the grace of the devil they would have killed us, but Wilber here fought dynamically, disposing of a couple of the hoodlums with his bare hands. I shot two of them to death, but not before I was roughed about quite a bit. My suit shows the activity. And you can see the damage to Wilber’s face. A rumble tumble on the same par as that with the colored woman. Perhaps brisker.
“Preparing to depart, we discovered we were financially embarrassed. We made a lot of money, but we spent a lot of money. This suit alone, designed to my specifications, cost six hundred dollars. Can you imagine that? There’s not enough actual material here for a good-sized throw rug. But, we had no money, so we had to ask the girls for money.”
“You asked?” Brett said.
“Well, we actually persuaded them it was good idea. Guess what? They had very little. Considering Jim and ourselves took a nice chunk of their earnings, and allowed them to spend the bulk of the remainder through us for supplies, well, whores are not very rich. Your daughter, however, had managed to save some money and she offered it to us without any persuasion. It was only five hundred dollars, but with the rest we had from the other girls we acquired just short of a thousand. Not a lot for men who normally spent that in a day, but beggars couldn’t be choosers.
“Your daughter gave us the money and said if we would come here and tell you that she wants out, and that she needs help to get out, you would give me another five hundred dollars.”
“You did this for five hundred dollars?” I asked.
“McDonald’s pays considerably less a week for tossing burgers, sir,” Red said, “and at the moment, every little drop helps. If we can scam out on this motel bill before they realize our credit cards belong to a colored man we mugged in Amarillo out back of a barbecue joint, we can start rolling promptly, steal a car closer to the Mexican border. We might just manage to elude anyone Jim sends after us. Once in Mexico, five hundred dollars becomes two or three thousand, you use it right. Then we can have some breathing room. Perhaps run some whores down there. There’s always some sort of enterprise going on in Mexico, though much of it seems to involve the use of knives and guns.”
“You ought to be used to that,” I said.
“The degree of excitement is higher down there,” Red said. “I’ve lived there before. Shortly after I departed the circus. Unlike Americans, Mexicans—though short-tempered and fond of sharp weapons—seem to appreciate a midget.”
“Where is Tillie?” Brett said.
“I’ve written the location down,” Red said. “May I reach in my pocket?”
“Carefully,” I said.
Red brought out a piece of paper and handed it to me. I took it and opened it and looked at it. “You could just be picking up five hundred dollars,” I said. “This could be a Laundromat.”
“Could be,” Red said. “But it isn’t.”
“It isn’t even Oklahoma City. What the hell is Hootie Hoot?”
“I know how it sounds,” Red said. “But it’s a real town. It’s a little burg outside of Oklahoma City. We actually found it to be quite a refuge, and it provides easy access to the city, and frankly, most men who wanted to purchase sex didn’t want to pay for it in a place they thought there might be law. This burg, cops were paid off. They liked a little regular tail themselves, see. We get the five hundred dollars or what?”
I looked at Brett. Brett stood up and tossed me Wilber’s gun. I caught it and dropped it on the bed between my legs. Brett lifted her dress and took five hundred dollars out of the end of the thigh holster. We all checked out the thigh holster and what it was strapped to. In the light I could see little freckles on Brett’s thigh, like the blush on a strawberry.
Brett put the revolver in the holster. The five hundred was folded. She unfolded it. She stood next to the table lamp where Wilber sat and counted it out aloud, dropping each bill on the table.
“How does it look?” Red asked Wilber.
Wilber picked up the money and thumbed through it. “Like five hundred dollars.”
“Good,” Red said. “Good.”
Wilber sniffed the money. “And it smells like a woman’s thigh.”
“Even better,” Red said.
“You said Till was in trouble,” Brett said. “Besides being a whore in Big Jim’s stable, how’s she in trouble?”
“It’s my guess the other girls will tell that she helped us willingly, to help herself get out. Big Jim doesn’t like that sort of thing. He’ll have a special work plan for her.”
“What’s that mean?” I asked.
“It means she won’t like it,” Red said. “As for what he’ll have in mind for her, I can’t say. Maybe he’ll put her on the street in Tulsa. Some other place not even that nice.”
“Then this address could be meaningless?” I said. “Probably is by now.”
“It’s the last address where she was,” Wilber said.
“Correct,” Red said. “That’s all we know.”
“That’s not worth five hundred dollars,” I said. “That’s worth a sack of dog shit.”
Red looked at Brett. “Ma’am.”
“Keep the money,” Brett said.
“All right,” I said. “This is where our association ends. I don’t want to ever see either one of you again. I do, I might not like it.”
