Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine. Vol. 133, Nos. 3 & 4. Whole Nos. 811 & 812, March/April 2009

Silverfish by S. J. Rozan

One of the genre’s most celebrated authors — an Edgar, Anthony, Shamus, and Macavity award winner for her novels and an Edgar winner for Best Short Story — S. J. Rozan came to fiction writing only after a successful career as an architect. At the same time this issue goes on sale, her publisher, St. Martin’s Press, will release a new novel in her popular Bill Smith/Lydia Chin series, The Shanghai Moon. It’s the first installment in the series since 2002’s Winter and Night.

“What kind of a fish is that, anyway?”

“What?”

“A silverfish. Is it, like, all silvery?”

Silverfish blew out a breath and tried to be patient. You had to be patient with Lady Mary. “Not a fish. It’s a bug.”

Lady Mary giggled. “You call yourself after a bug?” She checked her lipgloss once more and snapped her mirror away. “Must be a pretty bug.”

“It’s ugly. Lots of legs and it slithers.”

“Then why—”

“’Cause of my hair.”

Lady Mary didn’t say anything but Silverfish watched her blue eyes fill with doubt. Well, good. Silver-fish’s natural hair was brown, just like Lady Mary’s. She wore it short, spiked, and silver, but that was a choice, not something you’re stuck with and have to do your best about, like name yourself after. Silverfish had come into the life three years ago, at the same age Lady Mary was now, but she knew for a fact she’d never been as naive, as just plain street-dumb, as this kid. If Lady Mary didn’t wise up and stop believing everything people told her, she’d never survive.

Though if she stayed with that damn pimp of hers, she might not survive anyway.

“Your pimp calls himself after a bug, too,” she pointed out as she and Lady Mary left the gas-station bathroom. “A disgusting one. Ick.”

Lady Mary giggled again. “I know. And it’s so funny, because of how he hates dirt so much. I kinda think he should call himself, like, Clorox or something.”

All the girls in this part of town knew that: how Roach made his girls shower the minute they came in from the stroll, and he was always making them scrub the bathroom and the kitchen — even though he wouldn’t eat anywhere but his own place — and wash their clothes and dry-clean them. And he didn’t pay for it, either. Funny he ever laid a finger on them, if he thought they were so disgustingly dirty. Funny he was even in this business.

Roach was Lady Mary’s big mistake. He picked her up just a week after she hit the streets. That was before Silverfish knew her, or she’d have brought her right away to Jacky-boy. If you had to have a pimp — and in this dump of a town you did; it was too dangerous to work alone when you were young and skinny like Silverfish and Lady Mary — but if you had to, Jacky-boy was all right. He liked his girls to stay clean, too, but he wasn’t loony-tunes about it, and anyway it was mostly so johns wouldn’t be grossed out. The apartment was okay, a two-bedroom with just three girls to a room, each with a real bed, and they had video games, a DVD player, and an account at the pizza place and the Chinese, where they could order whatever they wanted and Jacky-boy covered it. He didn’t go through your stuff and he didn’t make you work when you were sick and he never raised a hand to you.

Not like Roach. Roach owned his girls in a different way. He wanted to know everything about them, where they went, who they talked to. He pawed through their purses sometimes, their closets, just to see. And Roach smacked his girls around. When Lady Mary first came on the scene, Silverfish thought that even small and eager to please like she was, it could only be a matter of time. And she was right: A month ago Lady Mary showed up on the corner with thick, heavy makeup around her eye that hid the bruise but not the swelling. It had happened another time since then, too. And it would keep happening, Silverfish knew. She thought about this as Lady Mary sashayed away. It would keep happening, and Lady Mary would stop giggling and get all hard on the inside. And all Silverfish could think to do was stand there and watch.

After the gas-station bathroom, Silverfish didn’t see Lady Mary again for three days. When she did, it wasn’t good.

“Tell me some wackjob john did that to you.”

Lady Mary just shrugged, not meeting Silverfish’s gaze.

“It was Roach, right?”

Another shrug.

“How you gonna work, your lip all split like that?”

“Some guys like that.”

“Yeah, and you don’t want to go with those guys. They just want to give you more. What did you do?”

In a tiny voice: “Gave him lip. So he gave me a lip. See?” Lady Mary tried a giggle but it fell down and died.

“You? You don’t give anybody lip.”

“I don’t know. I laughed, he wasn’t feeling funny. I don’t know.”

“Okay, don’t tell me, see if I care. Oh, hey, girl! You’re not crying, are you?”

“Me? No, just something in my eye,” said Lady Mary, all sniffly.

“Come here.” Silverfish pulled Lady Mary close to her and hugged her.

“I don’t know what I did wrong, Fish. I never do with Roach. I try to do everything he says. I do everything he tells the other girls, too. But sometimes he just hauls off — I guess I laugh too much, he doesn’t think I take him serious. But then he makes a joke and I don’t know if it’s okay to laugh and he thinks I’m all, like, stuck-up. I don’t know. I don’t know.”

“Okay. Hey. Stop! Don’t get all hysterical or I’m gonna have to slap you myself.”

Lady Mary looked up in genuine fear. “You would?”

“No, of course I wouldn’t. Damn, girl, he’s making a basket case out of you.”

“No. I just need to figure out what I’m supposed to do. That’s all. Just figure it out. Listen, I gotta get going. If I don’t turn lots of tricks tonight I’m screwed.” The giggle suddenly bubbled up; it made Silverfish smile. Lady Mary said, “And I guess if I do, I’m screwed too, huh?”

Sometimes Silverfish wondered why she was mostly right about stuff she wouldn’t mind if she was wrong about. She’d been right about Roach beating up on Lady Mary sooner or later, and the next time she saw Lady Mary it proved she was right about tricks who like messed-up girls.

“It was a john,” Lady Mary said fast before Silverfish could start. “Asshole. Said he could tell I was his kind of girl because I liked it the same way he did. I told him I didn’t like it and he asked then how come I was working with a face like that, and he liked it even better when the girl pretended she hated it.” Lady Mary lisped this out; the john had done a job on her. “Paid good, though.”

“I can’t believe Roach is making you work like that. Couple of times that happened to me, Jacky-boy said take a day off, take a rest.”

“Roach likes it. Says I’m too small and skinny to be worth much but if I have, like, a specialty, I’m worth a lot more.”

“You’re kidding. He wants jerks to do that to you? Jacky-boy would kill anyone he found doing something like that to one of his girls.”

“Yeah?” Lady Mary looked wistful. “I think if Roach caught him he’d just charge him double.”

Silverfish didn’t have a good night. The weather was rainy, not one of those cold nights where you’d give anything for indoor work, but rainy enough so most johns stayed home. Silverfish never got that. It was all about their cars or a mildewy room at the River Motel, not like they were doing it on the sidewalk, so why these jerks disappeared when it rained she never knew. But johns were a mystery to her anyway. She was glad they existed, sure. After her mom shacked up with that hundredth bastard boyfriend, the one she picked up in the 7-11, and Silverfish had to get out, how else was she going to make a living? But as long as the world was full of women like her mom, why did any man, anywhere, ever have to pay for it?

And then there were idiots like her last trick tonight. She thought about him while the sky faded to gray and she walked slowly home. This guy, how stupid was he? What was funny, he even knew how stupid he was, and he kept talking about it with himself. First thing, after they got past the price and all that, him still leaning out his car window: “So, sweetheart, you clean?”

“Just took a shower, hon. You’re my first tonight.” She said it even though it was a lie and even though she knew that wasn’t what he meant. But she was feeling cross and cranky and wanted to jerk this guy around a little, make him say it.

“Yeah, that’s nice, but what I mean, you got a certificate?”

“What kind?”

“Jesus, girlie! You have AIDS, or what?”

“Oh, that.” Like she was bored, she dug in her purse, pulled out an HIV test card dated four months ago, showing she was negative. Silverfish got tested every six months, and she made the johns use condoms if she could. So her card was real. But the john said, “How do I know that’s real?”

“Beats me. It is, though.”

“I’m supposed to believe that because a whore tells me?”

“You’re not supposed to do anything you don’t want to.” She started to walk away.

“Hey! C’mon back. I didn’t mean anything by it. I’ll take your word for it. You look honest. C’mon, you and me, let’s go park someplace.”

So she got in, and they parked, and he had no imagination so it was a pretty easy trick, and now she was walking home, thinking about how even though her card was real she had no way to prove it to him, and he knew that, and he didn’t want to take a whore’s word for it but in the end he did because he said she looked honest. Herself, she’d have thought the silver hair might be a tip-off that some things about her might not be on the up-and-up. But it wasn’t about how she looked, silver or honest or anything else. It was about him wanting to get laid. So he believed what worked for him.

She narrowed her eyes when that thought came to her. He believed what worked for him.

A couple of days later she asked Jacky-boy if he’d have taken Lady Mary on if he’d seen her before Roach.

“Well, sure.” Jacky-boy leaned forward on the sofa and helped himself to a slice from the pizza she and Rainbow had ordered. Silverfish was annoyed because the slice was off her half, the anchovy half, but she didn’t say anything. Rainbow winked at Silverfish and reached for a pepper slice. She was resourceful, Rainbow. When she found out Jacky-boy hated peppers she started always getting peppers on her half, in case he showed up while they were eating. Silverfish had considered adopting that strategy, but she didn’t particularly like peppers herself.

“And if she was on her own now?” Silverfish persisted.

“I guess,” Jacky-boy said. “She’s little and she’s cute, except if she keeps getting beat up on like she is, she’s not gonna be cute long. But Fish, honey, I know you’re not asking me to mess with Roach? He’s a shit and I’d love to see him go down, but I’m not in that business.”

“But if Roach threw her out?”

“Can’t see that.”

“But if he did?”

Jacky-boy wiped sauce off his mouth. “You have enough school to know about ‘hypothetical’? That a word you ever heard?”

Silverfish shook her head.

“Hypothetical’s when you’re talking about something but it’s never gonna happen. Like, you know, snow in July, that’s hypothetical. So, in the hypothetical situation where Roach throws her out and doesn’t change his freakin’ mind the next day, I’d take her on. Rainbow, pass me a Coke.”

“Hey, Rainbow,” Silverfish said, casual, one morning a few days later, both of them just coming in, no one else home yet, “how come you don’t get tested? You and Danielle and Flash?” That wasn’t her real question, but sometimes you don’t start with your real question.

“What kind of tested?”

“HIV, girl.”

“’Cause suppose you got HIV and you know it? What you gonna do?”

“I dunno. Get medicine, I guess.”

Rainbow stared. “Fish, I never knew you was dumb. They got no medicine for that. You get it, you’re good for a while, years maybe, but then you die. If you know it or you don’t know it, it’s the same thing.”

“But what do you do if a trick asks? I got a card from the clinic says I’m clean, but what do you do? Don’t they ask you?”

Rainbow snorted. “Yeah, and just you try asking them one time.”

“Yeah, but still. You can’t show you’re clean, maybe they decide to go with someone else. You lose the trick.”

“Jacky-boy give me a card. Danielle and Flash, too. Look just exactly like that one you got, but didn’t nobody have to pull blood out my arm for it.”

“A fake?”

“Hell-O, Fish. Welcome to the world, baby girl.”

“You know where he got it?”

“What? The card? Some guy he know downtown.”

“You know the guy’s name?”

“Uh-uh.” Rainbow eyed Silverfish, interested in this sudden new direction. “How come?”

“Well, I got a problem. See, I lost mine.”

“So? Tell Jacky-boy. He get you one of these.”

Silverfish shook her head. “It’s, like, the fourth thing I lost. After my cell phone, and my driver’s license, and a little pin he gave me. I don’t want him to get all pissed.”

“Oh.” Rainbow nodded slowly. Because Jacky-boy was so hard to rile, when he finally got mad at a girl he really went off. There was always the danger he’d kick her right out. They all knew that and they were all afraid of it. The time Silverfish lost the cell phone, Jacky-boy blew up at her. All the girls were there when it happened and they all remembered. Being thrown out by your pimp, being damaged goods working these streets unprotected or going with whatever bottom-feeder would take you on after that, was a bleak prospect none of them wanted to face. So Rainbow could be counted on to be sympathetic if Silverfish’s big fear was of getting on Jacky-boy’s bad side.

“I’m gonna go get tested again,” Silverfish said, “but the clinic says they got a waiting list, a month.” That wasn’t true; for an HIV test the walk-in clinic would take you anytime. But Rainbow wouldn’t know that.

Rainbow, always resourceful, said, “I see what I can find out for you.”

Silverfish had never had a driver’s license and Jacky-boy never gave her a little pin. But Rainbow wouldn’t know that, either.

Two days later Rainbow handed Silverfish a paper with a name and address on it. “He ain’t cheap. You need money?”

“Thanks, honey. But I got some saved up.”

Jacky-boy gave the girls allowances. Some of them spent it all on shoes and makeup, but Silverfish was careful with hers. She kept herself looking good, of course — the johns had to want you — but her only extravagance was hair dye. She thought about the hair dye, and the care she took with the job she did, and on her way downtown she bought herself a wig.

She explained to the guy downtown what she wanted. It wasn’t exactly what he thought she wanted from what Rainbow told him, so Silverfish went through it twice, to make sure he got it. She gave him her cell-phone number and, just to be really safe, told him a name to use if he had to call, and a message to leave so he’d sound like a john making a date but she’d know it was him. Jacky-boy had never once messed with her phone — though he’d made her pay for the new one herself after she lost the first one — because she followed the rules, always answering right away when it was his ringtone, even if she was with a trick. And she always told him the truth about where she was, because sometimes he was watching from somewhere and just calling to check up. But still, she gave the guy downtown this secret code. You never knew. A few days later he called, and she went downtown during the day, after Jacky-boy had come by the apartment and already left. She was supposed to be sleeping, and she knew she’d be tired when she went to work that night, but she’d feel much better with the guy’s papers in her purse.

The next time Silverfish saw Lady Mary, the girl looked good and she was cheerful and giggly, like before. They talked about just stuff: eyeliner, and whether they’d stay married to A-Rod even if he cheated on them — which they both would, it was a total no-brainer, a guy with that much money? And what guy didn’t cheat, come on, who cared? — and then a car slowed down for Silverfish (“Hey, you with the hair!”) and they said goodnight.

The time after that was pretty much the same, just her and Lady Mary, talking trash. But Silverfish was used to being right about bad stuff by now, and the next time, Lady Mary’s eye was swollen and the eyebrow had a big band-aid.

“What happened this time? Hey, girl, don’t look at the sidewalk, it didn’t ask you a question. What did you do, give Roach more lip?”

In a whisper, Lady Mary said, “I didn’t do anything.”

“You mean you don’t know?”

“No. I mean, I really didn’t do anything. He says I do better business when I’m messed up.”

Silverfish stared. “He did that to you on purpose for no reason? Just so you could get dates with those kind of jerks?”

Eyes brimming, Lady Mary nodded. A tear leaked from the swollen eye, dragging mascara down the side of her nose, but she didn’t seem to notice.

“Girl,” said Silverfish, “we got to talk.”

“I can’t,” Lady Mary gulped, digging in her purse for a tissue. “I better get to work.”

“A quick cup of coffee. Come on.” Silverfish grabbed Lady Mary’s arm and pulled her along the sidewalk.

“Oh, what’s the point, Fish?” Lady Mary wailed. “There’s nothing I can do. It’s gotta be like this. Let me go to work or he’ll be mad.”

“You can’t work with your mascara all running. Come on. Just quick.” She didn’t let go. Tugging Lady Mary into the diner, she sat her down. Silverfish unzipped her purse. “It’s on me.”

Silverfish took Lady Mary for coffee three more times over the next couple of weeks. The third time, Lady Mary had a loose tooth and was kind of hunched over. She didn’t say a word until she’d let her coffee cool to where she could drink it past the tooth. She finished it, and then sat there for a while.

“I can’t do this anymore, Fish,” was all she had to say.

The next time Silverfish saw Lady Mary it was bright daylight and the girl was a mess. Silverfish woke up because her cell phone was ringing. The song was “Bustin’ Loose” and it was the ringtone she’d given to Lady Mary.

“Where are you?”

“The diner.”

Silverfish could hear the trembling in Lady Mary’s words. “Stay there.”

Silverfish got dressed and rushed out. To Danielle, who woke up and asked what was going on, she said, “Sorry! Go back to sleep.” To Rainbow, making eggs in the kitchen, she said, “Be right back,” and closed the door on whatever else Rainbow said.

Silverfish came back an hour later with two dozen doughnuts and Lady Mary. All the girls except Danielle were up. Iron Chef America was on TV, everyone cheering for the challenger because he was much hotter than the Iron Chef. They all looked up when Silverfish and Lady Mary came in.

“Here,” Silverfish put the doughnut box on the coffee table, cockeyed on a shapeless pile of magazines. “I saw those eggs Rainbow was working on before, so I thought you guys might want some real food. This is Lady Mary. She’s a friend of mine. Jacky-boy been by yet?”

Jacky-boy was the tricky part. Silverfish was worried. But when he finally came around an hour later, Lady Mary was brilliant.

“Roach never threw a girl out that could still work,” Jacky-boy said, munching on a jelly doughnut. “What the hell’s wrong with you that he don’t want you no more?”

“Nothing’s wrong with me. He found papers in my drawer. Kind of hidden but he goes through stuff.”

“What papers?”

“They say I’m HIV positive. And with herpes, too.”

“And you’re sitting here telling me nothing’s wrong with you? Are you crazy? Why would I want to run a girl like that?”

Lady Mary’s lip started to tremble.

“But the thing is,” Silverfish stepped in, “she’s not.”

“Not what?”

“I’m clean,” Lady Mary whispered.

“Oh, yeah, right. Sure, false positives, they happen all the time. Get out of my house.”

“No.” Lady Mary shook her head and sat up straighter. “Not false positives. False papers.”

“What?”

“I went to... to this guy downtown. I paid him to make me papers that said I was positive.”

“How stupid do I look to you? You expect me to believe that?”

Lady Mary didn’t answer.

“Okay, pretend I do,” said Jacky-boy. “Why?”

“So Roach would throw me out.”

That silenced the room.

“He always goes through our stuff. So I got the guy to make the papers and I hid them like I didn’t want him to know. He was sure to find them sooner or later.” Lady Mary reached into her purse and handed Jacky-boy the card she’d gotten last week at the clinic when Silverfish took her there. “See? I’m clean.”

Jacky-boy looked at the card for a long time. He asked Lady Mary what was the name of the guy downtown. Lady Mary told him the name and Jacky-boy called the guy. Looking right at Lady Mary, he described her. He put the phone on speaker so they all heard the guy drawl, “Yeah, that’s her, little and skinny, brown hair to her shoulders. I couldn’t figure out what the hell she was up to, either, but she paid cash up front so what did I care?”

Jacky-boy clicked off with a funny smile at Lady Mary. “You’re telling me a skinny little bitch like you got one over on Roach? How’d you know he wouldn’t beat the crap out of you when he found those papers?”

“Not Roach. He wouldn’t touch me if he thought I was all infected. Anyway, that’s what I was hoping. And if he did, I took the chance.” Lady Mary looked at the floor. “I had to get away.”

“And how do I know you’re not gonna want to get away from me?”

“’Cause,” Lady Mary said, eyes wide, “everyone says you’re not like Roach.”

Silverfish and Lady Mary left for work together that night. On the way to the corner, after they were out of sight of everyone else, Silverfish pulled the brown shoulder-length wig from her purse and stuffed it in the trash.

“You were great, girl!” She hugged Lady Mary.

“All I had to do is say what you told me to. You were so great, Fish. And you’re so smart. And no one ever did anything like that for me before. I can’t ever, ever thank you—”

“Stop sniffling! Don’t run your makeup. You’re starting a new job, girl, don’t mess up.”

Lady Mary nodded, found a tissue, dabbed her eyes. “You’re right. And I’ll be good, Fish. I’ll turn so many tricks Jacky-boy’ll never want to get rid of me! You’ll see.”

“Yeah, well, don’t get carried away and make the rest of us look bad, either.”

“Okay.” Lady Mary nodded seriously.

“And one more thing.”

Lady Mary looked up at Silverfish as a car slowed.

“You were asking before. About a silverfish. See, it’s an ugly bug. But it does one cool thing.”

“It does?”

“Uh-huh,” Silverfish said, sauntering off in the direction of the now-stopped car. “It eats other bugs. And especially,” she called back to Lady Mary over her shoulder as she got in the car, “especially, it eats roaches.”