Free Red Light Wives by Mary Monroe Page A

hoped would happen right away. I thought that a child by Bo, even one with Bo’s cross eyes and plain features, would strengthen my feelings for him.
    Bo had kept in touch with a few of his old friends in San Francisco. The man who had agreed to put us up until we found a place, had suddenly been offered a job in Alaska. He was gone by the time we arrived so we had no choice but to check into a motel. To save money, we chose the cheapest one we could find. From the looks of the run-down neighborhood, I could see why the tacky motel we’d picked was so cheap. We were in the heart of the ghetto.
    There was a lot of mess going on outside in the motel parking lot when we checked into The Do-Drop Inn. Aggressive homeless people wandered around demanding money. Angry-looking people screamed at other angry people, while young boys walked around hugging huge radios blasting music that sounded like nothing but a lot of noise. About an hour after we checked in, Bo offered to go get us something to eat and drink from an all-night convenience store at the corner.
    â€œWait for my hair to dry and I’ll go with you,” I said, walking out of the dank bathroom with a towel around my head.
    â€œNo, you stay right here and warm the bed until I get back,” he insisted. “I ain’t goin’ to set around waitin’,” Bo snapped, nodding toward the bed. “Now you just get in that bed and be ready for me when I get back.” That was the last thing he would ever say to me.
    The eleven o’clock news had just gone off. I clicked off the shit-box of a television, because it kept going off by itself anyway. The noise from my blow-dryer kept me from hearing some of the noise outside, but it didn’t drown out the yip yip of a siren that seemed to be getting closer and closer.
    I looked at my watch. Bo had only been gone a few minutes. I finally cracked open the door and looked out. I couldn’t see what was going on because a huge, rough-looking crowd had gathered in the parking lot. In addition to an ambulance, several police cars were present. Feeling that I would be safe with a bunch of cops running around, I went out to investigate. And that’s when I saw Bo on the ground, with blood trailing behind him. He was on his belly, crawling like a snake, trying to get back to me.
    I froze in my tracks. As long as I live, I will never forget the look in Bo’s eyes when he saw me. He smiled and blinked, as a huge tear rolled down the side of his face like a marble. Then he closed his eyes and went to sleep. I was still standing in the same spot, unable to move when the paramedics covered Bo and slid him into the back of the ambulance. Bo’s impatience had saved my life. If he’d waited for me to go with him, both of us probably would have died.
    The hardest telephone call I ever had to make in my life was to Odessa to tell her that her brother had walked in on a robbery in progress and had been shot dead.

Chapter 6
ESTER SANCHEZ
    C ops was everywhere, but nobody was telling ’em shit. I wasn’t worried about them cops; they never scared me. And they never bothered me ’cause I never gave them no reason to. Me, I seen that dude shoot that man, but I couldn’t say I seen it. Oh well. Too many of them thugs out there knew where I lived.
    My man wouldn’t have been too happy if he knew I was somewhere I wasn’t supposed to be, so I had more than one reason to keep my mouth shut. I was still supposed to be at the Mark Hopkins Hotel, spending the night with a trick from L.A. A thousand dollars for a whole night was a lot of money to me. Five Benjamins for me, five for my man. That’s the way we planned it. Usually, he only took a third of what I got from every trick. Lately, he was having a lot of expenses. And, so was I. I had to be cool if I wanted to stay hot. And staying hot meant I couldn’t be wasting valuable time with a trick that’s gonna sleep