Confederacy of Dunces, A - John Kennedy Toole [75]
“Hey, you there. Take a look at my goddam floor.”
Jones reluctantly looked through his sunglasses and saw nothingness.
“Whoa! You got a fine flo. Ooo-wee. Everthin in the Night of Joy firs rate.”
“You see all that crap?”
“For twenny dollar a week, you gotta expec a little crap. The crap star disappearin when the wage going up around fifty or sigsty.”
“I want performance when I put out money,” Lana said angrily.
“Listen, you ever try living on my kinda wage? You think color peoples get grossries and clothin at a specia price? What you thinkin about half the time you sitting up here playin with your penny? Whoa! Where I live, you know how peoples buy cigarette? Them peoples cain affor a whole pack, they buy they cigarette separate two cent apiece. You think a color mother got it easy? Shit. I ain foolin. I gettin pretty tire of bein vagran or tryina keep my ass alive on this kinda wage.”
“Who took you off the streets and gave you a job when the cops was about to lock you up for vagrancy? You might think about that sometime when you’re goofing off behind them goddam glasses.”
“Goofin off? Shit. Goofin off ain cleanin up this mother-fucking cathouse. They somebody in here sweepin and moppin up all the shit your po, stupor customer drippin on the flo. I feel sorry for them po peoples comin in here thinkin they gonna have theirself some fun, probly gettin knockout drop in they drink, catchin the clap off the ice cube. Whoa! And talkin about puttin out money it seem to me maybe you be puttin out a little more now that your orphan frien stop coming aroun. Since you cut out the chariddy, maybe you slip me some of the United Fun money.”
Lana said nothing. She clipped the receipt for the box of chalk to her ledger book so that she could list it in the column of itemized deductions that always accompanied her income tax returns. She had already bought a used globe of the world. That, too, was stored in the cabinet. All she needed now was a book. When she saw George next, she would ask him to bring her one. He must have some kind of book left over from the days before he had dropped out of high school.
Lana had taken some time to assemble the little collection of props. While the plainclothesmen had been coming in at night, she had been too worried and preoccupied to attend to this project for George. There had been the major problem of Darlene, the vulnerable point in Lana’s wall of protection against undercover policemen. But now, the plainclothesmen had gone away as suddenly as they had appeared. Lana had spotted each one as soon as he had entered, and with Darlene safely off the stools and practicing with her bird, the plainclothesmen had nothing to go on. Lana had seen to it that they were actively ignored by everyone. It took experience to be able to spot a cop. But a person who could spot a cop could also avoid a lot of trouble.
There were only two things to be settled. One was getting the book. If George wanted her to have a book, he could get it for her himself. Lana wasn’t about to buy a book, even a used one. The other was getting Darlene back on the stools now that the plainclothesmen were gone. Having someone like Darlene on commission was better than having her on salary. And what Lana had seen Darlene do on the stage with the bird told her that, for the moment, the Night of Joy might do better if it decided not to cater to the animal trade.
“Where’s Darlene?” Lana asked Jones. “I got a little message for her and that bird.”
“She telephone and say she be in sometime this afternoon to do some more rehearsin,” Jones said to the advertisement he was researching. “She say she takin her bird to the veternaria firs, she think it losin some of its feather.”
“Yeah?”
Lana started to plan the ensemble with the globe, the