It was perhaps this reluctance that led to a chain of events that put her in the hospital.
She was walking with her head ducked against the wind, wearing high-heeled shoes and an unlined raincoat. She wore a smart blue silk skirt and white blouse under the raincoat. She had dressed in her best because she'd had a call downtown that afternoon, one of her important friends, and she'd hoped to cop the entire forty from him. But he'd been short on cash, and he'd asked her if it couldn't wait until next time, and knowing he had done this before, knowing that payment had always followed the next time with perhaps a little bonus thrown in for her patience, Maria had smiled and said certainly next time, and then gone uptown to see what could be hustled. Dressed in her finery, she had managed very well. Still dressed in her finery, she headed now for the subway kiosk, anxious to get home for her fix, yet reluctant, but still anxious.
When she heard the footsteps behind her, she became a little frightened. Muggings were not uncommon uptown, and she didn't want to lose the thirty-five dollars she'd worked hard for all day. Her fright ebbed when a voice behind her whispered, "Maria."
She stopped, and then turned and waited, squinting into the wind. The man walked directly to her, grinning.
"Hello, Maria," he said.
"Oh, you," she said. "Hello."
"Where are you going?"
"Home," she told him.
"So early?"
There was a lilt to his voice, and Maria had been in the business a long time, and whereas she had never been very fond of this particular man, and whereas she really did want to get home to that waiting fix, she nonetheless considered the five dollars or perhaps more which could just possibly be earned in a very short time, and she accepted the jilt in his voice and answered it with a mechanical smile.
"Well, it's not really so early as all that," she said, still smiling, her voice somehow changed.
"Oh, sure," he said, "it's very early."
"Well," Maria answered, "it depends on what you do with your time, I suppose."
"I can think of a few things to do with the time," he said.
"Can you?" She lifted one brow coquettishly and then moistened her lips.
"Yes, I can."
"Well, I'm curious," Maria said, stalking her game carefully now, knowing there was no joy to the hunt unless the hunted felt he was being chased. "If it was early enough, and I'm not saying it is, but if it was, what would you like to do with the time?"
"I'd like to lay you, Maria," he said.
"Oh now, that's vulgar," Maria said.
"Is twenty dollars vulgar?" he asked, and suddenly Maria had no desire to play the game anymore. Maria wanted that twenty dollars, the game be damned.
"All right," she said quickly. "Let me arrange for a room."
"Do that," he told her. She started away from him, and then she turned suddenly.
"I'm a one-way girl," she warned him.
"Okay," he said.
"I'll get the room."
It was very late, she knew that, and perhaps she could not get a room for the usual three. But with twenty dollars promised, she could afford to risk five on a room, oh, this was wonderful, this was more than she could have hoped for. She climbed to the second flight of the tenement and knocked on one of the doors. At first, there was no answer, and so she knocked again, and then knocked repeatedly until a voice from within called, "Basta! Basta!" She recognized the "Enoughs" as having erupted from the mouth of Dolores, and she grinned in the hallway, picturing the old woman getting out of bed. In a few moments, she heard the slap of bare feet approaching the doorway.
"Quien es?" a voice asked.
"Me," she answered. "Maria Hernandez."
The door swung open. "Puta!" Dolores shouted. "Why you break down the door at… qué hora es?"
Maria looked at her watch. "Son las tres. Look, Dolores, I need…"
Dolores stood in the doorway, a small thin woman in a faded nightgown, her gray hair straggly and hanging at the sides of her face, her collarbones showing sharply where the gown ended. The rage began building inside her, finally spread into her face, and then exploded from her mouth in a string of epithets. "Puta!" she screamed. "Hija de la gran puta! Pendega! Cahapera! Three o'clock in the morning, you come here and…"
"I need a room," Maria said hastily. "The one downstairs, is it…?"
"Bete para el carago!" Dolores hurled, and she started to close the door.
"I can pay five dollars," Maria said.
"Me cago en los santos!" Dolores went on, still cursing, and then the door stopped. "Cinco? You said five?"
"Si."
"The room downstairs is empty. I get the key. You stupid whore, why didn't you say five dollars? Come out of the hallway, you'll get pneumonia."
Maria stepped into the apartment. In the kitchen, she could hear Dolores opening drawers, cursing mildly as she searched for the key. In a few moments, Dolores came back.
"The five," she said.
Maria opened her purse and gave her five dollars. Dolores gave her the key. "Good night," Dolores said, and she closed the door.
He was still waiting in the street when Maria went to him. "I got a room from Dolores," she said.
"Who?"
"Dolores Faured. An old woman who…" She stopped and grinned. "Come," she said, and she led him to a room at the rear of the ground floor. She opened the door, flicked on the wall light, and then locked the door behind him.
He reached for her almost instantly, and she danced away from him and said, "I heard a proposal of twenty dollars."
He took out his wallet, grinning. He was a big man with big hands, and she watched his hands, and she watched the methodical way in which he counted out the bills. He handed her the bills and because she didn't want to seem cheap—even though she'd already laid out five for the room—she didn't count them. She put them in her purse, and then took off her coat.
"Last time I saw you," she said, "you didn't seem interested in me personally. You were more interested in cards."
"That was last time," he said.
"Well, I'm not complaining," she said.
"I've been looking for you all night," he said.
"Really?" She walked toward him, wiggling suggestively. Now that the twenty dollars was in her purse, the game could proceed again. "Well, you found me, baby."
"I wanted to talk to you, Maria."
"Come, baby, we'll talk horizontally," she said.
"About Gonzo," he told her.
"Gonzo?" She seemed puzzled. "Oh, are you still saying that silly name?"
"I like it," he said. "Now, about your arrangement with Gonzo."
"I have no arrangement with Gonzo," she said. Slowly, she began unbuttoning her blouse.
"Ah, but you do."
"Listen, is this all you want to do? Talk, I mean? You didn't have to pay me twenty dollars to talk."
She took off the blouse and draped it over the back of a chair. The chair, a bed, and a dresser were the only pieces of furniture in the room. He studied her and then said, "You're small."
"I'm not Jane Russell," she answered, "but I'm in proportion to the rest of me. For twenty dollars, you don't get movie queens."
"I'm not complaining."
"Then what's the holdup?"
"There's more to say first."
Maria sighed. "You want me to undress, or no?"
"In a minute."
"This room ain't exactly warm, you know. Whatever I got, I don't want to freeze 'em." She grinned, hoping he would grin back. He did not.
"About Gonzo," he repeated.
"Gonzo, Gonzo, what's with you and Gonzo, anyway?"
"A lot," he said. "I asked Gonzo to make that arrangement with you."