wash is all.”

“If that’s what you pay for, that’s all you get. Now stop worrying about the opposition sex and let’s have those raggedy garnishments you’re wearing.”

A little later the Turtle left with Catell’s suit and shoes. Catell took a steam bath, showered and shaved, and after his massage he went to the locker room. An attendant brought him his pressed suit, clean socks, underwear, and a new shirt. His shoes were polished.

“Your friend left ‘em, with a note.”

Catell read the note: “Dear Anthony. Got tired of waiting. When done come to my place,” and then there was an address. It was signed, “T.”

Catell got dressed and combed his hair. He was feeling good. In the mirror he noticed that his shirt collar was a little big. Either he had lost more weight than he’d realized or the Turtle was constitutionally incapable of buying a shirt that would fit anyone.

Outside, Catell walked fast to keep from shivering. After a few blocks he came to the address on the Turtle’s note and walked in. It was a narrow apartment house converted into a hotel, gloomy and crowded-looking. But it was warm inside. Catell went past the clerk, past a pimply bellhop who was sleeping in a swivel chair, and walked up to the second floor. He stopped before the door with the number 206. Then he heard the movement inside. There was a slight rustle and a low voice. Two voices. The mumbling stopped. Catell stood frozen in the still corridor, a curse twisting his face. What had gone wrong?

He turned carefully and started to walk back to the stairwell when a door at the end of the dim corridor creaked. He flattened himself against the wall, his blood throbbing under his skull. The door clicked shut and a figure came toward the stairwell. It was a man. He looked like a bum, but so what? Then the man turned down the stairs, never looking in Catell’s direction. Licking his dry lips, Catell started to move when the voice behind 206 started to mumble again. Then there was a cackling laugh—the Turtle’s laugh. Catell pushed open the door and looked in. There was no light in the room, just the red reflection from a gas heater that stood near one wall. The light showed the bare legs of a woman who was shaking a skirt down over her head, and it showed the droopy pajamas of a short man. When Catell clicked the door shut, the Turtle turned around, looking surprised.

“Why, Tony, we thought you’d never come. Didn’t we, sweetness?”

The woman had the skirt down now and pulled the zipper over her hip. She was still naked from the waist up, her big breasts making a billowing shadow on the wall. She turned and Catell recognized the whore from the bar.

“For chrissakes, you again?”

“It’s destiny,” said the Turtle. “I always say, don’t try to buck destiny. What do you say, Millie?”

“I say, speaking of a buck—” and she planted her hands on her hips and looked hard at the Turtle.

After the Turtle had given her a bill she picked up her brassiere and slipped the straps over her shoulders. She did it slowly, looking at Catell with a mean look on her face. Catell didn’t think she looked so bad at all, and he leaned back in his chair. He fumbled for a cigarette, looking at the woman in the red light from the heater. She pulled the cups of the brassiere around her breasts and arched her back to hook the clasp. Catell noticed how the big shadow on the wall had changed shape. Then he looked back at her.

“One more look and you pay,” she said to Catell.

He grinned.

“Throw me my blouse, Daisy,” she said.

Catell threw her the thin blouse. She put it on and Catell watched how it buttoned tight across the front.

“Now the shoes. Under your chair, Mary.”

“You don’t need ‘em,” Catell said.

“The shoes, Mary. I’m a respectable woman. I wear shoes.”

“The hell with the shoes. You look more sexy with your feet naked.”

“Come on, faggot, the shoes,” and she stamped her foot.

“Do that again, baby. It makes you wiggle so nice.” Catell grinned at her. She came at him with mouth curled back over her teeth and her loose hair flying. When she reached out to claw at him, Catell caught her wrists and pinned her arms to her sides. Trying to wrench free, she popped a button and the blouse fell open.

“I get more cooperation