Free Brides Of The Impaler by Edward Lee

with a gold lid. “It cost five hundred dollars, the sign said.”
    “Huh?” Francy, Sandrine, and Scab said in unison.
    “Yeah. It’s the best. I reached around and stole it when the guy wasn’t looking. They had red ones and white ones, too, but I think the black looks better.”
    “Gimme that!” Francy said and snatched the little jar. She opened it and smeared some over her eyelids, but then winced. “This stuff stinks! You sure this is eye shadow?”
    “Well, yeah, I think-I think-I think-I—”
    “Be quiet!”
    Scab took the bottle; she could read better than the others.
    “Only thing was weird is they had it in a refrigerator,” Stutty remembered.
    “Eye shadow?” Sandrine said.
    Scab read the tiny words on the lid, chuckling, “Product of the Ukraine. Beluga caviar—”
    “You didn’t steal eye shadow, you dick! You stole fish eggs!” Francy grimaced, wiping her eyes. Scab shook her head and threw the $500-per-half-ounce jar against the wall.
    Stutty liked to talk, so she kept talking, “Oh-oh-ohoh—”
    “Be quiet!” Francy yelled.
    “I saw the hooker from last night—in a car,” Stutty finally said.

    “Who?”
    “You know, that ho who saw us run out of the hardware store last night-last night-last—” But then she pinched her lips shut.
    “So what?” Sandrine huffed. “We got away with it, and the New Mother’ll be happy with us.”
    But Francy seemed concerned. She picked at a scab on her foot. “You saw her…in a car? Was it…a police car?”
    “I think it was. It was unmarked but the two guys in it looked like plainclothes cops, and they were all looking around, like the ho was telling them to.”
    Francy smelled like fish eggs now. Her eyes locked on Stutty. “Did they see you?”
    “Nope-nope-nope-nope—–”
    “Be quiet!”
    “They didn’t see me ’cos I hid behind the newsstand.”
    “Good.”
    “And then I saw the New Mother—”
    “You did not!” Sandrine insisted.
    “The New Mother only comes out at night,” Scab corrected in a singsong voice.
    “I only saw her for a second, in a shadow!” Stutty challenged this affront to her credulity. “She can do that, she told us she could!”
    “Sub…cuh-poor,” Francy began, her lips struggling. “Subcor—Shit! I can never pronounce the word!”
    “Subcorporeal,” Scab said. “So Stutty really did see her.”
    Stutty fumed, “Then don’t call me a liar-a liar-a—”
    Francy pointed a finger at her.
    Stutty calmed down again, but kept talking. “I saw her right after I saw the hooker with those cops, and right after that, that’s when I saw the woman in the house friggin’ herself in the window.”
    “She gave me hot dog money today,” Sandrine said. “She seemed nice.”
    “Then where’s the hot dogs?” Francy complained.

    “I…ate ’em…”
    “Shit-wad!”
    Scuffing could be heard. The four girls’ eyes widened in the candlelight as they all turned their heads toward the hole.
    “It’s the New Mother,” someone whispered.
    “Aw, no it ain’t!” Francy griped. “It’s just Virginia…”
    “Hi,” the dirty-elbowed girl peeped when she crawled in and sat up. She had one ear cut off from a crack dealer who didn’t like her, and wore cutoff sweatpants and a Yankees shirt. She switched from crack to smack, depending on availability but more often than not—and like a lot of them—the one component in her existence that was even less available than drugs was money. Her looks were far too gone now to get many tricks. “Ya got any food?”
    “Sardines,” Stutty said.
    “Anchovies!” Francy yelled. “You think anchovies are sardines and fish eggs are fuckin’ eye shadow!”
    Scab and Sandrine laughed.
    “I do not-do not-do-do—”
    “Be quiet!” Francy yelled so loud her glasses flew off.
    “You’re not one of us, Virginia,” Scab said, “so we can’t give you our food—”
    —but then they all froze as a shadow like smoke seemed to sift around them. Soon they