Page 20 of If Looks Could Kill
Not yet published, then. I took a second look at our new acquaintance. She was shorter than either of us. Her eyes were bright and intelligent, framed by thin-rimmed spectacles. Her brown hair was cinched back in a ponytail. Her clothes were simple. Her long skirt, I realized, was divided. Not trousers, but notnottrousers, and her boots were men’s, or at any rate, boys’.
“You two got names?” the newcomer asked.
We admitted that we did and named ourselves.
“So why were you promenading around the block?” Freyda opened acrumpled bag of peanuts, shelled one, and popped the nuts into her mouth. “What, are you a pair of Temperance gals, fighting the Battle of Jericho and hoping these saloon walls fall down?”
Pearl’s eyes lit up at that. “As a matter of fact—”
“We’re looking for a girl we saw yesterday,” I said before Pearl could start sermonizing. “On the second floor, above the Lion’s Den.”
The girl’s eyes bulged. “You’re looking for someone in Mother Rosie’s crib?”
“Crib?” repeated Pearl. “Oh! You mean, a, um, nursery for children?”
Freyda snorted with laughter. “Children!” She shook her head. “I mean, you’re more right than you know, but no. Not a nursery for children.”
“A crib,” I told Pearl in a low voice, “is closer to, um, what we suspect is going on.”
Freyda missed nothing. “So you’re wise to it already?”
“You mean,” said Pearl, “that it’s a house of ill repute?”
The girl shrugged. “Well, its repute ain’t healthy, Pearl, I can tell you that. But it’s not a brothel, if that’s what you mean. More of a, erm, sleeping pad for the gals who work at one.”
“Who is Mother Rosie?” I asked.
Freyda looked to the left and the right, then leaned in closer. “Only a nice Jewish mother—and I can say this, being Jewish too—who runs brothels all over the East Side.”
Pearl and I exchanged a glance. “So the women and girls who live there…”
“Work somewhere else,” supplied Freyda, “and sleep here when they’re off-duty.”
“How do you know all this?” Pearl asked our new friend.
“Who doesn’t?” she said. “Everyone knows you don’t interfere with Mother Rosie.”
I thought of the stern woman I’d seen in the window yesterday afternoon.
“What do you want with this girl you mentioned?” Freyda inquired.
“We met her before,” Pearl said. “We gave her directions to Spring Street. We think she went there to find a job and ended up stuck.” Pearl swallowed. “We hoped we could help.”
“Ain’t you sweet,” the girl said, without too much irony, “but she’s beyond helping now, you can bet. Once Rosie’s got her, there’s no getting her out until the undertaker hauls her out.” She offered us her pouch. “Peanuts?”
Pearl shook her head. I accepted some.
“So you’re a pair of Good Samaritans, are you?” Freyda said. “You don’t look like Salvation Army. Uh-oh…” She saw Pearl’s face. “Youarea couple of Sallys? I’ll be darned.”
“We’re soldiers,” declared Pearl, “in God’s army of salvation.”
“But you’re no older than me,” protested the girl reporter. “How old’re you?”
“We’re both eighteen,” I told her.
“Shoot,” she replied. “All that clean living must be doing you good. I’m seventeen, and I thought you were my age.”
“I really need to get some pimple cream,” I told Pearl, who looked scandalized.
