behind mine. I went back and leaned in the window. “What is it?” he asked quietly, looking worried. “I’ve got the guy in there,” I said. “He’s just a kid about nineteen or twenty and he’s all right, but he’s off his rocker about the girl. I think I’ve got him shut up so he won’t do any talking. But here’s the thing. It’s that girl. She’s fifteen.”
“Sweet Jesus! If Soames ever—”
“I know. And it’s straight too. The kid says he’s known her all his life. We’ve got to get her out of there. You got any money on you?”
“A hundred or so. Can you handle it all right?”
“I think so. I’ll take her down the highway and put her on a bus.”
“She’ll just wind up in another cat house somewhere else. So you know about not buying her a ticket into some other state, don’t you?”
“Yes,” I said. “I’m not going to buy her a ticket of any kind if I can help it. I think I know a way to handle it.”
“So she won’t come back?”
“There’s no way to guarantee that. If I work it right, though, she probably won’t.”
He took out his wallet and handed me a couple of fifties and some twenties. “There’s a hundred and sixty. Jack, I’m glad there’s somebody around that office can use his head.”
“Now’s as good a time to tell you as any other,” I said. “I’m quitting as soon as this stink blows over. I don’t like it.”
“No,” he said. “You think it over. I don’t want to lose you.”
“I’ve already thought it over. But we haven’t got time to argue about it now. I’ve got to get back down there.”
“That’s right. I’ll have that kid booked on a vag or something, and as soon as we get the girl out of town well tell him to beat it.”
“O.K.”
I went back to my car and drove down to Abbie Bell’s. The Negro girl came to the door, still looking scared. “Ain’t nobody heah,” she said, trying to close it. “Miss Abbie say ain’t nobody comin’ in heah.”
“I know,” I said, pushing past her. Abbie heard me and came out of the parlor into the hall. She’d got her hair straightened out and had a drink in her hand this time instead of the empty bottle.
“Come on in, Jack,” she said, and then to the maid, “Bring this man a Collins, Kate. And put some gin in it; he’s not a customer.”
We went into the parlor and I closed the door- “God, I’m glad you got rid of that big gorilla, Jack,” she said.
“Never mind. Where’s the girl?”
“Up there in her room still bitching her head off. Did you ever hear such a foul-mouthed little bag in all your life?”
“How did she get in here, Abbie?” I asked curtly. “And how long ago?”
She took a sip of her drink and looked at me with puzzled innocence. “What do you mean, how did she get in here, Jack? She just came in through the front door and said she was a hustler.”
“Do you know how old she is?” I asked.
“How old? Lord, no. Why should I?”
“She’s fifteen.”
“No! Is that all? She looks older than that.”
“Yes,” I said sarcastically. “She looks sixteen.” She lit a cigarette and stared at me with amiable exasperation. “Well, what am I supposed to do, Jack? Send her back to get ripe? She—”
“Didn’t you even ask her how old she was?”
“Of course not. Why the hell should I? Look, Jack, this is a cat house, not a girls’ boarding school. Jesus, if they’re old enough to give it away, they’re old enough to sell—”
I cut her off. “How long’s she been here?”
“I don’t know. Three, four days.”
“Well, she goes out. I’m going to take her clear out of the county and put her on a bus.”
She looked at me and saw I meant it. “Oh, O.K. She’s a pain in the neck, anyway. Stays plastered about half the time, and she never makes any money. She’s so foul-mouthed even the roughnecks can’t stand her.”
“Well, tell her to get her stuff packed.”
“She hasn’t got any stuff. All she had when she came in here was the clothes she was wearing, and that’d better be the way she leaves, too.”
“She had on a kimono a while ago.”
“I gave her that to keep her from running around here naked. It stays. And, by the way,” she went on, “who pays for my door?”