“NEW GUINEA,” SAID THE voice, and there was a gray hillside, a palm tree like a great burnt match and the blackened bodies of midgets in a ditch. “Fried Jap,” the voice called them. An American with sooty face, white eyes and teeth grinned at the camera. “All in a day’s work for this happy GI.”
Hank wanted to meet the GI, have a beer with him, kill Japs with him and feel like brothers. Hank felt funny having the GI out there while he sat safe and cool in the Lyric Theater, sock feet propped on the balcony railing. His half-empty seabag filled the seat beside him. This might be his last trip to the movies for weeks, but Hank fidgeted with the impatience and embarrassment that always came over him during the newsreel. Funny. On the McCoy all he ever thought about was getting into port and getting laid. Now that he was getting laid regularly, and starting a duty where he would do nothing but get laid, all he thought about was getting back to the tin can. He was homesick for familiar faces, crowded quarters and a routine so solid you felt free to grouse about it, like a family, without that grousing leading to distrust or doubt. Hank disliked doubt; it was too much like thinking. And it seemed unclean right now, what with the war and all.
Even one of the cartoons today included the war: a frantic black duck with a Hitler moustache. There was nothing about the war in the feature, but it was about a suffering woman, a secret marriage to a man who soon dies, a baby put up for adoption, and Hank quickly lost interest. Down below and up here in the balcony, the usual men began to move around.
Hank had been coming here regularly since his release from the brig a month ago, while he lived at the Y and waited for the Navy to make up its mind. Hurry up and wait, as they said, and it was already June. Coming to this theater was what had gotten him into trouble in the first place, but Hank liked to stick to places he knew. He needed at least one familiar landmark in his life now that everything else was confusion. And he was lonely, a little nervous—about what, he wasn’t sure—and bored. Sex was a fine way of forgetting yourself for an hour or so. He was more watchful now, more careful where he went and with whom. This city wasn’t as free and easy as he had thought that first day, but a little caution was all Hank needed to have a good time. There had been a couple of guys who were so much fun naked that Hank saw them more than once before they left town or simply disappeared. The city was a giant railroad depot that people passed through on their way to the war. Only Hank remained behind.
A young man suddenly sat in the aisle seat beside him. The young man squirmed, tapped his fingers on his knees, then promptly got up again. Hank turned to watch the slender silhouette climb the aisle toward the smokey projector beam that fanned overhead. There wasn’t enough time before he met Commander Mason. Hank had come here today only because he had nowhere else to go after checking out of the Y. And maybe as a way of saying goodbye to the place. When he couldn’t follow the young man, Hank suddenly resented what the Navy was doing with him, but only for a moment.
They had chosen Hank and nobody else for their special assignment. He wanted to be proud of that, but it still felt peculiar. What he did with whom had always been as private as what he dreamed when he was asleep—and usually as impossible to keep track of. But people were suddenly treating his sex life as something that made Hank odd and useful. He wasn’t accustomed to so much attention, especially from people who had no intention of going to bed with him. Over the past month, Mason had met twice with Hank, privately. They met in the bar at the Hotel Astor, which was around the corner and seemed to have its share of men like Hank. The first time, Hank couldn’t help wondering if the commander, who came dressed in civvies, wanted to get laid himself. But no, the officer was all cold curiosity beneath his oily smiles, as impersonal as a Navy doctor sticking his finger up your ass. He met Hank in secret because agents might be watching the building and would notice the comings and goings of someone as distinctive as Hank, or so he said. Hank preferred to believe him. He disliked Mason, disliked his way of repeating over and over what was expected of Hank, as if Hank were too stupid to remember.
But none of that should matter. There was a war on and Hank wanted to help them catch their spies as quickly as possible, so he could get back to the McCoy. His only real crime, Hank thought, was slugging that Shore Patrol—this sex business was only a sideline, an accident. Working at this house should square away his trouble with the Shore Patrol. That should be more important to him now than any uneasiness over the Navy’s interest in his sex life. And the war took all kinds of unimportant, personal things and made them important. Kitchen fats, old tin cans, newspapers—why not sex?
The movie was not quite over when Hank put his shoes back on and left. There were the usual pairs of men talking in the balcony lobby. Goodbye, thought Hank, and wondered what it was going to be like going to bed with guys he might not like. Downstairs, he passed a buxom young woman chatting with the brass-buttoned usher who took tickets. Hank had seen her before, usually in the lobby, although she didn’t seem to work here. She looked ladylike enough, despite her thick mascara and lipstick, but Hank wondered if she was one of those girls who preyed on sailors. Well, he was going to prey on sailors himself, wasn’t he? She glanced up as he went out the door, stared for an instant, then quickly averted her eyes, as if ashamed.
It was already night. Half the little lights beneath the marquee were out and the streetlights were dimmed, but there was still enough illumination along the sidewalks for Forty-second Street to look like a state fair. Hank had forgotten how warm it was outside. Civilians in their shirtsleeves jostled with packs of servicemen. Doors and windows were wide open. A bouncy song on the radio faded in, then out as Hank walked past a smoke shop. Bells fired away inside a penny arcade where kids in white T-shirts crowded with servicemen around the pinball machines. There was the smell of french fries, then chop suey, then, when Hank passed a group of women filing their nails outside a bar, perfume. A checkered man in a doorway tried to shout Hank into his store to sell him a suit. “Easy credit! Wide lapels! The babes will hoot when they see your zoot!” Seabag on his shoulder, Hank only shook his head and headed toward the Hotel Astor. He had learned you didn’t have to stop and explain to these people why you weren’t buying.
Broadway was just as crowded but not nearly as bright. The Astor bar was off-limits to servicemen unless they were accompanied by an officer or civilian. Hank was in his whites, so he stood outside and waited for Commander Mason. Two or three stories above the street, Times Square faded into darkness. The enormous signs that had been a blaze of light a month ago, before the brownout, now loomed black and sinister above the shuttling streetcars and taxis. The Planter’s Peanut sign was just a few black lines against the night sky. So much darkness made Hank think of home. You could even make out a few stars overhead.
People stopped along the curb to read the news bulletins that flickered across the electric sign around the Times Building. Nothing new: Germans in Russia, Germans in T O B R U K, whatever that was, Japs on islands whose names sounded just as made-up. Hank leaned against the hotel, reading what he could. He didn’t see Commander Mason anywhere. Then a short civilian with a big head and thinning hair stopped in front of him and frowned.
“Fayette,” the man finally said.
Hank dropped his bag and saluted. “Sorry, sir. I was expecting Commander Mason, sir.” But he didn’t recognize this man.
The man didn’t return his salute. “Do not salute me. I am not an officer. And don’t call me ‘sir.’ He wore a shiny black raincoat, even though it didn’t look like rain. Light flashed on a pair of eyeglasses when he glanced left and right. “Commander Mason cannot be seen going to this place. So he sent me to take you there.”
Hank recognized him. It was the enlisted man who had been in Mason’s office that day. Mason’s secretary or assistant, or whatever the Navy might call him. Hank was relieved. He felt more comfortable with other enlisted men. “Yeah? Okey-dokey. I guess you’re gonna be the one who visits me at this house?” Mason had mentioned someone coming to see Hank.
“Yes,” the man said curtly. “Are you ready? Let’s get done with this.” He stepped away and raised one arm to hail a cab.
The man sounded angry about something, and foreign. Not quite foreign-foreign, but Yankee-foreign, educated-foreign. He was as wooden as a new ensign. He didn’t look at Hank when they got into a taxi, and didn’t speak to him as they drove away from Times Square. All the windows were rolled down and the cool night air eddied in the back of the cab. The roof was so high Hank’s cap didn’t scrub the ceiling.
“Oh, I’m Hank. Since we’re going to be working together,” Hank told the man.
The man placed a finger to his lips and nodded at the driver’s cropped neck.
But Hank saw no need for silence and, anyway, this guy was no officer. “So what should I call you, mister? I got to call you something.”
The man sighed irritably. “Oh. Jones.”
Hank began to giggle. The man was so solemn it was funny. “But they’re all called Jones! I’ll get you mixed up with all the others.”
The man glanced at Hank, then faced forward again. He sat straighter than ever. “Erich, then.” It must have been his real name, because he hurriedly added, “Or whatever you like, it’s of no importance.”
Hank got the feeling that the man was afraid of him. If it was because Hank liked men, the man had nothing to worry about there. Erich’s face was soft like a boy’s, but he looked kind of doughy. And Hank never wasted his time on guys who weren’t openly interested; it was too much work. Still, feeling the man’s fear made Hank more comfortable with Erich, amused and almost protective towards him. Nervousness was warmer than Mason’s cool, insulting cheerfulness.
The taxi turned down a narrow side street where the streetlights were out and the only light came from tenement windows and doors and the taxi’s headlights. People sat on stoops and hung out windows, all of them turning their heads to see a taxicab go down their street. After another block, there were no people, only lettered warehouse walls and shed roofs like long porches. The taxi bounced and flew out of the street into an open space as dark and dead as Hades. Erich told the driver to stop.
“Middle of nowhere,” said the driver, but he pulled to a halt and flicked on the light. Everything outside the cab went black. “Mind if I ask what ya fellas are lookin’ for?”
“Yes, I do mind,” said Erich. “How much do we owe you?”
The driver told him, then wearily added, “Nope, none of my beeswax, bub. Just thought this place might be handy to know if I got more fellas who asked where they could go with their boyfriends.”
Dimes and nickels fell from Erich’s hand. He rapidly swept them off the floor, then jingled them into the driver’s palm and stepped out, blushing.
Hank stepped out, pulling his seabag after him and smiling over Erich’s embarrassment. You might have thought they were going to have a party and this was the guy’s first time.
The taxi’s taillights swung out and away, floated in the darkness and vanished.
Hank and Erich stood beside the hulk of a flatbed truck and a horse-drawn wagon without a horse. The first light Hank saw was a single bulb burning over a loading dock in the distance. The pattern of cobblestones toward the dock gleamed like fishscales.
“Don’t be alarmed,” said Erich nervously. “The house is over here.” He took a step toward the far side of the square, and tripped. The man had no night vision.
Hank followed, hearing their footsteps and the whistle of Erich’s raincoat. There was starlight, once Hank’s eyes had time to adjust. Except for the hard, lopsided pavement, Hank felt as if he was walking the back streets of Beaumont again. He could smell the river, then—chickens? He inhaled a feathered, limey stink of chickens. “Hey. I think I’ve been here before.”
“Yes.” Erich sounded ashamed. “You have.”
Hank stopped and looked at the horizon of roofs against the stars, turned and saw a high, black warehouse that was big enough for the Coca Cola sign he had seen when there was light. “Yeah, we came from a different direction, so I didn’t—” He suddenly turned on Erich. “Jesus peezus! It’s gonna be the place where I got arrested!”
Erich stood ten feet away. His raincoat rustled. “They could not tell you before, in case plans were changed. They could not have you coming here before it was time.” Erich coughed into his hand. “I don’t see why any of this should matter to you. A brothel is a brothel.”
“Yeah? No. I guess.” It shouldn’t matter, but the secrecy of it bothered Hank. He was to work for them, find them secrets, and they kept secrets from him? Hank didn’t know what to make of that.
They were walking again and a bundle of narrow houses climbed up against the starry sky in front of them. Hank recognized the house, although all three stories of windows were blacked out, as if the place had been abandoned since his arrest. As they stepped to the right, a red light appeared just inside the doorway, glowing on a closed door and two signs: “Rooms To Let” and “No Vacancies.” There was a faint hum of machinery coming over the roofs, from the direction of the river.
“Please wait here,” said Erich. “Or you might walk once around the block. We shouldn’t be seen arriving together.”
“How come? Is there something else I’m not supposed to know about?”
Erich looked up at Hank, narrowed his eyes at Hank, startled by his question. “Uh, what makes you think that, Hank?” It was the first time he’d spoken his name, and he said it as if he was talking to a child.
“Nobody ever told me it was gonna be this place. A fella can’t help wondering what else you’re not telling him.”
“Oh? Of course,” said Erich. “If it had been up to me, I would have told you. But you know the brass. Who can understand why they do half of what they do?” He glanced at the house, then behind them, then continued to glance around while he spoke. “We cannot discuss this here, Hank. But they have their reasons. And they’re looking after your well-being, as well as the well-being of their—our country. I know no more than you do. But we owe it to our country to trust them.”
Hank had expected a simple, straightforward answer. He couldn’t understand why Erich had dragged their country into this. Of course he trusted his country.
“If it will put you at ease, we can enter together. Is that satisfactory?”
“I guess,” said Hank, although that wasn’t exactly what bothered him.
Erich drew a deep breath and went up the stairs to the door. He looked as if he was still blushing. It was only the red light on his smooth face, but Hank wondered if that was what suddenly made everything seem secret and fishy: Erich’s nervousness at being mistaken for one of “them.” Erich’s small hand reached out from his raincoat and rang the bell.
High heels clicked up to the door. The window behind the brass grill opened.
“Mrs. Bosch? We are the friends of Mr. Mason?” said Erich.
“Mr. Mason? I am not knowning any Mr. Mason,” said the voice behind the grill.
Erich cleared his throat. “Mason, Mason?” he repeated. He went up on his toes and furiously whispered at the grill, “Commander Mason?”
“Oh, Commander Mason,” the voice loudly sang. “Of course. Come eeen, come eeen.” And the door was opened by the long, ugly woman Hank remembered from his first visit. She wore a fancy silk party dress tonight, and had a gardenia in her hair. “Why didn’t you say you were from the commander?”
“Because we don’t want the whole world knowing.” Erich peered into the hallway before he stepped inside. He angrily waved Hank in and pulled the door shut. He stood there for a moment and listened. There was music upstairs.
Hank recognized the hallway, although he didn’t remember the new brass lamp that sat on a table against the wall, or the framed prints of dogs playing poker. He suddenly remembered sex, and the black-haired soldier who had danced the samba. Hank wondered if the soldier would find his way back here, too. That would be nice.
“You are the one?” the woman said to Hank.
“Uh, yes’m.”
“Ah! You are a nice big one.”
“You don’t remember him?” said Erich. “From the night you were raided?”
She squinted at Hank and looked him up and down, frowning with her big, painted mouth. She shrugged. “All these sayloors look alike to me. But you were here?” she asked Hank. “You poor boy. What a scare they give us. But that will never happen again. Will it, Officer?”
“I am your bookkeeper,” hissed Erich. “Mr. Zeitlin? Anyway, I’m not an officer.”
“Whatever. We will be as safe as we are in church.”
“Where is everybody?” Hank asked. He noticed no noise coming from behind the closed door to what he remembered was the parlor.
“Oh, things have changed since your visit,” the woman announced proudly. “I have expanded my business. It is all upstairs now, both floors. I use this floor for my offices and home. So people who drop by will not be seeing too much. Here, come into my offices and we will do what needs to be done.”
She opened the parlor door and bowed them inside. It wasn’t a parlor anymore. A green-shaded lamp cast its light on an opened rolltop desk, a green blotter, and an abacus. And a fat, moonfaced man in a white suit.
Erich froze and the woman had to push her way around him.
“Carlo!” she snapped at the fat man. “I told you to get out. I have no time for you now. I have business with my…bookkeeper.”
“But cara. Please.” The man was hoisting himself out of the chair beside the desk. “Two hundred dollars. If I don’t pay them tonight, they say they’ll break my legs.”
“Your gambling debts are no concern of mine.”
“You can’t loan me a little two hundred dollars? After all I’ve done for you?”
“You think I am made of money?”
“Valeska. Angel-blossom.” He stepped up to her, stroked her shoulders and kissed her neck. “For old time’s sake?”
The woman remained as hard as an axe, her thick red mouth pursed.
“Mrs. Bosch,” said Erich, “can’t this wait until we finish going over your accounts?”
“I will be with you shortly,” she told him and let Carlo kiss and stroke her a moment more. “Very well,” she told Carlo. “I will loan you money.”
“Oh, thank you, dearest, sweetest, kindest…” He kissed the hand and arm she held out to him while she turned her back to the others and fished out keys from somewhere on her person. He released her only when she went to the desk and unlocked a little door there.
“But two hundred is much too dear for me,” she said, pulling out a cash box and unlocking it. “I give you one hundred.”
“But, Valeska! I need two. If they don’t get the full amount, they’ll make me a cripple!”
“Nonsense.” She licked her fingers and counted out bills. “This will make them happy. What can they do?” She began to laugh. “Break just one of your legs?”
“It’s not funny, Val. You don’t know these people.”
“Then you are not wanting my little hundred?”
He grabbed her hand before she could return the money to the box. “I didn’t say that. I am grateful for this much. I am so grateful.” He kissed the hand that held the money until she let him take the bills. “I don’t know how I’ll ever repay you, my dearest rosebud.”
“You’ll repay me as you always do. At fifty percent. Now run along to your gambler friends. I have business with my bookkeeper.”
“Of course, my lamb. Certainly.” He bowed and backed away from her—and bumped into Hank. “I beg your pardon. I…Valeska? Should I take this young man upstairs before I go? Introduce him to the others?”
“No, Carlo. Run along. I will take care of him.”
Carlo nodded and left, delicately closing the door. They heard the front door immediately open and slam behind him.
“I thought,” said Erich through his teeth, “that nobody else would know about this.”
“That Carlo,” Mrs. Bosch sighed. “Not to worry about him. He doesn’t suspect a thing. He only hangs about and finds me customers sometimes. I help him out only because he was my second husband.” She locked her cashbox, returned it to its slot in the desk, then locked the little door. “Poor Carlo. I hope they don’t hurt him too much.”
Erich righteously cleared his throat. “Do you have any questions, Mrs. Bosch? If not, I’ll be on my way.”
“Not so fast. There are things I have to clear up, before I accept this bill of goods.” She faced Hank. “So. You are a cocksucker?”
Hank lightly nodded. It had been strange enough with Mason, who had fancy words for it, but to hear the real words from a woman? He had felt funny around her the first time, and was just as uncomfortable with her now.
“You’re forgetting he was here before,” said Erich. “He might not look like a homosexual, but you shouldn’t be fooled by his appearance.”
“You do not have to tell me that. They come in all shapes and sizes.” She poked Hank’s arms and stomach. “Hmmm. He is beefy. Turn, please. Yes. Very All American.”
“Are you going to check his teeth, too?”
“His teeth? His teeth are not my concern.” But she pinched the corners of his mouth to take a quick look.
Hank glanced at Erich. Erich had made a joke, which was a surprise, and the joke suggested Erich was on Hank’s side after all. But when Hank looked at him, Erich still avoided his eyes. Erich looked straight at Mrs. Bosch, although it was obvious he didn’t like her at all.
“And you are a cocksucker? This is not something they are ordering you to do? Because it must be sincere. It is not something a man can fake, when push comes to shove. And do the customers complain?” she sang. “You have fucked with many men?”
“Yes ma’m.”
“Are you clean?”
“Madam!” said Erich. “This is unnecessary. Do you think they would choose a man who was infected, or who wasn’t a deviate?”
Mrs. Bosch shrugged. “What does the Navy know from whorehouses? Have you ever had the clap, young man?”
“Once,” Hank admitted. “But they fixed me up with something and I’m fine now.”
“Show me.” She gestured at his crotch.
“Please,” said Erich. “Can’t this wait until after I leave?”
“No. Because if your man is diseased, I’m sending him back with you. One man, and my house will be clapped out of business in a month. Come on, mister. Open up.”
Hank was grimacing but he began to unbutton his fly. He shifted around so his back was to Erich. He didn’t want this to be any more embarrassing for the two of them than it already was.
“What a nice one. Does that hurt?” She squeezed. “Now pull the skin back. Hmmm. Looks plenty healthy. You can put him away.”
“Satisfied?” said Erich.
“For now.” She looked for a place to wipe her hand and rubbed it against Hank’s blouse. “But we will have to see him at work before we can be certain.”
“What are you suggesting? That you bring one of your boys in here and have them perform for you?”
Mrs. Bosch laughed. “What an idea, Mr. Zeitlin. Oh, no. All I need is a week or two to see how he gets on with my customers. If he doesn’t, I can send him back, right?”
“Yes. Only he’ll do fine here. Won’t you, Fayette?”
“I’ll do my damnedest,” said Hank, and tried to get the man to look into his eyes, without success.
Erich quickly went over the instructions again, for Mrs. Bosch’s benefit as well as Hank’s. With customers, Hank was to say he was still in the Navy. With the others who worked at the house, he was to say he had been kicked out. Nobody, absolutely nobody, was to know his real purpose in being there. Erich would visit the house every Monday afternoon, but Hank was to telephone a special number if anything important came up between meetings—meaning encounters with suspected German agents, which could not be mentioned in front of Mrs. Bosch. Erich asked if Hank had any last questions, took another promise of secrecy from Mrs. Bosch and said he was going.
“Aren’t you forgetting something, Erich?” asked Hank.
“What?”
“Aren’t you going to wish me luck?”
The request startled Erich. He stared into Hank’s eyes, hard, as if he was trying to see through his eyes to his thoughts. “Of course,” he mumbled and held out his hand. His gaze slid from Hank’s, but the grip of his small hand was tight, desperate, like the grip of a civilian who thought that, just because you were in the service, you were going to die and he had to say goodbye to you in the name of the whole world.
“Goodbye,” said Erich and hurried out of the room. The front door was slammed very hard.
Such nerves and shyness and coolness, ending in a painful goodbye when they’d be seeing each other in less than a week? Hank could come up with only one explanation: the boyish little man was falling in love with him. Which was a bother, but kind of touching, too. It was a relief to realize all the man’s strangeness was caused by something so simple. It would pass.
“Now, we talk. Just you and me,” said Mrs. Bosch. She stood in front of Hank, clasped her hands together and told Hank he was to call her “Valeska” and look upon her as a big sister. “We are all a family here.” She explained that seventy-five percent of anything paid Hank was to be given to her. In exchange, she would provide him with bed and board. He was to be her “special boy,” the only one who actually lived in the house, and she trusted he would provide services that would justify his special standing. All her other boys lived outside, dropped in on their own or were sent for when business was heavy. Boys being boys, they had only so many performances in them per night. “Sometimes I wish I am dealing in girls instead. All a girl has to do is lie there, no matter how tired she is. But that line is all full up. And those girls can be so catty. I luf my ‘gay’ boys.”
She told him the house rules, duty hours, times for meals—he was to eat in the kitchen with her houseboy. He would have his own room, which he was to keep clean. “My houseboy can’t do everything, what with cooking and laundry. I get him now and he will take you to your room. Afterwards, I will introduce you to my boys.” She pressed a button on the wall and an electric bell rang in the hall. “One more thing. What you do for Uncle Sam is no concern of mine. My lips are sealed. But while you are living here, I am boss. Understood?”
“Yes, ma’m.”
She nodded, then abruptly pitched forward, threw her arms around Hank and whispered, “You will never tell them anything that might hurt our poor Valeska?”
Her embrace was all bone and sinew. Hank stood there, stunned, looking into the wiry hair and white gardenia just inside his focus. “No’m,” he said.
“You want something, Miz Bosch?”
The woman released Hank and they both turned. The door had been opened by a colored boy with straight, shiny hair. It looked like the boy from the night of the raid.
“We have a new member. This is…What is your name?”
Hank told her, while he watched the boy, pleased to find a familiar face here, even a black one.
“Hank will be living here. I want you to take him up to Leo’s old room, show him where everything is and bring him to the sitting room.”
Juke sneered and nodded. “This way, honey. And take your own bag, I ain’t no—” He had seen only a white uniform. Now he saw Hank’s face. “Blondie? You?”
“You were here the night we all got arrested,” said Hank.
“Uh huh. Wahl hush mah mouth,” said Juke, mocking Hank’s accent. “What’re you doing back at this toilet?”
“You know my houseboy?” asked Valeska.
“Well, kinda.” Hank didn’t know why he should be pleased to see the boy again. He had only gotten Hank deeper into grief that night, when Hank slugged the Shore Patrol. But he was a face from the past, which was something.
“Then I am not needing to tell you not to be taking any lip from him. If he gives you trouble, you tell me. He works here only because I am protecting him from reform school and the police.”
“And ’cause I’m cheap,” Juke muttered.
Valeska pretended not to hear. “Go. I will come up shortly.”
Hank lifted his seabag and followed the boy out into the hall. It was funny, using a colored to make yourself feel at home when life turns strange on you. But Hank knew he had to be careful. Seeing a casual acquaintance again, in the right circumstances, could turn you into old friends, which Hank couldn’t afford right now. It was a good thing the boy was colored.
“So you found me again, Blondie. You must have hunted high and low, but you finally sniffed me out. You can’t guess what it means to a girl to be loved like that.”
“Shit. I forgot you even existed.” Hank wondered if this would complicate things. Nobody was supposed to know who he was, or who he had been.
“Doll face. You still can’t tell when somebody’s pulling your leg? Not to be confused with pulling something else. Up the stairs here. Just follow my twitchy behind.”
Hank followed Juke, ducking where the ceiling lowered. “How come you’re still here? Getting arrested didn’t cure you of whorehouses, boy?”
“Me and fancy houses suit each other fine. You’re one to talk, Blondie. The Navy know you’ve turned professional?”
“No. I…” But Hank realized he could use the fact that Juke had been here that night. “They kicked me out. After the raid. I’m wearing these because they’re the only clothes I have to my name.” Juke would gossip; word would get around. Lying didn’t come naturally to Hank, but he would have to learn to lie here, just as he had to learn how to be alone and not trust anyone.
“Save those whites, baby. Johns go ape over sailors. But they gave you your walking papers? My, my. We queens are safe nowhere, are we, honey?”
They passed the music Hank had heard downstairs, coming from behind a closed door on the second floor. They started up another flight of stairs.
“So what happened to you after the raid?” said Hank. He had never talked so much to a colored, but he needed to talk to someone and better a colored than someone you might take seriously.
“They put my sweet ass on ice. Jail. For a month. Nothing they could charge me with but public nuisance. That’s their word for queen. Then they give me to a parole officer and he gives me back to the Witch-woman. For a fee. Mrs. Simon LeGreedy. So she’s got that to hold over me, but there’s ways of tricking around her. She’s twice as smart as the bimbos here think she is, but only half as smart as she thinks she is. You make friends with old Juke here and he can make it worth your while.” They were on the third floor now, in a hallway where the wallpaper was faded and peeling. Juke reached inside an open door and turned on a light. “Here we are, Blondie. The honeymoon suite.”
The room wasn’t much. A hospital bed and a deal cupboard, a bare lightbulb hanging on a cord, a chipped bedpan on the painted floor. There was a curled picture of Tarzan, clipped from a magazine and tacked to the wall. A canvas shade was pulled over the window.
“You’re lucky you’re in the back. Windows up front are painted over for the blackouts and farmers start pulling up at five every morning to set up their market out front. Hard for a girl to get much beauty sleep before noon. But all that racket should make you feel right at home, farmboy.”
Hank tossed his seabag in the corner and opened the top drawer of the cupboard. The bottom was lined with old newspaper—a black and yellow debutante ate cake—and was empty except for the blade of a safety razor and a racing form.
“Leo, the guy whose room this was,” said Juke, “was caught trying to break into the Witch-woman’s money box. He got arrested for dodging the draft a week later. The Witch-woman’s got friends in high places somewhere. I don’t know who, but some big deal’s got his finger in this pie.”
“Uh huh.” Hank didn’t look at Juke, afraid the answer showed in his eyes. He wished the boy would leave him in peace, so he could have time to tuck away his thoughts before he faced the others.
But Juke continued to stand in the doorway, arms crossed over his chest, hands on his shoulders. “Hey, Blondie,” he suddenly said. “Don’t think I forgot you decked that Shore Patrol for me. Didn’t do me much good. But don’t think I forgot.”
Hank looked up. The boy sounded sincere. “Nothing to remember. I would’ve done it for anyone.”
“Yeah? Yeah, I think you would’ve. Anyway, I remember.”
They looked at one another, neither of them wanting to say aloud that one might have cause to be grateful to the other.
Then Juke undid himself from his arms and put one hand on his hip. “So shake your ass, honey. We haven’t got all night. The Witch-woman wants you in her sitting room, pronto. Save your douche for later.”
Hank couldn’t help smiling. This boy was so funny, so strange. His girlishness made him seem perfectly harmless. It might be good having him here for company. The boy seemed faithful enough, even trustworthy. It would be good for Hank’s soul having him around. Like having a dog.