Quarry in the Middle - Max Allan Collins [42]
“What kind of boss is Jerry G?” I asked her.
She was perched on the edge of the bed again. “If you don’t cross him, he’s no problem. He doesn’t take a cut of my tips. If I sit and talk to a client, and get him to buy me a drink, that’s split between the house and the girl.”
“What does he pay you to dance?”
“Nothing.”
“You shitting me?”
“No. It’s strictly the dollars in our g’s, and the table dances and V.I.P. lounge tips. And we don’t date the customers. Jerry G says, if we want to do it for money, he’ll get us a little trailer out back.”
“What about Gigi?”
“Jerry G’s pop? He’s a nice enough old guy. He used to be a horndog, I hear—they say he used to audition all the girls who were tricking. But he’s been sick, lately.”
“How sick?”
“Well, I don’t know. But he goes to the doctor once a month. Otherwise, he hardly comes down from his suite. He sometimes has breakfast with Jerry G, at that little café downtown.”
“Not at the Wheelhouse restaurant?”
“No! Jerry G stays away from the Paddlewheel and the Wheelhouse. There’s a real rivalry there. The girls say Jerry G hates that guy, Cornell. Richard Cornell?”
“Ever been to the Paddlewheel?”
“No. That’s one world. The Lucky is another.”
“Pretty rough world, for a sweet kid like you.”
Her smile was a chin-crinkler. “Are you flirting?”
“Not yet. I just mean, prostitution, gambling, narcotics…”
“Those kinds of things have been around forever. Didn’t you ever hear of Sodom and Gomorrah?”
“Sodom, anyway. Doesn’t bother you?”
“I’m responsible only to myself, Jack. I have a nice body, and I don’t think being naked is sinful or evil or anything. If it makes men happy to see me dance, to feel my boobies in their face or put their hands on my bottom, that’s okay by me…long as they pay the freight. I have a kid to provide for. I don’t trick, and I don’t let anybody touch me in my private place.”
“Nobody ever?”
“Now you are flirting.”
“Maybe a little.”
She sighed, looked at her hands, which were folded in her lap. Her nails were painted hot pink. “Look, I know the Lucky is a rough place. It’s like…everybody has to put their time in, in some hellhole in this life. It’s an awful, corrupt place, and Jerry G is like the little Godfather of the place.”
“Running downtown Haydee’s Port isn’t that big a deal in the scheme of things, is it?”
“Oh, it’s more than just the Lucky Devil—like, Jerry G runs all kinds of narcotics up and down the river. They have boats that look like, you know, summer outing kind of stuff. But you’d be shocked at how much of that…evil stuff moves through this tiny little town, and all across the country.”
“Were you raised a churchgoer, by any chance, Candace?”
“I went to a Baptist church when I was at home. I haven’t been in years. I don’t like church, really. But I believe in Jesus. Do unto others and all that stuff.”
“You must, hauling my ass out of that alley…You got any more of that Percodan?”
“I’ll get you another dose. But be careful—you don’t want to get hooked.”
I took the Percodan and went back to sleep for a while. When I woke up, the clock on the nightstand said one, and sunlight was still edging in around the dark curtains, so I didn’t figure I’d slept another day away or anything.
What was interesting was the presence of Candace next to me, under the sheets. Shouldn’t have surprised me, since this was her bed, after all, and she worked nights, and had to catch some rest some time.
She was sound asleep, even snoring a little, and wearing another t-shirt and sheer panties. She was nestled against me, with her head on my chest, my arm around her, her slender arm draped across my side.
I was just staring at her, wondering what my life would have been like if a sweet kid like this had married me back in the Nam days, and not a cheating little cunt.
I was also thinking about my close call—without her sweet nature and Baptist upbringing, I might have been dead right now, dumped in a ditch or maybe in the drink.
Seemed to me I had about come to the end of this way of life. I was lucky I hadn’t already been killed, trying to