The Angel of Darkness - Caleb Carr [72]
She made me pay for my time with her; said she had to or Frankie would get upset. But most of those nights we just went into the back and talked, her telling me about her years with her father, moving from small town to small town, one step ahead of the local law enforcement. For my part, I told her about my old lady, my underworld career, and growing up in New York in general. It was months before anything physical happened between us, and then it was only because Kat was hopped up on Frankie’s doctored liquor. The whole experience was difficult for me, as I knew nothing about such ways and she was already an expert, amused by my ignorance and embarrassment. We managed the act itself, and she said it wasn’t half bad; but it hadn’t been what I’d dreamed about having with her. We never repeated it, but we stayed friends, even though my continued attempts to get her to quit the trade were sometimes cause for real anger on her part.
As I made my way downtown that night, I passed by many of the streets I’d once lived on, which now looked more than ever to me like what they were: some of the worst stretches of tenement hell in the city. The rain was keeping most people inside, so I didn’t worry too much about getting jumped; and before I knew it, I was rounding the corner of Worth Street and closing in on Frankie’s. Saturday nights were, of course, especially wild there, and when I got close I could see kids spilling up and out of the dark basement space in various states of drunkenness and drug intoxication. Making my way down the steps through this crowd and saying hello to the kids I knew, I ran into Nosy, the boy what I’d seen on the waterfront earlier in the week. He told me that the cops had held him and his friends overnight in nothing but their shorts but that they’d gotten clear the next morning and had been having good laughs all week about the reports that were continuing to pop up in the papers about the “headless body” being the work of a crazed anatomist or medical student. Even the halfwit what Nosy called Slap knew enough to say that the story was a lot of hot air.
Inside Frankie’s the smoke was so thick I couldn’t even see the back wall, and the sounds of kids screaming out bets, a dog barking and growling, and rats squealing clued me in to the fact that there was a hot contest going on in the pit. I didn’t stop to look at it—that was one sport that truly made me sick—but kept on pushing my way through the crowd and into the back hall, eventually reaching the door of the little room that I knew Kat shared with two other girls. I gave the door a loud knock and heard some female giggling coming from inside. Then Kat’s voice sang out, “Come on in, though if it’s a good time you want, you’re too late!” I opened the door.
Kat was standing over the room’s lousy mattress, a small wicker suitcase open before her. The other two girls, who I also knew, were drinking and obviously had been for quite some time. The look in Kat’s eyes said that she wasn’t far behind them. A big smile came into her face when she saw me, and the other two girls started to laugh as they said hello; then Kat came over and threw her arms around my neck, reeking of benzene.
“Stevie!” she said. “You decided to come to my goodbye party! That’s sweet!”
I put my arms around her awkwardly, causing one of the other girls to say, “Go ahead, Stevie, get it while you can!” Then another round of giggles broke out.
“Hey, Betty,” I said to the one with the mouth, handing her a couple of bucks, “why don’t you and Moll go chase yourselves around the bar?”
“For two bucks?” Betty looked at the money like it was the Federal Depository. “You got it, lover-man!” As they went out she mumbled, “Give him something special, Kat, for his last whirl!” Kat laughed, the door closed, and we were finally alone.
“I mean it,” Kat said, looking drowsily