'A dozen or so. Fourteen. Sixteen. It varies on different nights.'
'How many were here last night?'
'I would say ten or twelve.'
'Which?'
'Ten. Eleven.'
'Are they all here tonight? All ten or eleven of these girls?'
'I believe so, yes. I would have to check the time cards.'
'Oh, you have time cards, do you?'
'Yes, sir, this is a business establishment.'
'I'm sure it is. Find out which girls were here last night, okay? We want to talk to them. You got a nice quiet place where we can visit?'
'I suppose you could use my office,' Gordon said. 'If you don't mind the clutter.'
'Gee, that's very kind of you, thanks,' Ollie said.
Carella wanted to kick him in his fat ass.
The girls ranged in age from nineteen to thirty-four. That was because Gordon knew better than to hire anyone under eighteen. The mayor's vigorous anti-vice campaign notwithstanding, Gordon was running a virtual whore
Ed McBam
house here, lacking only genital penetration to qualify for full statehood. Five of the eleven girls, it turned out to be, were white. The remaining six were black. Some of them were experienced, some of them were straight off the train from Oaken Bucket, Minnesota. Nine of the girls were single. Two of them were married. Even some of the single girls had children. Three of the girls had worked in massage parlors . . .
'Where it can sometimes get rough,' a girl named Sherry told them. 'Because doin massage, you alone with the dude, you dig? It ain't like here, where they's a whole buncha shit goin on.'
When she laughed, she exposed a gap in her mouth where two front teeth were missing.
'Which is great for givin derby, hm?' she said, and laughed again, and covered her mouth with a hand on which there was a fake emerald ring as big as all Hong Kong.
None of the girls seemed nervous talking to two detectives. Carella and Ollie both figured Gordon was spreading some heavy bread among the neighborhood law enforcement types. Carella abhorred the widespread practice. Ollie considered it all part of the game, ah yes.
Two of the girls had worked the hostess circuit.
'This's much better,' one of them said. 'You never knows what you goan walk into when you take a hos'ess call.'
Her name was Ruby Sass.
'Mah whole name's Ruby Sassafras Martin,' she said, 'but I think Ruby Sass got pinch to it, don't you?'
She was a black girl with bleached blond hair, wearing a bra top and G-string covered with sequins the color of her name. Silicone breasts virtually spilled out of her top, but she paid them no mind. Instead, she puffed on her cigarette and sipped at the drink the detectives had purchased for her. She told them she was studying drama
and dance during the day, which they believed was as authentic as her blond hair. She also told them she'd seen Althea go in the back room with three different guys last night.
'Finely went home at two a.m.,' she said. 'Approximate.'
'Alone?'
'Meaning?'
'Meaning was she with anyone? What else does alone mean?'
'Depends on whether you're president of the United States.'
'I'm not,' Ollie said.
'Didn't think so.'
'Was she alone or wasn't she?'
'Let me tell you something about this business, okay?' Ruby said. 'Guys who come here, they don't want all the hassle of arrangements or commitments, you comprehend? They make they business deal, whatever it's for, and that's whut it is. So Mac tellin us don't meet no men outside, don't take no men home with you, that happens ony like once in a blue moon, anyway. Like some college kid with pimples all over his face falls in love with one of the girls up there dancin, he keeps stuffm bills in her gadget, axes her to go the back room with him. Kid like that, he keeps comin back for more, you play him like a fish till he finely works up the courage to ax could he go home with you. Then you tell him sure, but that's gonna coss you, honey. By then, he'll go along with whatever you say, cause he is yours, darlin, he is completely yours. You play it right he'll become yo own personal muff diver and pay you for the pleasure besides.'
'Does that mean Althea was alone?' Carella asked.
'It means far as I could see, Althea left the club alone. Whether somebody was waitin outside for her is
another matter. But let me tell you suppin else bout this business . . .'
'We're all ears,' Ollie said.
'Most guys I know—and this prolly includes you— they have sex with a woman, the next thing they want is to go home and go to sleep. Especially sex a guy pays for. You ever pay for sex?'
'Never in my life,' Ollie said.
'Didn't think you had to, handsome fella like you,' Ruby said dryly, and sucked on her cigarette. 'But even with a freebie, your average guy today, he don't want to wake up the next morning with some beast in bed, am I right? Or even some beauty, for that matter.'
'I don't mind wakin up with beauties in my bed,' Ollie said.
'Then you're different from the average guy we get in here. The guys who come here don't want commitment, you comprehend? It's as simple as that. They come here, they get they pleasure, and that's it. So are you tellin me that here's a guy who pays for sex in a whore house—is what this is here, you know—and then still wants more an hour later? What is this, Chinese food?'
'You're saying he won't want more.'
'Is what I'm saying. If he goes in the back room with a girl, that's usually enough to satisfy him.'
'What if he doesn 't go in the back room?' Carella asked.
'Then he'd be too fuckin timid to ask a girl to meet him on the outside. Besides, why would she?'
'Why wouldn't she?'
'Cause first of all, we exhausted when we leave here two-thirty, three in the morning. We're on that stage shakin our asses all night long, hopin to snare as many ten-dollar bills as we can, but what does that come to? A hundred bucks maybe? The back room is where the money is. If we catch a wink from one of the tables, we
go sit with the guy for twenty minutes while he tells us the story of his life and all we're thinkin is do I buy a ticket or not, you want a hand job, a blow job, what is it you want, mister? Without being able to say none of this out loud cause he might be a fuckin cop, excuse me.'
'You said Althea bought three half-hour tickets last night,' Carella said.
'Thass right. An' if that's all the time she bought, then whut the boys wanted was hand jobs. Tickets woulda cost her twenty for the half-hour, she probably charged fifty, sixty to milk 'em. When we're doin more serious work, ahem, we usually buy an hour ticket for fifty bucks, charge the John a full C for it. What Mac does is rent space to us, you comprehend? The back room is space, that's all. He lets us use his stage to advertise our goodies only cause his customers drink while they watchin us.'
'So if a guy went in the back room with Althea last night . . .'
'Yeah, it woulda been a hand job. That's what we buy a half-hour ticket for.'
'Anybody follow her out? When she left last night?'
'Not that I seen.'
'Where were you when you saw her leaving?'
'Onstage. It was . starts at two. The place closes at two-thirty, three.'
'So she left before , is that it?'
'Guess she'd made money enough by then,' Ruby said, and shrugged again.
'How? You said a hundred is tops for G-string change . . .'
