Free Answered Prayers by Truman Capote

people have made me so immediately curious. Was she perhaps a Hitler refugee, a veteran of Hamburg’s Reeperbahn, who had emigrated to Mexico before the war? And it crossed my mind that possibly she was not the power behind this operation but, like most American brothel keepers and sex-café padrones, a front for Mafioso entrepreneurs.
    “Cat got your tongue? Well, I’m sure you will want to understand our financial agreement. The standard fee for an hour’s booking is fifty dollars, which we will split between us, though you may keep any tips the client gives you. Of course, the fee varies; there will be occasions when you will make a great deal more. And there are bonuses available for every acceptable client or employee you recruit. Now,” she said, aiming her eyes at me like a pair of gun barrels, “there are a number of rules by which you must abide. There will be no drugging or excessive drinking. Under no circumstances will you ever deal directly with a client—all bookings must be made through the service. And at no time may an employee associate socially with a client. Any attempt at negotiating a private deal with a client means instantdismissal. Any attempt at blackmailing or in any way embarrassing a client will result in very severe retribution—by which I don’t mean mere dismissal from the service.”
    So: those dark Sicilian spiders are indeed the weavers of this web.
    “Have I made myself understood?”
    “Utterly.”
    The secretary intruded. “Mr. Wallace calling. Very urgent. I think he’s smashed.”
    “We are not interested in your opinions, Butch. Just put the gentleman on the line.” Presently she lifted a receiver, one of several on her desk. “Miss Self here. How are you, sir? I thought you were in Rome. Well, I read it in the
Times
. That you were in Rome and had had an audience with the pope. Oh, I’m sure you’re right:
quel
camp! Yes, I hear you perfectly. I see. I see.” She scribbled on a note pad, and I could read what she wrote because one of my gifts is to read upside down:
Wallace Suite 713 Hotel Plaza
. “I’m sorry, but Gumbo isn’t with us anymore. These black boys, they’re so unreliable. However, we’ll have someone there shortly. Not at all. Thank you.”
    Then she looked at me for quite a long time. “Mr. Wallace is a highly valued client.” Once more a prolonged stare. “Wallace isn’t his name, of course. We use pseudonyms for all our clients. Employees as well. Your name is Jones. We’ll call you Smith.”
    She tore off the sheet of note pad, rolled it into a pellet, and tossed it at me. “I think you can handle this. It’s not really a … physical situation. It’s more a … nursing problem.”
    I RANG MR. WALLACE ON one of those sleazy gold house-phones in the Plaza lobby. A dog answered—there was the sound of a crashing receiver, followed by a hounds-of-hellbarking. “Heh heh, that’s just mah dawg,” a corn-pone voice explained. “Every time the phone rings, he grabs it. You the fellow from the service? Well, skedaddle on up here.”
    When the client opened the door, his dog bolted into the corridor and hurled himself at me like a New York Giants fullback. It was a black and brindle English bulldog—two feet high, maybe three feet wide; he had to weigh a hundred pounds, and the force of his attack hurricaned me against the wall. I hollered pretty good; the owner laughed: “Don’t be scared. Old Bill, he’s just affectionate.” I’ll say. The horny bastard was riding my leg like a doped stallion. “Bill, you cut that out,” Bill’s master commanded in a voice jingling with gin-slurred giggles. “I mean it, Bill. Quit that.” At last he attached a leash to the sex fiend’s collar and hauled him off me, saying: “Poor Bill. I’ve just been in no condition to walk him. Not for two days. That’s one reason I called the service. The first thing I want you to do is to take Bill over to the park.”
    Bill behaved until we reached