Maggie worried about Joey obsessively after leaving her with Dr. Purse, a man she hardly knew—a man who didn’t grimace when Rock spoke of turning Joey out to prostitute in a couple of years. Without seeing or hearing from Joey in almost a week, she worried that they’d been duped, and Rock was going to sell Joey or trade her to another pimp. Maggie wouldn’t rest until Joey was back in Kensington and she could see for herself that the child was alive and well.
Maggie had finished an early shift at Doubles shortly before midnight. When she returned to her apartment Seth was sleeping on the floor with the television blaring. Maggie had just undressed when one of Juju’s friends, another dealer, burst through the door, dragging Juju in with him.
Maggie looked up at her friend, who was splattered in blood.
“What happened?” Maggie screamed so loudly that Seth shot off the floor.
“It’s her finger,” Juju’s dope-dealing friend explained. “They cut it off.”
Maggie rushed over and led Juju to the mattress. “Seth, get me two towels. Hurry!” Maggie demanded.
Maggie unwrapped the shirt that Juju’s friend had fastened around her hand. Maggie assessed the hand quickly. The pinky finger was missing. With blood gushing from the wound, Maggie wrapped the hand in a towel and ordered Seth to follow her.
Maggie and Seth hurried outside with Juju. Once they reached the curb, Maggie flagged down a cab. They jumped into the backseat. “Episcopal Hospital,” Maggie ordered.
“As fast as you can drive,” Seth added.
Juju lay across their laps in the backseat of the cab, while Maggie held her hand up in midair. When they arrived at the hospital ten minutes later, Maggie threw twenty dollars to the driver and rushed Juju inside. When the admitting clerk spotted the blood-soaked towels, she immediately jumped to her feet and brought a wheelchair.
“What happened?” the woman asked as she rushed Juju back to the Emergency Room.
“We don’t know. She came home like this. I think she’s in shock. She won’t talk to us,” Maggie answered.
Just then, a nurse entered the bay and moved Juju onto a gurney. “OK, well, we’re gonna help her. You can go into the waiting room,” the nurse said.
“No, we want to stay with her,” Maggie responded.
The nurse, too tired from her twelve-hour shift to argue, gave in and nodded. “What’s her name?”
“Juju,” Seth told the nurse.
“Juju? Can you hear me, honey? You’re at the hospital. Your friends brought you here, and you’re going to be just fine,” the nurse said.
The nurse moved around the bed and elevated Juju’s legs. Then she put Juju’s arm in a sling that hung just above the bed. She moved quickly, and Maggie felt comfortable that she knew what she was doing. The nurse left the room for a few minutes and came back with several blankets.
“OK,” the nurse said to Juju. “We’re going to keep you nice and warm. This will help stabilize you. The doctor is coming to see you in a couple of minutes. I’m leaving your friends here with you to keep you company.”
When the nurse left the room, Maggie and Seth rushed to Juju’s side.
“Can you hear us?” Seth asked in a scared voice.
Juju turned her head toward him. “Yeah, I can hear you.”
“Oh my God, Juju. How did this happen?” Maggie asked a little too assertively. “Were you playing that stupid game again?”
Maggie figured that Juju had been messing around with some of the other dealers, playing the five-finger filet game. Players placed one hand down on a table with their fingers spread apart and used a knife to stab back and forth between their own fingers, trying not to hit a finger. Maggie had yelled at Juju several times for playing the game. “It’s brainless and only dimwits play it,” she’d said. “So knock it off.”
Tears filled Juju’s eyes, and she slowly shook her head. “No, it was Rock.”
“It was Rock,” Maggie repeated. “Why would Rock do this?”
“Last night, I lost five hundred bucks somewhere. When I brought him money at the end of the night, I let him know there was money missing. He went crazy. Accused me of stealing from him, even though I told him I didn’t. One of his thugs was with him, and he held my hand down on the picnic table in the park. Rock took out his knife and cut my finger off.” Juju paused for a long moment. “Rock said that every night I don’t pay him his five hundred bucks, he’ll cut off another finger.”
“OK, we’ll get the money. Don’t worry. We have about one hundred and fifty dollars saved,” Maggie said, trying to give her comfort.
Juju nodded, but she didn’t believe Maggie could come up with a way to get the rest of the money.
“Don’t worry, Juju. We’ll protect you,” Seth asserted. “We’ll get the money some way, ’cause we can’t let anything happen to ya.” He laid his head on the edge of the gurney.
Hours later, the three left the hospital and headed back to their apartment. The next morning, as Juju slept, Maggie dressed and left the apartment. She was headed to the house of whores to find Rock. When she arrived, the look on Armando’s face was one of pure contempt.
“What the fuck you doin’ here?” Armando asked.
“I’m looking for Rock. I need to talk to him,” Maggie explained in a calm voice, although her insides felt like they were doing the jitterbug.
Armando disappeared into the back room. A couple of minutes later, Rock emerged. He was wearing an evil grin as he approached. “I bet you’re here about Juju, huh?”
“Yeah, I need you to give her more time to get your money. I don’t know how, but we’ll find a way to repay you the five hundred dollars,” Maggie pleaded.
Rock scratched his temple. “I explained to her that she’ll lose a finger every day that I don’t get my money. The way I figure it, she has nine more days to find it before she has two stumps for hands.”
Rock stood firm, his back erect and his chest puffed out. He clearly liked being in control. Maggie scrambled for a way to convince him to give her more time.
“You’ve known her for a long time, and she even saved your life once. Remember? Couldn’t you just give us a few more days? Just this one time?” Maggie asked in a tone that revealed her despair.
“What’s in it for me?” Rock asked, crossing his arms over his chest.
“I don’t know. What do you want?”
“I’m not sure yet. But I’ll tell ya what. I’ll give ya three days to find the money, and later, when the time comes, I’ll tell ya what ya owe me for bein’ so generous.”
Maggie knew it was a bad idea to make a deal without knowing what it was going to cost her. But the alternative was to allow Rock to mutilate Juju’s hands. Her chest was tight. She deliberately paced her breathing so she didn’t hyperventilate. She rocked side to side, considering her options. There was absolutely no one to whom she could turn. Sure, she had friends on the street, but they were either prostitutes or homeless. Finally, she agreed to Rock’s deal.
“OK, you have a deal. Three days, but today doesn’t count,” she boldly demanded.
Rock’s facial features remained rigid, as if he were made of granite. “Yeah, all right. Three days not counting today.”
“OK. I’ll see you in three days,” Maggie confirmed.
Rock grunted and left Maggie in the living room. The other girls had sat there without uttering a word so they could listen to the conversation. As Maggie turned to leave, Trinity, the hooker who’d been so mean to Maggie when she’d first arrived at the house of whores, stood up.
“Looks like ya got yourself in a jam. We all see ya walkin’ around this town like your shit don’t stink. Well, I guess ya just found out there ain’t nothin’ special about ya,” she said mockingly.
Maggie stepped closer to the girl who had caused her so much angst over the years.
“Really? I seem to recall Rock giving me exactly what I wanted. Maybe you should clean the wax out of your ears. Or how about minding your own damn business?” Maggie shot at her.
“Ha! Ya think ya just won wit’ Rock? Ya just wait ’til a monf from now when he screws ya over again,” Trinity threw back in a nasty tone.
“Oh, really, Trinity. Tell me, how long is monf anyway? The word is month!” Maggie said.
Trinity had her hands on her hips. Her nostrils flared. “Fuck you, bitch! Ya need to get the fuck outta my face before I pound ya to death,” she threatened.
“You’re right, Trinity. I’m sorry for whatever I did to you that makes you hate me so much. But you know, maybe you should think about us girls sticking together. Maybe if we stood united, we’d have more say in the things that go on around this town.” Maggie turned on her heel and left the house of whores.
It wasn’t Maggie’s nature to mock people. She learned early on that all of the hookers were pretty much the same, including her. They all lived in hell. They were rarely excited or looked forward to the future. Maggie made it a point to continue to learn as much as she possibly could, but she was an exception. She looked forward to leaving the sex world behind her someday. She wanted to be prepared for what life might bring her, even though in her heart there was little hope that she’d make anything out of herself.
Trinity stood motionless for several minutes after Maggie left the house. At first, it was because she liked the idea of the girls sticking together. But when she saw Rock standing in the doorway, having overhead everything Maggie had said, she couldn’t move because she was afraid of what would come next.