Dope (20 page)

“No,” she said quickly. “I ain't worried about that. I mean,
I'm not
worried. They didn't even print your name. Just that there was a big shootout in Manhattan. A big drug dealer got killed. I had to kind of read between the lines to figure out what happened. Besides, even if they did, no one would know, right? I mean, I'm Shelley Dumere now.”

“Right,” I said. “So. You wanna get a cup of coffee or something?”

She looked around, and then looked back down at the ground. “Nah, I got to get to work. We're starting rehearsals for the TV show today.” She smiled. “I was just . . . I just wanted to come by and tell you . . . you know, that I was sorry how it all turned out. I kind of . . .” She fidgeted with her hands a little, taking one in the other and squeezing it. “I kind of felt bad for not helping you out. For not telling you what I knew about McFall and everything when you first asked. Maybe things could have turned out different.”

“It's okay,” I said. There wasn't much else to say.

“Anyway,” Shelley said. “I guess it's all over now. I mean, Jim's dead. And the girl, Nadine—she turned out not to have anything to do with it all, right?”

I thought about it for a minute. I had enough money left to live on for a few months. I didn't have any reason to work. I didn't have any reason to do anything, really. “I guess I'll find her anyway.”

Shelley took off her sunglasses and looked at me. “Why?”

I didn't say anything.

“She might not even be alive,” Shelley said. “I mean, you know what happens—”

“Either way,” I said. “I guess I'll find her.”

Shelley looked around again, and didn't say anything for a minute. Then she looked at me. “If you find her,” she said, “if you find Nadine, what are you gonna do with her?”

I shrugged.

“Her parents don't want her, right?”

“No. They don't want anything to do with her.”

“Well,” Shelley said, “she's gonna need a place to stay and money and all that.”

“I guess,” I said.

Shelley started fidgeting with her hands again. “I know you don't have so much—I mean, no offense or nothing. But, well, maybe you could let me know. Maybe you could let me know when you find her. If she needs money or a place to stay or anything like that. Or if you do. If you need anything.”

“Yeah,” I said. “I'll do that.”

We stood there for a minute. Neither of us said anything.

“Well, I ought to—”

Suddenly Shelley reached out and took my hand. “I'm sorry,” she said. “I really am, Joe. I'm so sorry I didn't tell you the truth.”

“It's okay,” I said. I squeezed her hand. “Really, it's okay.”

She swallowed and I thought she might cry. “You'll call me, right? When you find the girl? You'll call me?”

“Yeah,” I said. “I promise. I'll call.”

I
went down to Allen Street and over to Third Avenue with her photo. The funny thing about street whores is how much they want to help. Every one took a good long look at her photo, and a few said they might have maybe seen her somewhere before—poor invisible Nadine—and that they'd keep their eyes open. And they meant it, too. But the other thing about whores is, they don't keep their eyes open. They can't. If they did, they'd see all the worst of the world. So I gave them all my phone number but I kept asking, on Allen, on Third, on the West Side Piers, even spots I knew out in Brooklyn, over the Williamsburg Bridge.

The day after Jim's funeral Yonah came to see me. We went out for a walk to the square by my house where the mental patients got their fresh air. He said that Gary, Jim's boss, had paid for a big funeral for Jim, and that everyone came: every con man, every hustler, every thief. People came from all over the country.

“Nobody blames you, doll,” he said. Yonah looked old and sad, wearing a worn suit and a frayed straw hat. It was summer now and the sun was bright and hot. We walked around the square. “He shouldn't have done that to you. Everyone was saying that. You were always a stand-up girl. You always been right, and everyone knows it. We all went to the funeral, out of respect and all, but Jim was a bum. I mean, to do that to anyone, but his own girl . . .” Yonah shook his head. “His own girl. No one had any idea he was mixed up in dope again. Everyone feels real bad about what happened to you. Some of the guys, Gary and some of the other fellows, they were talking about taking up a collection for you. Or maybe giving you whatever they got when they sold off his stuff.”

“Nah,” I said. “It's nice of them, but I don't need it.”

“You sure?” Yonah said. “They want to do it. Gary, he thought he ought to take care of you, the way he would any fellow's widow.”

I shook my head. I didn't want anything from Jim.

We stopped and sat on a bench. Yonah looked at me. “How about you, Joe? You doin' okay?”

“Sure,” I said. “I'm okay.”

“You couldn't have known,” Yonah said. “It wasn't your fault at all, none of it. You know that, don'tcha?”

“I really thought—” I said. “I mean, I really thought Jim—”

I started to cry.

Yonah wrapped his big arms around me, and we sat in the park like that until it was time for him to go back home for his medicine.

 

 

 

I kept looking for Nadine. Finally, on Twenty-seventh and Tenth, on my third trip there, I found a girl I knew from the old neighborhood, Laura, who had seen her. Laura had always been the pretty one on Fifty-third Street. She had curly blond hair and a perfect figure and bright blue eyes. Now she didn't look so pretty. She looked like a dress that used to be nice, but then someone wore it too much and left it in the corner crumpled and forgot all about it.

She was ashamed of herself, and when she saw me coming she turned away and put a hand over her face. I took her in my arms.

“You look great, Laura,” I told her, because I didn't know what else to say.

“No I don't,” she said. She smiled anyway. “It's good to see you, Joe.” But she was looking around the block, shaking a little, and I figured if she didn't get back to work soon she'd get a beating later. I took out Nadine's picture and showed it to her.

Laura smiled. “Sure, I know her. Sweet girl. Real sweet. She used to work out here. What happened to her?”

“I don't know. What do you know about her?”

“Jeez. She used to work for Jesse, like me, for a while.” I knew Jesse. He was Laura's pimp. “But she got bad, real bad. With the dope, I mean. She couldn't keep it under control. Any trick came along with a little dope, she'd give it to him for free. Sometimes she'd take off with a guy for days. Jesse beat the hell out of her, a couple of times, but it didn't do anything. She didn't change. Finally Jesse just cut her loose. Now she can't work around here no more. Jesse'd whip her ass till the skin came off if he saw her out here.”

“So where do you think she is?” I asked.

Laura shrugged. “You could always try Jezebel's. I mean, where else is a girl like that gonna go?”

T
he building was a four-story tenement like a million others in Manhattan. I opened the door and went inside. No locks. No one needed them here. It was a building no one had ever loved. The paint had always been gray and the floor had always been cheap scuffed linoleum. Fat old Jezebel was sitting at a little desk right inside the hallway, just like she always was. Her hair was thinner but it was pulled up in the same tight bun, dyed a dark black. Her fat face hung lower but the small mean eyes were the same. Even the shabby black dress was the same, or could have been.

Jezebel's was a place girls go when they're tired of hustling and tired of trying and tired of being pretty and tired of scoring and just plain tired, exhausted and beat. No one's looking for the girls at Jezebel's. No one wants them. Maybe once they had families and friends and fellows, but not anymore. To the rest of the world they're dead already. It's only them that can't see it. It's only the girls themselves who think that somehow, in some way, they still matter. That they're still alive.

You never see any money, if you're a girl at Jezebel's, and that's how you want it. Jezebel comes to your room three times a day and gives you a shot. If she can, she'll shoot you in the foot, so stockings with garters can cover up your sores. If the veins in your feet are no good she'll just do it wherever she can and charge the tricks less. There's a kitchen downstairs with food whenever you want it. Usually no one wants it. A few times a day a girl stumbles in, in a nightgown or a house robe, and eats a few bites of tapioca or vanilla pudding. But you don't need a lot of nourishment to lie in bed all day. The customers who come to Jezebel's don't expect anything else. That's why the girls like it. No “I wish all the guys were as handsome as you,” no “What kind of work do you do, Mr. Smith?” That's for places like Rose's or the Royale. In Jezebel's the girls just lie around all day until they can't take it anymore, and then the ambulance or the coroner's truck comes. No one was locked in. The girls could leave anytime they wanted. They didn't.

I figured I could get in and out of there quick, with or without the girl. Jezebel didn't want any trouble and she didn't want any girls anyone else was looking for.

She looked up at me sharply. She didn't recognize me. I didn't expect her to. Probably ten girls a month came in and out of Jezebel's.

“What do you want?” she said. Her voice was flat and empty—a voice with no voice in it at all. “Well? What?”

I took the picture of Nadine out of my purse and showed it to Jezebel. “Her.”

She looked at the picture for a minute and then back up at me. “What do you want with her?”

“I'm here to take her home.”

Jezebel looked at me for another long minute. Then she stood up and began walking down the hall. I followed. At the end of the hall was a staircase. We didn't go up. We went down, to a dark basement with concrete walls. Bare bulbs hung from the ceiling here and there, giving off just enough light to get the general idea of the place. A few dozen clotheslines were strung around the room from wall to wall. Hanging from them were old sheets, making little nooks of almost-privacy. We walked through the maze of curtains to the back of the room. You could see the curtains rustling and hear the ugly sounds coming from behind. Some of the curtains didn't reach the floor and you could see a foot or a hand hanging off a bed. I tried not to look. I had seen it before, and I didn't need to see it again.

When we reached the wall Jezebel stopped in front of the last curtained-off nook.

“She's in there,” she said. “You want to go in, or you want to wait till he's done?”

I realized the curtain was rustling and a cot was squeaking on the other side.

“I'll wait,” I said. Over a few minutes the squeaking got louder and faster and then stopped. I turned my head. I didn't want to see who was coming out. After a minute I heard the curtain rustle and footsteps walk away.

“Go ahead,” Jezebel said. I would have knocked, but there was nothing to knock on, so I opened the curtain and went in.

Nadine Nelson lay on the bed, staring at the wall. She hadn't bothered to dress or to undress; she wore a yellow satin robe with a Chinese pattern, hanging open from her shoulders, covering her arms. Her hip bones stuck out and her ribs were plain enough to count. She didn't wear anything else.

She glanced at us, and then away, stopping her eyes on the filthy curtain across from her.

“She got any clothes?” I asked Jezebel.

“I can find some,” she said. Before Jezebel walked away I took a twenty out of my purse and handed it to her. “She'll need dope, too,” I said. She nodded and left.

Nadine looked at me, and then back at her favorite stain on the curtain. Her hair was down loose and it was dull and stringy. It hadn't been washed in days, maybe weeks. Her face was covered with a sheen of grease and spotted with pimples.

Jezebel came back with a ratty white summer dress and a pair of worn-out brown mules. She tossed them on the bed, on top of Nadine.

“Put them on,” I told her. Slowly she sat up, and took off the robe, showing arms covered with track marks and sores. Slowly, as if she were lifting a hundred pounds, she pulled the dress over her head and slipped the shoes onto her feet. The dress didn't cover up her arms enough. I took off my jacket and eased her arms into it. It was like picking up a doll. She didn't help and she didn't resist.

Jezebel reached into a pocket of her dress and pulled out a handful of papers. I didn't count them. I figured whatever she gave me was the best I was getting out of her. I took them and put them in my purse. Nadine followed the papers with her eyes, and for the first time I saw an expression on her face. Hunger.

“Come on,” I said to Nadine. “We're going.” She stood up slowly, wobbling a little. I took her arm with my hand, to balance her, and we walked out.

We were halfway to my apartment when I realized Nadine had no idea who I was or where we were going. So I told her the whole story. About how someone hired me and I thought it was her parents and it wasn't, and how I got framed for murder, and how it turned out to be Jim, and he was dead now and this was his car, which was mine now.

“So?” she said at the end. It was the first time she had spoken. Her voice was small and young.

“What do you mean?” I said. We were on my block. I saw an empty spot across the street and I parked the car.