Free Dope by Sara Gran

looked at it for a while. Then I quietly got up, took a twenty-dollar bill from my purse, and put it in the little pouch. I lay Yonah down on the bed and left, shutting the door behind me.

Chapter Eight
    T he Royale was on Forty-seventh Street off of Ninth Avenue. It used to be a real theater, and the outside still had the old plaster decoration, mermaids and Egyptians and waves, a whole hodgepodge that maybe somehow made sense together back in the twenties, when the place was built. But instead of the name of a show, the marquis said: Girls! Girls! Girls! Live Revue Inside! You walked into the lobby and the first thing you saw, just like the sign said, was girls. The dancers stood around the lobby in between their acts to lure the fellows inside. They stood up straight and flashed big smiles and wore shiny lipstick, but they weren’t pretty. It was a hard life, and it aged you fast. They still wore their stage dresses, spangly evening gowns rigged up to come off easy, and in the light you could see that they were stained, and half the sequins had fallen off. They smoked cigarettes and tried to look cheerful, enforced by a guy in a cheap tux about two inches shorter than me. Two of the girls whispered to each other about a third.
    â€œShe’s such a bitch.”
    â€œI know. Over a goddamned hairpin, can you believe it?”
    â€œShe’s always been like that. She’s a whore. You can’t let it get to you. . . .”
    When I tried to walk through the door into the theater the cheap tux stopped me. “Sorry,” he said, with a good long leer. “No single ladies allowed.”
    That was standard in these joints, to keep out the streetwalkers. They didn’t want the competition.
    â€œI’m here on business,” I told him. “Business with the management.”
    He looked me up and down. “They ain’t hiring.”
    â€œGee, now you’ve hurt my feelings,” I said, “but it ain’t that kind of business.”
    â€œWell then, what kind of business?”
    â€œThe kind that’s none of your business at all.”
    He tried another angle. “You know there’s a two-drink minimum. That’s one for you and one for a girl.”
    â€œTwo whole drinks?” I asked. “I think I can handle it.”
    â€œI don’t know,” he said. “The drinks in there ain’t cheap. And I got word from the boss—no single ladies inside. Not unless . . .”
    I took a dollar out of my purse and handed it to him. He took the dollar and looked at it real close before he crumpled it up and put it in his pocket.
    â€œYou know,” I told him, “a gypsy once told me that it was bad luck, to crumple your money up like that.”
    â€œYeah, like I need advice from you,” he said, stepping aside to let me in. But he did take the bill back out of his pocket and smooth it out between his fingers before he put it away again.
    Inside the lights were dim and had a red tint. The big stage had been left in place and a woman stood up there now doing something like a shimmy in a white dress. You wouldn’t exactly call it dancing. Behind her, a band that looked barely alive finished up their daily dose of “Blue Moon” and began “Stardust.” On the floor, the rows of seats had been torn out and replaced by tables and chairs. A few men sat near the stage and watched, as if there was really a show going on. But at most of the tables there were girls, sitting alone or with men or with each other. That was the real attraction. They’d spend a few minutes each day on stage and the rest hustling guys for drinks and whatever else they could get out of them.
    Nadine had been going pretty quickly downhill. From Rose’s to here. Next was just good old-fashioned turning tricks on the streets.
    A woman stepped out from behind the bar and headed my way. She was a tall brunette around my age with a hard face, wearing a tight