“Looking at you,” she said and tossed the cold tea down her throat, reached quickly for her glass of water as though the stuff was unusually potent, and then, after a couple of gulps, said, “Gosh, I shouldn’t drink. I get funny when I get tight.”
“How funny?” I asked.
She giggled and said, “Plenty funny. You haven’t been here before, have you?”
“Once,” I said. “My last trip into town — and boy, did I have a time.”
She raised her eyebrows.
“Girl by the name of Evaline,” I said. “I guess she isn’t here any more.”
She pulled a curtain over her eyes and said, in an expressionless voice, “You knew Evaline?”
“Uh-huh.”
She looked me over, then leaned across the table a little closer and said, “Okay, buddy. Forget it.”
“Why should I forget it?” I asked.
She nodded vaguely towards the back of the room. “Couple of plain-clothes men,” she said in an undertone, “making the rounds, asking about the men who knew Evaline.”
“Why all the commotion?” I asked.
“Somebody bumped her off this afternoon.”
I sat bolt upright in my chair. “This afternoon?”
“Yes. Take it easy, Donald. Don’t telegraph the conversation. I’m tipping you off, that’s all.”
I thought a minute, then surreptitiously slid a five-dollar bill out of my pocket and said, “Thanks, baby. Stick your hand under the tablecloth. I have something I want to say.”
I felt her fingers contacting mine, and then the five-dollar bill being gently withdrawn. Carmen’s shoulders hunched forward almost even with the table as she slipped the bill down her stocking.
“And my thanks go with it. I have a wife in San Francisco. I couldn’t afford to be questioned.”
“I figured that,” she said. “Evaline was a nice kid. It’s a shame. I guess she was two-timing someone who didn’t like it.”
“How did it happen?”
She said, “Someone got in her apartment, slipped a cord around her neck, pulled it tight.”
“That,” I said, “is no way to treat a lady.”
There was feeling in her voice. “Are you telling me? Hell, when you think of what men are, what they take from a girl, and what they do— Oh, well.” She shrugged her shoulders, twisted her red lips into a smile, and said, “This is no way to do. Be happy and keep smiling, or you won’t get any customers.”
I said, “I guess that’s right. You don’t get any business being sorry for yourself.”
“Not in this racket. You have to put up a smiling front. The boys like girls who are drifting through life without a care in the world. Try and tell them you’re in this game trying to support a kid, and she’s at home with a bad cough and a fever, and you’re worried, and you don’t even get a tumble.”
“Got a kid?” I asked.
For a moment her eyes moistened, then she blinked back the tears and said, “For God’s sake, quit it! You’ll make my mascara run... How about another drink? No, wait a minute. Forget it. You slipped me enough so I can afford to give you a break.”
“The waiter’s looking this way,” I said.
“Let him look,” she said. “We’re entitled to twenty minutes on a drink, more if we want to take it.”
“You get a commission?”
“Sure.”
“And drink what?” I asked.
Her eyes were defiant. “Whisky,” she said, “and don’t let anybody kid you on that score.”
“You do a turn?” I asked.
“Yes. A song, and a few kick steps.”
“Who’s the woman with the funny eyes?” I asked.
She laughed and said, “That’s Dora, the new hostess. I guess Flo was here when you were here before, wasn’t she?”
I nodded.
Carmen said, “Dora’s a kick, but don’t ever kid yourself she isn’t on the job. She has eyes in the back of her head. She knows everything that’s going on. She’s good that way.”
“What happened to Flo?” I asked.
“I don’t know. She drifted away. I don’t know what did happen. Trouble with the boss perhaps. Dora’s only been here about a week, but she’s taking a hold. Listen, you didn’t come here to talk about me and my troubles or about the business. How about a little dance?”
I nodded. The music had swung into a dance. The small strip of floor was crowded with people jostling each other around. Carmen pressed up close against me, opened her eyes wide, slightly raised her head, smirked her lips into a smile, and kept the same expression all the time we were dancing. She danced skilfully, intimately, and with her mind on the child at home who had a cough and a fever. I didn’t say anything to change the direction of her thoughts.
After a while the music quit, and we went back to the table. I said to Carmen, “That waiter’s looking us over. I have an idea you’d better get commission on another drink.”
“Thanks,” she said.
I nodded to the waiter, and he came over on the double quick. “Fill them up,” I said, and when he had taken the glass, I said to Carmen, “How about Evaline? Did you know her well?”
She shook her head.
“She told me she had some relatives up in the northern part of the state. I can’t remember the name of the town.”
“No relatives in this state,” Carmen said. “She came from the East.”
“Ever been married?” I asked.
“I don’t think so.”
“Was she going steady?”
“Hell, I don’t know!” she said, suddenly bringing her eyes to focus on mine. “You talk like a damn dick. How the hell should I know about her? I got troubles of my own.”
I said, “You forget that I fell for her pretty hard.”
She studied me and said, “You shouldn’t have done it. You’re too nice a kid to fall for any B girl. Not that we ain’t just as good as anybody else, but we have to play our men for what we can get out of them. But hell, you’re married and stepping out on your wife, so I guess it’s six of one and half a dozen of the other.
“That’s a funny thing about people. You’ve got a home, and you want to step out and sit around where there’s music and drinking and entertainment. I have to work in this joint, and I’d give my right arm for a home, a husband, and a lot of housework.”
“Why not get the husband?” I asked. “It shouldn’t be hard — for you.”
She laughed bitterly and said, “Me with a five-year-old daughter. Don’t kid yourself, Mister.”
“Five years old,” I said, putting surprise in my voice.
“You heard me. Cripes, look at Evaline. She was a kid. She had freshness and charm. I can turn on the personality, and put on the warpaint, and— Say, for God’s sake, who started this anyway? If you’ve got the blues, go ahead and get drunk. Start making passes at me and telling stories, but turn off this dark-blue faucet or I’ll go nuts.”
“Okay, Carmen,” I said.
The waiter brought our drinks.
“The plain-clothes men talk with you?” I asked.
“Did they!” she said. “They turned me inside out. I couldn’t tell them anything. My God, look at us. We play the game on a percentage basis. I’ll drift around to a dozen tables in the course of a night. Maybe if I’m lucky, someone will fall for me hard enough to buy me a flock of drinks, and after he gets tight he’ll maybe pay for them with a five-dollar bill, tip the waiter, and push the change over to me. That’s gravy. Probably he won’t.
“There are ten of us girls here, and all of them working the same racket. Evaline was part of that racket. How should I know what men shed been playing up to? I’ve got troubles of my own. Wait a minute, I’m going to put through a phone call. You don’t care, do you, Donald?”
“Go ahead,” I said.
She went over to the phone booth and called. She came back a little later and said, “Well, the kid’s resting easier. The cough doesn’t seem to be any worse.”