Page 10 of If Looks Could Kill
“Well, if you ain’t drinking your health,” said the man, “move it along. Nothing personal”—(pronouncedpoissonal)—“but a pair like you two, standing right at the door, ain’t great for business.”
“I should hope not,” Pearl said. “If standing here would keep wretched souls from wasting their lives on drink, I’d stand here all night and day.”
“And I’d lose my job, see?” he said. “Besides, there’s a lot more saloons than there are you Salvation types. So beat it. You ain’t good for business.”
Pearl’s face flushed. “I don’t care a cent for your wickedbusiness.”
The bouncer curled his hand into a fist. He and I, it seemed, shared the same secret fantasy of socking Pearl in the chin.
Another man emerged from the saloon, taller and leaner, clad to the nines in a dark blue velvet suit and ruffled shirt, with a bowler hat perchedatop slick pomaded hair. He glanced us up and down, his gaze lingering, as gazes do—forgive me for overemphasizing this point, but these are the facts—upon Pearl’s face rather than mine.
“Sal,” the man drawled, “are you giving these young ladies trouble?”
Sal, for evidently that was the bouncer’s name, crossed his hands at his waist. “No, Boss,” he said. “Just inviting them in for a drink.”
Pearl sputtered at this, but I did my best to warn her silently to say nothing.
The boss man smoothed his mustache. A heavy gold ring hung loosely around one finger. “Now, Sal,” he said, “these young ladies are out doing God’s work, aren’t they?” He waited for Sal to nod a reluctant agreement. “You know they don’t drink demon rum. We wouldn’t want to be the reason they start.”
Sal, it appeared, did not share his boss’s philosophy.
The tall man gave him a thin-lipped smile. “The Bowery’s got enough customers for us without us needing to bring these godly young ladies down to the devil.”
Pearl got her two cents in this time before I could stop her. “Plenty of young ladies find their way to the devil in saloons like yours.”
The velvet suit watched her through half-lidded eyes. “It’s tragic.” He lit a cigarette. “But those girls are already in the devil’s clutches before they arrive.”
“I doubt that,” she said. “Either way, you have no problem cashing in on their downfall.”
“Pearl.”I hoped her name would be warning enough.
The boss took notice of me for a wordless moment, then turned back to my companion.
“I don’t know what kind of establishment you think I own, miss,” he told her coolly. “Miss Pearl, if I may. I run a saloon, not a bordello. There’s no law against a man or woman enjoying a drink.”
“There should be,” snapped Pearl.
He blew out a cloud of smoke. “Be that as it may,” he said, “there isn’t.”
I thought of the girl in the upstairs window.Don’tyou run a bordello, Mr. Ruffled Shirt?
He turned aside to blow smoke. “I like to think I keep the young ladies who sing and dance for us better paid, happier, and healthier than many of their sisters at work in other more tiring, wearisome trades, stitching from dawn till midnight. Choking down factory air.”
“Singing and dancing!” Pearl fumed. “You expect me to believe—”
“Singing and dancing,” repeated the unflappable landlord.
“And nothing more than that?”
He shrugged. “Genial conversation, from time to time.”
Well, that was a way of putting it.
The tall man took a drag on his cigarette. “You attend your worship meetings, yes?”
“Without fail.” An understatement. Wewereliving, breathing, street-trudging worship meetings, ready to worship loudly at a moment’s notice, anytime, anyplace.
“And I attend Mass without fail,” said he.
