wearing high-heeled shoes and an unlined raincoat. She wore a smart blue silk skirt and white blouse under the raincoat. She had dressed in her best because she'd had a call downtown that afternoon, one of her important friends, and she'd hoped to cop the entire forty from him. But he'd been short on cash, and he'd asked her if it couldn't wait until next time, and knowing he had done this before, knowing that payment had always followed the next time with perhaps a little bonus thrown in for her patience, Maria had smiled and said certainly next time , and then gone uptown to see what could be hustled. Dressed in her finery, she had managed very well. Still dressed in her finery, she headed now for the subway kiosk, anxious to get home for her fix, yet reluctant, but still anxious.

When she heard the footsteps behind her, she became a little frightened. Muggings were not uncommon uptown, and she didn't want to lose the thirty-five dollars she'd worked hard for all day. Her fright ebbed when a voice behind her whispered, "Maria."

She stopped, and then turned and waited, squinting into the wind. The man walked directly to her, grinning.

"Hello, Maria," he said.

"Oh, you," she said. "Hello."

"Where are you going?"

"Home," she told him.

"So early?"

There was a lilt to his voice, and Maria had been in the business a long time, and whereas she had never been very fond of this particular man, and whereas she really did want to get home to that waiting fix, she nonetheless considered the five dollars or perhaps more which could just possibly be earned in a very short time, and she accepted the jilt in his voice and answered it with a mechanical smile.

"Well, it's not really so early as all that," she said, still smiling, her voice somehow changed.

"Oh, sure," he said, "it's very early."

"Well," Maria answered, "it depends on what you do with your time, I suppose."

"I can think of a few things to do with the time," he said.

"Can you?" She lifted one brow coquettishly and then moistened her lips.

"Yes, I can."

"Well, I'm curious," Maria said, stalking her game carefully now, knowing there was no joy to the hunt unless the hunted felt he was being chased. "If it was early enough, and I'm not saying it is, but if it was, what would you like to do with the time?"

"I'd like to lay you, Maria," he said.

"Oh now, that's vulgar," Maria said.

"Is twenty dollars vulgar?" he asked, and suddenly Maria had no desire to play the game anymore. Maria wanted that twenty dollars, the game be damned.

"All right," she said quickly. "Let me arrange for a room."

"Do that," he told her. She started away from him, and then she turned suddenly.

"I'm a one-way girl," she warned him.

"Okay," he said.

"I'll get the room."

It was very late, she knew that, and perhaps she could not get a room for the usual three. But with twenty dollars promised, she could afford to risk five on a room, oh, this was wonderful, this was more than she could have hoped for. She climbed to the second flight of the tenement and knocked on one of the doors. At first, there was no answer, and so she knocked again, and then knocked repeatedly until a voice from within called, "Basta! Basta!" She recognized the "Enoughs" as having erupted from the mouth of Dolores, and she grinned in the hallway, picturing the old woman getting out of bed. In a few moments, she heard the slap of bare feet approaching the doorway.