Free Habit of Fear by Dorothy Salisbury Davis

deliver me first thing tomorrow morning.”
    “I’ll find you,” Julie said. She hung up the phone and sat a moment thinking back to her last encounter with May Weems—and her pimp. He affected the bad speech of the comic Stepin Fetchit back in the days when blacks were colored people or Negroes. She wondered if May imitated him. She wasn’t very bright. Only cunning and pathetic. But smart enough to have avoided saying just what she’d do for Julie to return the favor.
    Detective Russo, aware of the arrest—he might even have arranged it, Julie thought—tracked May Weems to the old Fifth Precinct stationhouse in Chinatown. He put Julie in touch with the desk sergeant, and she was able to learn from him that May Weems would go before Criminal Court Judge Arbiter in the morning.

TWELVE
    M ISERY DIDN’T LOVE COMPANY in that courtroom. The early arrivals were concerned spectators, who chose to sit far apart from one another. A few were young, but most were not. They were working women, most of them, and most of those were black. They were losing half a day’s pay to be in court, or half their sleep if they worked by night. They had dressed to look respectable, able to cope with the son or daughter on whose behalf they’d come. The bailiff waited at attention; there was activity at the lawyers’ tables; the court stenographers were ready. The judge was in his chambers.
    Prisoners began to arrive with their arraignment officers; they congregated at the rear of the room, a scruffy mix of anger and bravura, looking only sidewise to see if there was anyone in court for them. Their lawyers, mostly court assigned, drifted in through a side door chatting with one another, ignoring the clients with whom they would in their own good time make contact.
    “Friend Julie!” The woman waved.
    Julie waved back. She hadn’t recognized her on arrival. May Weems presently pointed her out to a sallow young man Julie was sure would smell of mothballs. After a few words with his client he came to Julie, introduced himself and offered a limp hand. He reeked of shaving lotion. Mothballs would have been better. He sat down beside her and asked how high she could go if he could get his client off with a fine and suspended sentence.
    “Fifty bucks,” Julie said.
    He groaned and shook his head as though that wasn’t going to do it. Then: “Is she telling the truth about being a witness in a rape case?”
    “Yes.”
    “Okay. I’ll try, Friend Julie,” he drawled.
    Julie glowered at him for the familiarity. Rape, the great equalizer.
    Sniveling kids and arrogant punks went with state-paid lawyers before the bench of Judge Arbiter, every one of them a mother’s son. Not a father in sight. One of the few professions Julie had not at one time or another made a run for was the law. She had no regrets that morning.
    May Weems was called and charged with 240-37, loitering for purposes of prostitution. Her attorney asked if he might approach the bench. The black girl waited, her only curiosity a glance Julie’s way to be sure she was still there. May wore tight orange pants and yellow boots. Her black T-shirt hung limp as though she had shrunk within it. No one seemed to have dressed up for court. Tatters and naked parts that showed their scars. A lot of scars. But if she were a judge, Julie thought, she would demand clean clothes as part of the court’s decorum. She heard mention of her name, and then May’s lawyer beckoned her to come to the bench.
    “Hi, Friend Julie.” May Weems wore heavy makeup, but the eyes framed in mascara were as dead as buttons.
    The judge frowned at the black girl and turned to Julie. “I understand you’ve tried to help this woman before.” Julie was surprised that May would have mentioned it.
    “If you can find a way to get her off the streets, you’ll be doing society a service. And you might save her life. I’m fining the defendant twenty-five dollars … if that’s satisfactory to her. …” He