Page 108 of If Looks Could Kill
Don’t toy with me, Mr. Cat, thinks Pearl. I’m not the mouse you think I am.
He seems mildly surprised that Pearl isn’t reacting more to his words. “Don’t say I didn’t warn you. This is Rosie’s turf. Even if she’s relocating her girls somewhere else.”
“Another of your properties?” she asks. “I’ll bet you’d scramble to keep a ‘high-paying tenant’ like her on your books.”
He nods approvingly. “I don’t expect to find such business acumen among our local Salvation maidens.” He sighs. “But I have nothing to offer her. She’s moving up to the Tenderloin, and I’m in search of new occupants.”
“Shouldn’t be hard to fill an apartment,” she says. “Lots of families looking for homes.”
He shrugs. “So they say.”
“But you don’t want to put a nice family there.”
His brow furrows. “What was it…” His eyes light up. “Pearl. That’s it. I see I’m right.”
Pearl fails, just enough, to keep her surprise hidden.
“Pretty Miss Pearl,” he goes on, “and her witty companion. Let me think. Woods? Woodroe… Woodward?” He smiles. “You should never play poker, Miss Pearl.”
The small hairs on Pearl’s arms prickle.
“I’m glad you came,” he tells her. “I’d been trying all morning to remember your names.”
“Why?” She knows why.
“You two are the talk of the neighborhood.” He smiles. “Salvation fever is spreading.”
“She has nothing to do with this,” Pearl says. “Leave her alone.”
Again, the shocked innocence. “You wrong me, Miss Pearl,” he says. “I wouldn’t dream of laying a hand upon anybody.”
“You might not,” parries Pearl, “but you don’t work alone.”
“You’re correct,” Johnny says. “I employ a sizable staff to help me inmy business of selling refreshments to hardworking New Yorkers.”
Pearl fumes. “Don’t patronize me.”
She steadies her breath. She has come for a reason, which now feels riskier. Or perhaps more urgent. She can’t be sure. But she must do something.
“You said, that day we met, that you attend Mass.”
Finally, she has surprised him, but he pulls back his composure immediately. “Ah.” He smiles. “The spiritual part of the interview. You’re concerned for my soul.”
She ignores this. “Do you go to confession?”
He turns, eyeing her sidewise. “I do.”
“What does the priest tell you?” asks Pearl. “What absolution does he prescribe for you for padding your pockets renting space to a madam who gets rich selling human flesh?”
He leans back in his seat.
“Let’s see,” Pearl continues. “Greed. Pride. Lust. Gluttony. Envy. Sloth. Wrath. Every one of the seven deadly sins is tangled up in the sex trade.”
He blanches as if her shocking language has offended his finer feelings.
“And where,” he asks, “does wrath enter into it? For my academic enlightenment.”
“Through the wrath of God,” she says, “which will haunt you in hell for eternity.”
