“You mean a bordello?”
“Yeah. A cat-house. And don’t let anybody tell you a house ain’t a home. That house is the only home I ever knew. Six years I been there, and it’s still home to me.”
“But you’re grown up now, Lana. You , know what you’re doing. You must have some money saved. You could get out, start over. It’s not too late,” Mercy told her earnestly. “You’re still young.”
“Yeah. But I can’t quit now. On accounta my kid brother Bobby, see?”
“Your brother? What does he have to do with it?”
“I’m putting him through medical school. He’s a fine straight upstanding kid. Smart as a whip.”
“He must be.” Mercy did some rapid figuring. “Isn’t he a little young to be in medical school?” she asked. “I mean, if he’s younger than you are—?”
“Oh, it’s not really med school. Not yet. It’s pre-med. He’s got a long way to go. That’s why I gotta keep turning tricks.”
“But surely if he knew of the sacrifice you're making-—”
“Oh, I’d die if he ever found out about what I really do. He thinks I’m a hat designer for a fancy firm. See, he’s out of town, and I had this phoney stationery made up so he’ll never know. He’s gonna have all the breaks. I’ll see to that. But he mustn’t ever find out about me!”
“You’re a very noble girl,” Mercy told her sincerely. She couldn’t help it; Lana’s story had her all choked up. Before she could bring herself to continue, the telephone rang. “Miss Bilkoo here,” Mercy answered it.
“Mercy, this is Dr. Peerloin. Will you come into my office, please?”
“I’m right in the middle of an interview, Dr. Peerloin.”
“I know. But this is important. I’m afraid I’ll have to ask you to break it off.”
“All right.” Mercy hung up and made an excuse to Lana. Then she went down the hallway and knocked at the door to Dr. Peerloin’s office.
“Come in.”
Mercy entered.
“Hello, Mercy. Sit down. This is Mrs. -”
“Miss!” The rather blowzy, middle-aged woman sitting across the desk from Dr. Peerloin corrected her. “And never mind the name. Like they say, no names please.”
“Of course.” Dr. Peerloin took the implied rebuke in her stride. “It seems that there’s been an error in the initial selectivity of the subject population,” she told Mercy. “This lady will explain.”
“It’s that Lana!” the woman said huffily. “I never figured when I sent her here, or I never would have.”
“Are you Lana’s employer?” Mercy asked.
“Yeah. She works for me all right. But I never woulda sent her if I’d know’d. Mr. Rockwell would skin me alive. He was real firm on the girls to send you and what kind not to.”
“I’m afraid I don’t understand,” Mercy said. “What’s the trouble with Lana? I haven’t completed the interview, but she seems a qualified subject volunteer for the project.”
“Nix! I can’t let you use her. She’s got the-—” The woman clapped her hands twice.
“She means that this girl has contracted a venereal disease,” Dr. Peerloin translated for Mercy.
“Oh, no! Oh, the poor child!” Mercy was distraught. “On top of everything else!”
“Huh?” The woman looked puzzled.
“I mean the awful life she’s had—-and is still having. I know it’s outside of my scientific prerogative, but I just have to say that I think an effort should be made to help that girl give up the life of la prostitute. Common humanity -”
“Lana quit the life? You gotta be kidding, lady. She’s a whore what loves her work if there ever was one!”
“She just doesn’t know any better.” Mercy defended Lana. “How could she? The awful things that have happened to her! The brutality of her childhood. The poverty. The—”
“Whoa!” The woman held up her hand. “What are you talking about, honey? You trying to make out like Lana had a crummy, cruddy environment or something?”
“Well, didn’t she?”
“You social workers are all the same.” The woman shook her head sadly.
“I’m not a social worker. It’s true that environmental science plays a part in my work, but—”
“But me no buts. There just ain’t no way to make a childhood hardship case outa Lana.”
“What do you mean? The bank foreclosing on her; father’s farm, and then his dying—-”
“Where did you ever get that? Lana never lived on no farm. And her father isn’t no farmer. He’s a stockbroker. From what I hear, he’s damn successful at it too.”
“But -” Mercy’s jaw hung open. “Didn’t her mother work as a scrubwoman?” she asked weakly.
“You kiddin’? Her mother’s a big clubwoman, head the local League of Woman Voters, or something. The only time she ever gets on her knees is to pray her kids don’t get the family name in the papers.”
“Her kid brother?” Mercy grasped at the straw. “Isn’t she working to keep him in pre-med school?”
“Reform school, you mean. He’s upstate doing three-to-five for car theft.”
“But I don’t understand. If her family’s well off, why is she a prostitute? Oh!” Mercy remembered. “It must be because her uncle raped her.”
“What uncle? Oh, never mind. Whoever he is, he wouldn’t have had to rape Lana. That kid’s been a flaming nympho since she was eleven years old. She was thrown outa three high schools for’ settin’ herself up for gang-shags during school hours. Her parents only kicked her out after her third abortion. You think it’s any hardship for Lana to be a pro, you’re outa your cotton-picking gray cells. That girl loves her work like nobody I ever met. She prob’ly picked up her dose moonlighting. If she wasn’t a pro, she’d be knocking guys over to give it away. I seen her take on ten drunk Legionnaires and come up beggin’ for more.”
“But-— But--” Mercy’s voice almost failed her. “Why did she tell me all those things?”
“Did you maybe ask her how a nice girl like her happened to get into the life?” the madam guessed.
“Well, yes—”
“Then there’s your answer. Two outa three guys spend time with a girl ask that question. So they all cook up a heartrending answer that’ll maybe squeeze a nice, juicy tip outa the mark. Lana just gave you her stock story.”
“It’s all right, Mercy.” Dr. Peerloin’s voice was kindly, almost motherly, as she looked at her crestfallen assistant.
“We’ll run a cross-check on the background material you’ve been compiling. Don’t worry about it.”
Mercy didn’t worry. What was past was past. But in the interviews she conducted after that, she guarded carefully against her gullibility. She learned to recognize when she was being put on; she learned how to let the subject know she knew and to extract the truth.
It was about three weeks later that she completed the last of the initial set of interviews. The following morning Professor Woocheck called a staff meeting. It was attended by personnel which had swelled from the original foursome to two dozen. More would be added as the project proceeded. Professor Woocheck called on “Fig” Newton to address the meeting first.
“The Brain is ready,” he announced dramatically.
“The Brain?” one of the new staff members asked.
“Yes.” Professor Woocheck started to explain. “The giant computer which will correlate and evaluate all the data we compile as the project goes along. It—”
“It’s fantastic!” “Fig” interrupted. “There are over one million transistors built into it. It could retain the entire Carnegie Library in its memory banks and all the books in the British Museum to boot. It’s been tested and retested, checked and rechecked. And now it’s ready to perform its first task!”
“What will that be?” another of the newcomers wondered.
“We will feed the interview information compiled by Miss Bilkoo into the computer,” Dr. Peerloin explained “And from this it will select the first two subjects to be matched. We’ll contact them and arrange to have them here tomorrow morning.”