“What about the developer and the enlarger?”
Rosa’s first reaction was to tell him she only had two hands, but the truth did not permit this impudence.
“The man will develop and print the pictures for us. Don’t worry; he thinks they’re just for sale on street corners.” Her smile disappeared as her business instincts, never far from the surface, took over. “It’s not a bad idea. Save some of the negatives. They’ll sell like soap back at Manuela’s.”
The elevator came to a shuddering halt and settled back, resting, relieved to be finished with one more in an apparently endless vertical hegira. Rosa shifted her bundles enough to release the door latch; they made it into the hallway and down the uncarpeted passage to their room. Rosa shifted her load again and managed the doorknob; at long last they were finally inside. Sanchez dumped Anita unceremoniously onto the bed and fell into a chair, exhausted. Rosa put her packages aside, lit a cigarette, and grinned down at him.
“You scarcely look in any condition to pose with your girlfriend.”
Sanchez paid no attention. He leaned forward, wincing, and put a hand back, investigating his spine. Unaccountably, it had not snapped under the strain. He waited until his heart was pounding less furiously and looked up.
“I’m not going to pose with her.”
“You’re not?” Rosa looked around the room as if a third man, a hired stud, might be there, possibly hiding. Her dark eyes came back to the seated man, worried. “Then who did you get? That stuff I shot into her doesn’t last forever, you know.”
“I know. I didn’t get anyone.”
Rosa’s frown of nonunderstanding turned into one of alarm. “You mean this is a kidnapping?” She shook her head violently, her thick hair flying. “No, sir! Count me out! They still have the guillotine in this country!” A further thought came to her under the sardonic eye of the man resting in the chair. “But then I don’t get it. Why all the photographic junk?”
“I didn’t say nobody was going to pose with her. I simply said that I was not...”
“Then, who—?”
“You’re going to pose with her,” Sanchez said and instantly raised a bony hand, warding off possible argument. His eyes were cold. “It will be much more effective for our purpose, believe me. She might confess to a momentary lapse with a man and maybe even get away with it with this Huuygens. He looked like one of the new, modern breed, the so-called civilized — in quotes — type.” There was a sneer in his voice; he wiped it away. “But with a woman?” He shook his head decisively. “Never in a million years! Even Huuygens would draw the line at that. I know.” His tone indicated he was judging the other man by his own standards and was very sure of their validity. “You pose.”
Rosa took a deep breath. “You had me worried there for a minute!” She suddenly grinned. She kicked off her shoes, crushed out her cigarette, and started to unzip her dress, speaking over her shoulder. “It’s easy to see you never worked at Manuela’s. You should see what goes on upstairs after all you boys have had your kicks and gone home...”
She slipped the dress down, stepping out of it, and started on her brassiere. She moved over in her stockinged feet to be before the mirror, watching herself undress. The brassiere slipped to the floor; she brushed her nipples lightly with her fingernail, watching Sanchez in the glass. Sanchez stared at her in minor shock. Rosa winked at him lewdly and turned from the mirror, continuing her strip, watching the unconscious girl on the bed as she did so.
“So I pose with her,” she said and smiled in a manner Sanchez found hard to interpret. “Who’s complaining?”
Sanchez, well aware that his labors had made him miss a meal, something his physique did not lend itself to, stepped from the elevator with Anita in his arms, her purse dangling helplessly. From her weight he was sure the girl he was carrying had never missed a meal in her life, although he had to admit it didn’t seem to cause her any unnecessary curves. Rosa followed along, a small package in her hand. The tripod and other equipment could wait for the time being; it was the film that was all-important. The concierge watched them owlishly, picking on a wart.
“My cousin — that is, my wife’s cousin,” Sanchez said to the old lady apologetically, worriedly, “she doesn’t seem to respond. We’ve tried everything we can. I’m afraid we’ll need to see a doctor after all, or take her to a hospital—”
Rosa stepped in front of him imperiously, interrupting.
“Taxi!” she commanded fiercely, and the old woman scurried out the door onto the sidewalk. She waved one down, looking like a scarecrow in a high wind as she did so. She even held the door as they entered, received a glare from Rosa, and hastily closed it after them. Sanchez looked at the made-up woman beside him with a faint frown. Between one thing and another — not to mention the passion of the scenes he had just finished photographing upstairs — he had come to a definite conclusion: In the future it would be another girl that received his custom at Manuela’s place...
6
Anita was irritated. Someone was shaking her, and rather roughly at that, and she thought it a shabby thing to do, particularly considering that she was so very, very tired and didn’t like being shaken even when she was quite rested. It reminded her of when she was a child, and it also disturbed her hair. She intended to tell Kek about it at the very first opportunity. He’d make the mean person stop shaking her!
She tried to squirm away from the insistent hand, to turn on her side and pull the covers over her, up over her head, so she could go back to sleep in peace, away from all the interruptions and aggravations. But her hand, groping feebly for the blanket, encountered nothing. Someone, in addition to that miserable shaking, had also had the gall to steal the blankets, and when she finally woke up that someone was certainly going to hear about it!
The hand refused to obey her unspoken commands. It now seemed aided by a voice, a rasping, irritating voice. If this kept on, sleep was going to be impossible.
“Madame!”
She pushed feebly at the interfering hand, rolled slightly, and felt herself sliding. There was a faintly humorous aspect to it; she hadn’t fallen out of bed since she was a child. She started to smile at the memory and then winced sharply as her head suddenly began to throb with pain. She came to rest, leaned back, and was pleased to discover that while her legs seemed to be unduly cramped by some obstacle before them, at least there was support for her head.
“Madame!”
This was impossible! The shaking, which had stopped momentarily, was now being enforced again. Obviously this exasperating intruder would not be content until he had been told off, and Anita was just in the mood to do it. She opened one eye with an effort and stared blearily at the pockmarked, mustached, and unfamiliar face leaning over her. She thought she had never in her life seen anything as revolting.
“What do you want?”
The figure above her reared back in a neat combination of justified resentment and a sort of admiration for the nerve of the pretty girl wrinkling her nose at him.
“What do I want!” The eyes rolled upward and then came down to stare at Anita. Her hand unconsciously pulled down her skirt. The man raised his eyes again at this completely unwarranted gesture. “I’ll tell you what I want, if you can understand what I’m saying. I want you to go away. I come out from having my lunch and what do I find? You — sleeping it off in my taxi! Go somewhere else to sober up. I need my cab to go to work. I have a family to feed!”