McBain's Ladies Too: More Women of the 87th Precinct

The fat lady

From where the two patrolmen sat in the patrol car parked at the curb, it seemed evident that the priest was winning the fight. They had no desire to get out of the car and break up the fight, not with it being so cold out there, and especially since the priest seemed to be winning. Besides, they were sort of enjoying the way the priest was mopping up the street with his little spic opponent.

Up here in the Eight-Seven, you sometimes couldn’t tell the spics (Hispanics, you were supposed to say in your reports) from the whites because some of them had high Spanish blood in them and looked the same as your ordinary citizen. For all the patrolmen knew, the priest was a spic, too, but he had a very white complexion, and he was bigger than most of the cockroach-kickers up here. The two patrolmen sat in the heated comfort of the car and guessed aloud that he was maybe six-three, six-four, something like that, maybe weighing in at two hundred and forty pounds or thereabouts. They couldn’t figure which church he belonged to. None of the neighborhood churches had priests who dressed the way this one was dressed, but maybe he was visiting from someplace in California — they dressed that way in California, didn't they, at those missions they had out there in the Napa Valley? The priest was wearing a brown woolen robe, and his head was shaved like a monk's head, its bald crown glistening above the tonsure that encircled it like a wreath. One of the patrolmen in the car asked the other one what you called that brown thing the priest was wearing, that thing like a dress, you know? The other patrolman told him it was called a hassock, stupid, and the first patrolman said, "Oh yeah, right." They were both rookies who had been working out of the Eight-Seven for only the past two weeks, otherwise they'd have known that the priest wasn't a priest at all, even though he was known in the precinct as Brother Anthony.

Clearly, Brother Anthony was in fact beating the man to a pulp. The man was a little Puerto Rican pool shark who'd made the enormous mistake of trying to hustle him. Brother Anthony had dragged the little punk out of the pool hall and first had picked him up and hurled him against the brick wall of the tenement next door, just to stun him, you know, and then had swung a pool cue at his kneecaps, hoping to break them but breaking only the pool cue instead, and now was battering him senseless with his hamlike fists as the two patrolmen watched from the snug comfort of the patrol car. Brother Anthony weighed a lot, but he had lifted weights in prison, and there wasn't an ounce of fat on his body. He sometimes asked people to hit him as hard as they could in the belly, and laughed with pleasure whenever anyone told him how hard and strong he was. All year round, even in the hot summer months, he wore the brown woolen cassock. During the summer months, he wore nothing at all under it. He would lift the hem of the cassock and show his sandals to the neighborhood hookers. "See?" he would say. "That's all I got on under this thing." The hookers would oooh and ahhh and try to lift the cassock higher, making believe they didn't think he was really naked under it. Brother Anthony was very graceful for such a big man; he would laugh and dance away from them, dance away.

In the winter, he wore army combat boots instead of the sandals. He was using those boots now to stomp the little Puerto Rican pool hustler into the icy sidewalk. In the patrol car, the two cops debated whether they should get out and break this thing up before the little spic got his brains squashed all over the sidewalk. They were spared having to make any decision because their radio erupted with a 10–10, and they radioed back that they were rolling on it. They pulled away from the curb just as Brother Anthony leaned over the prostrate and unconscious hustler to take his wallet from his pocket. Only ten dollars of the money in that wallet had been hustled from Brother Anthony, but he figured he might as well take all of it because of all the trouble the little punk had put him to. He was cleaning out the wallet when Emma came around the corner.

Emma was known in the neighborhood as the Fat Lady, and most of the people in the precinct tried to steer very clear of her because she was known to possess a short temper and a straightedge razor. She carried the razor in her shoulder bag, hanging from the left shoulder, so that she could reach in there with her right hand, and whip open the razor in a flash, and lop off any dude's ear, or slash his face or his hands, or sometimes go for the money, open the man's windpipe and his jugular with one and the same stroke. Nobody liked to mess with the Fat Lady, which was perhaps why the crowd began to disperse the moment she came around the corner. On the other hand, the crowd might have dispersed anyway, now that the action had ended; nobody liked to stand around doing nothing on a cold day, especially in this neighborhood, where somehow it always seemed colder than anyplace else in the city. This neighborhood could have been Moscow. The park bordering this neighborhood could have been Gorky Park. Maybe it was. Or vice versa.

"Hello, bro," the Fat Lady said.

"Hello, Emma," he said, looking up from where he was crouched over the unconscious hustler. He had stomped the man real good. A thin trickle of blood was beginning to congeal on the ice beneath the stupid punk's head. His face looked very blue. Brother Anthony tossed the empty wallet over his shoulder, stood up to his full height, and tucked the five-hundred-odd dollars into the pouchlike pocket at the front of the cassock. He began walking, and Emma fell into step beside him.

Emma was perhaps thirty-two or thirty-three years old, in any event a good six or seven years older than Brother Anthony. Her full name was Emma Forbes, which had been her name when she was still married to a black man named Jimmy Forbes, since deceased, the unfortunate victim of a shoot-out in a bank he'd been trying to hold up. The man who'd shot and killed Emma's husband was a bank guard who'd been sixty-three years old at the time, a retired patrolman out of the 28th Precinct downtown. He'd never lived to be sixty-four because Emma sought him out a month after her husband's funeral, and slit his throat from ear to ear one fine April night when the forsythias were just starting to bud. Emma did not like people who deprived her or her loved ones of anything they wanted or needed. Emma was fond of saying, "The opera ain't over till the fat lady sings," an expression she used to justify her frequent vengeful attacks. It was uncertain whether the expression had preceded the nickname, or vice versa. When someone was five feet six inches tall and weighed a hundred and seventy pounds, it was reasonable to expect — especially in this neighborhood, where street names were as common as legal names — that sooner or later someone would begin calling her the Fat Lady, even without having heard her operatic reference.

Brother Anthony was one of the very few people who knew that the name on her mailbox was Emma Forbes, and that she had been born Emma Goldberg, not to be confused with the anarchist Emma Goldman, who'd been around long before Emma Goldberg was even born. Brother Anthony was also one of the very few people who called her Emma, the rest preferring to call her either Lady (not daring to use the adjective in her presence) or nothing at all, lest she suddenly take offense at an inflection and whip out that razor of hers. Brother Anthony was the only person in the precinct, and perhaps the entire world, who thought Emma Goldberg Forbes a.k.a. the Fat Lady was exceptionally beautiful and extraordinarily sexy besides.

"Listen, there's no accounting for taste," a former acquaintance once said to Brother Anthony immediately after he'd mentioned how beautiful and sexy he thought Emma was. The man's thoughtless comment was uttered a moment before Brother Anthony plucked him off his stool and hurled him through the plate-glass mirror behind the bar at which they'd been sitting. Brother Anthony did not like people who belittled the way he felt about Emma. Brother Anthony saw her quite differently than most people saw her. Most people saw a dumpy little bleached blond in a black cloth coat and black cotton stockings and blue track shoes and a black shoulder bag in which there was a straightedge razor with a bone handle. Brother Anthony — despite empirical knowledge to the contrary — saw a natural blond with curly ringlets that framed a Madonna-like face and beautiful blue eyes; Brother Anthony saw breasts like watermelons and a behind like a brewer's horse; Brother Anthony saw thick white thighs and acres and acres of billowy flesh; Brother Anthony saw a shy, retiring, timid, vulnerable darling dumpling caught in the whirlwind of a hostile society, someone to cuddle and cherish and console.

Just walking beside her, Brother Anthony had an erection, but perhaps that was due to the supreme satisfaction of having beaten that pool hustler to within an inch of his life; it was sometimes difficult to separate and categorize emotions, especially when it was so cold outside. He took Emma's elbow and led her onto Mason Avenue toward a bar in the middle of a particularly sordid stretch of real estate that ran north and south for a total of three blocks. There was a time when the Street (as the three-block stretch was familiarly defined) was called the Hussy Hole by the Irish immigrants and later Foxy Way by the blacks. With the Puerto Rican influx, the street had changed its language — but not its major source of income. The Puerto Ricans referred to it as La Via de Putas. The cops used to call it Whore Street before the word hooker became fashionable. They now referred to it as Hooker Heaven. In any language, you paid your money, and you took your choice.

Not too long a time ago, the madams who ran the sex emporiums called themselves Mama-this or Mama-that. In those days, Mama Teresa's was the best-known joint on the street. Mama Carmen's was the filthiest. Mama Luz's had been raided most often by the cops because of the somewhat exotic things that went on behind its crumbling brick facade. Those days were gone forever. The brothel, as such, was a thing of the past, a quaint memory. Nowadays, the hookers operated out of the massage parlors and bars that lined the street, and turned their tricks in the hot-bed hotels that blinked their eyeless neon to the night. The bar Brother Anthony chose was a hooker hangout named Sandy's, but at two in the afternoon most of the neighborhood working girls were still sleeping off Friday night's meaningless exercise. Only a black girl wearing a blond wig was sitting at the bar.

"Hello, Brother Anthony," she said. "Hello, Lady."

"Dominus vobiscum," Brother Anthony said, cleaving the air with the edge of his right hand in a downward stroke, and then passing the hand horizontally across the first invisible stroke to form the sign of the cross. He had no idea what the Latin words meant. He knew only that they added to the image he had consciously created for himself. "All is image," he liked to tell Emma, the words rolling mellifluously off his tongue, his voice deep and resonant, "all is illusion."

"What'll it be?" the bartender asked.

"A little red wine, please," Brother Anthony said. "Emma?"

"Gin on the rocks, a twist," Emma said.

"See what the other lady will have," Brother Anthony said, indicating the black-and-blond hooker. He was feeling Hush. His encounter with the ambitious pool bust lei had netted him a five-hundred-dollar profit. He asked the bartender for some change, went to the jukebox, and selected an assortment of rock'n'roll tunes. He loved rock'n'roll. He especially loved rock'n'roll groups that dressed up on stage so you couldn't recognize them later on the street. The black-and-blond hooker was telling the bartender she wanted another scotch and soda. As Brother Anthony went back to his stool at the other end of the bar, she said, "Thanks, Brother Anthony."

The bartender, who was also the Sandy who owned the place, wasn't too happy, to see Brother Anthony in here. He did not like having to replace plate-glass mirrors every time Brother Anthony took it in his head to get insulted by something somebody said. Luckily, the only Other person in here today, besides Brother Anthony and his fat broad, was the peroxided nigger at the end of the bar, and Brother Anthony had just bought her a drink, so maybe there'd be no trouble this afternoon. Sandy hoped so. This was Saturday. There'd be plenty of trouble here tonight, whether Sandy wanted it or not.

In this neighborhood, and especially on this street, Saturday night was never the loneliest night of the week, no matter what the song said. In this neighborhood, and especially on this street, nobody had to go lonely on a Saturday night, not if he had yesterday's paycheck in his pocket. Along about ten tonight, there'd be more hookers cruising this bar than there'd be rats rummaging in the empty lot next door, black hookers and white ones, blonds and brunettes and redheads, even some with pink hair or lavender hair, males and females and some who were AC/DC. Two by two they came, it took all kinds to make a world, into the ark they came, your garden-variety scaly-legged twenty-dollar-a-blowjob beasts or your slinky racehorses who thought they should be working downtown at a C-note an hour, it took all kinds to make a pleasant family neighborhood bar. Two by two they came and were welcomed by Sandy, who recognized that all those men drinking at the bar were here to sample the flesh and not the spirits, and who was anyway getting a piece of the action from each of the nocturnal ladies who were allowed to cruise here, his recompense (or so he told them) for having to pay off the cops on the beat and also their sergeant who dropped in every now and again. Actually, Sandy was ahead of the game, except when the weekend trouble assumed larger proportions than it normally did. He dreaded weekends, even though it was the weekends that made it possible for the bar to remain open on weekdays.

"This is on the house," he said to Brother Anthony, hoping the bribe would keep him away from here tonight, and then suddenly panicking when he realized Brother Anthony might like the hospitality and might decide to return for more of it later.

"I pay for my own drinks," Brother Anthony said, and fetched the roll of bills from the pouchlike pocket running across the front of his cassock, and peeled off one of the pool hustler's tens, and put it on the bar.

"Even so…" Sandy started, but Brother Anthony silently made the sign of the cross on the air, and Sandy figured who was he to argue with a messenger of God? He picked up the ten-spot, rang up the sale, and then put Brother Anthony's change on the bar in front of him. At the end of the bar, the black hooker in the frizzy blond wig lifted her glass and said, "Cheers, Brother Anthony."

"Dominus vobiscum," Brother Anthony said, lifting his own glass.

Emma put her fleshy hand on his knee.

"Did you hear anything else?" she whispered.

"No," he said, shaking his head. "Did you?"

"Only that he had eleven bills in his wallet when he caught it."

"Eleven bills," Brother Anthony whispered.

"And also, it was a .38. The gun."

"Who told you that?"

"I heard two cops talking in the diner."

"A .38," Brother Anthony said. "Eleven bills."

"That's the kind of bread I'm talking about," Emma said. "That's cocaine bread, my dear."

Brother Anthony let his eyes slide sidelong down the bar, just to make sure neither the bartender nor the black hooker were tuning in. The bartender was leaning over the bar, in deep and whispered conversation with the hooker. His fingertips roamed the yoke front of her dress, brushing the cleft her cushiony breasts formed. Brother Anthony smiled.

"The death of that little schwanz has left a gap," Emma said.

"Indeed," Brother Anthony said.

"There are customers adrift in the night," Emma said.

"Indeed," Brother Anthony said again.

"It would be nice if we could fill that gap," Emma said. "Inherit the trade, so to speak. Find out who the man was servicing, become their new candyman and candylady."

"There's people who might not like that," Brother Anthony said.

"I don't agree with you. I don't think the little pisher was killed for his trade. No, my dear, I definitely disagree with you."

"Then why?"

"Was he killed? My educated guess?"

"Please," Brother Anthony said.

"Because he was a stupid little man who probably got stingy with one of his customers. That's my guess, bro. But, ah, my dear, when we begin selling the nose dust it'll be a different story. We will be sugar-sweet to everybody; we will be Mr. and Mrs. Nice."

"How do we get the stuff to sell?" Brother Anthony asked.

"First things first," Emma said. "First we get the customers, then we get the candy."

"How many customers do you think he had?" Brother Anthony asked.

"Hundreds," Emma said. "Maybe thousands. We are going to get rich, my dear. We are going to thank God every day of the week that somebody killed Paco Lopez."

"Dominus vobiscum," Brother Anthony said, and made the sign of the cross.

For some people, it was still St. Valentine's Day.

Many people do not believe a day ends at midnight. It is still the same day until they go to sleep. When they wake up in the morning, it is the next day. Two people who thought it was still St. Valentine's Day were Brother Anthony and the Fat Lady. Even though it was 1:00 a.m. on the morning of February 15, they thought of it as still being a day for lovers, especially since they had learned the name of Paco Lopez's girlfriend. Actually, they had learned her name when it was still St. Valentine's Day, which they considered a good omen. But it was not until 1:00 a.m. that Brother Anthony knocked on the door of Judite Quadrado's apartment.

In this neighborhood, a knock on the door at 1:00 a.m. meant only trouble. It meant either the police coming around to ask about a crime that had been committed in the building, or it meant a friend or neighbor coming to tell you that a loved one had either hurt someone or been hurt by someone. Either way, it meant bad news. The people in this neighborhood knew that a knock on the door at 1:00 a.m. did not mean a burglar or an armed robber. Thieves did not knock on doors unless it was going to be a shove-in and in this neighborhood most thieves knew that doors were double-locked and often reinforced as well with a Fox lock, the steel bar hooked into the door and wedged into a floor plate. Brother Anthony knew that someone awakened at one in the morning would be frightened; that was why he and Emma had waited until that time, even though they'd had their information at 10:00 p.m.

From behind the door, Judite said, "Who is it?"

"Friends," Brother Anthony said.

"Friends? Who? What friends?"

"Please open the door," he said.

"Go away," Judite said.

"It's important that we speak to you," Emma said.

"Who are you?"

"Open the door just a little," Emma said, "and you'll see for yourself."

They heard lock tumblers falling. One lock, then another. The door opened just a crack, held by a night chain. In the wedge of the open door, they saw a woman's pale face. A kitchen light burned behind her.

"Dominus vobiscum," Brother Anthony said.

"We have money for you," Emma said.

"Money?"

"From Paco."

"Paco?"

"He said to make sure we gave it to you if anything happened to him."

"Paco?" Judite said again. She had not seen Paco for at least two months before he was killed. It was Paco who had scarred her breasts, the rotten bastard. Who was this priest in the hallway? Who was this fat woman claiming they had money for her? Money from Paco? Impossible.

"Go away," she said again.

Emma took a sheaf of bills from her pocketbook, the money remaining from what Brother Anthony had taken from the pool hustler. In the dim hallway light, she saw Judite's eyes widen.

"For you," Emma said. "Open the door."

"If it's for me, hand it to me," Judite said. "I don't need to open the door."

"Never mind," Brother Anthony said, and put his hand on Emma's arm. "She doesn't want the money."

"How much money is it?" Judite asked.

"Four hundred dollars," Emma said.

"And Paco said he wanted me to have it?"

"For what he did to you," Emma said, lowering her voice and her eyes.

"Just a minute," Judite said.

The door closed. They heard nothing. Brother Anthony shrugged. Emma returned the shrug. Had their information been wrong? The man who'd told them about Judite was her cousin. He said she'd been living with Paco Lopez before he was killed. He said Paco had burned her breasts with cigarettes. Which was one of the reasons Brother Anthony had suggested they call on her at one in the morning. It was Brother Anthony's opinion that no woman allowed herself to be treated brutally unless she was a very frightened woman. One o'clock in the morning should make her even more frightened. But where was she? Where had she gone? They waited. They heard the night chain being removed. The door opened wide. Judite Quadrado stood in the open doorway with a pistol in her fist.

"Come in," she said, and gestured with the pistol.

Brother Anthony had not expected the pistol. He looked at Emma. Emma said, "No hay necesidad de la pistola," which Brother Anthony did not understand. Until that moment, in fact, he hadn't known Emma could speak Spanish.

"Hasta que yo sepa quien es usted," Judite said, and again gestured with the gun.

"All right," Emma answered in English. "But only until you know who we are. I don't like doing favors for a woman with a gun in her hand."

They went into the apartment. Judite closed and locked the door behind them. They were in a small kitchen. A refrigerator, sink, and stove were on one wall, below a small window that opened onto an areaway. The window was closed and rimed with ice. A table covered with white oilcloth was against the right-angled wall. Two wooden chairs were at the table.

Brother Anthony did not like the look on Judite's face. She did not look like a frightened woman. She looked like a woman very much in command of the situation. He was thinking they'd made a mistake coming up here. He was thinking they'd lose what was left of the money he'd taken from the pool hustler. He was thinking maybe the ideas he and Emma hatched weren't always so hot. Judite was perhaps five feet six inches tall, a slender, dark-haired, brown-eyed girl with a nose just a trifle too large for her narrow face. She was wearing a dark blue robe; Brother Anthony figured that was why she'd left them waiting in the hall so long. So she could go put on the robe. And get the gun from wherever she kept it. He did not like the look of the gun. It was steady in her hand. She had used a gun before; he sensed that intuitively. She would not hesitate to use it now. The situation looked extremely bad.

"So," she said. "Who are you?"

"I'm Brother Anthony," he said.

"Emma Forbes," Emma said.

"How did you know Paco?"

"A shame what happened to him," Emma said.

"How did you know him?" Judite said again.

"We were friends for a long time," Brother Anthony said. It kept bothering him that she held the gun so steady in her hand. The gun didn't look like any of the Saturday-night specials he had seen in the neighborhood. This one was at least a .38. This one could put a very nice hole in his cassock.

"If you're his friends, how come I don't know you?" Judite said.

"We've been away," Emma said.

"Then how did you get the money, if you've been away?"

"Paco left it for us. At the apartment."

"What apartment?"

"Where we live."

"He left it for me?"

"He left it for you," Emma said. "With a note."

"Where's the note?"

"Where's the note, bro?" Emma said.

"At the apartment," Brother Anthony said, assuming an attitude of annoyance. "I didn't know we'd need a note. I didn't know you needed a note when you came to deliver four hundred dollars to—"

"Give it to me then," Judite said, and extended her left hand.

"Put away the gun," Emma said.

"No. First give me the money."

"Give her the money," Brother Anthony said. "It's hers. Paco wanted her to have it."

Their eyes met. Judite did not notice the glance that passed between them. Emma went to the table and spread the bills in a fan on the oilcloth. Judite turned to pick up the bills and Brother Anthony stepped into her at the same moment, smashing his bunched fist into her nose. Her nose had not looked particularly lovely beforehand, but now it began spouting blood. Brother Anthony had read somewhere that hitting a person in the nose was very painful and also highly effective. The nose bled easily, and blood frightened people. The blood pouring from Judite's nose caused her to forget all about the pistol in her hand. Brother Anthony seized her wrist, twisted her arm behind her back, and yanked the pistol away from her.

"Okay," he said.

Judite was holding her hand to her nose. Blood poured from her nose onto her fingers. Emma took a dish towel from where it was lying on the counter and tossed it to her.

"Wipe yourself," she said.

Judite was whimpering.

"And stop crying. Nobody's going to hurt you."

Judite didn't exactly believe this. She had already been hurt. She had made a mistake, opening the door at one in the morning, even with the gun. Now the gun was in the priest's hand, and the fat woman was picking up the money on the table and stuffing it back into her shoulder bag.

"Wh… what do you want?" Judite said. She was holding the towel to her nose now. The towel was turning red. Her nose hurt; she suspected the priest had broken it.

"Sit down," Brother Anthony said. He was smiling now that the situation was in his own capable hands.

"Sit down," Emma repeated.

Judite sat at the table.

"Get me some ice," she said. "You broke my nose."

"Get her some ice," Brother Anthony said.

Emma went to the refrigerator. She took out an ice tray and cracked it open into the sink. Judite handed her the bloodstained towel, and Emma wrapped it around a handful of cubes.

"You broke my nose," Judite said again, and accepted the towel and pressed the ice pack to her nose. On the street outside, she could hear the rise and fall of an ambulance siren. She wondered if she would need an ambulance.

"Who were his customers?" Brother Anthony asked.

"What?" She didn't know who he meant at first. And then it occurred to her that he was talking about Paco.

"His customers," Emma said. "Who was he selling to?"

"Paco, do you mean?"

"You know who we mean," Brother Anthony said. He tucked the gun into the pouchlike pocket at the front of his robe, and gestured to the fat woman. The fat woman reached into her bag again. For a dizzying moment, Judite thought they were going to let her go. The priest had put the gun away, and now the fat woman was reaching into her bag again. They were going to give her the money, after all. They were going to let her go. But when the fat woman's hand came out of the bag, there was something long and narrow in it. The fat woman's thumb moved, and a straight razor snapped open out of its case, catching tiny dancing pinpricks of light. Judite was more afraid of the razor than she had been of the gun. She had never in her life been shot, but she'd been cut many, many times, once even by Paco. She bore the scar on her shoulder. It was a less hideous scar than the ones he had burned onto her breasts.

"Who were his customers?" Brother Anthony asked again.

"I hardly even knew him," Judite said.

"You were living with him," Emma said.

"That doesn't mean I knew him," Judite said, which, in a way, was an awesome truth.

She did not want to tell them who Paco's customers had been because his customers were now her customers, or at least would be as soon as she got her act together. She had reconstructed from memory a list of an even dozen users, enough to keep her living in a style she thought would be luxurious. Enough to have caused her to buy a gun before she embarked on her enterprise; there were too many bastards like Paco in the world. But the gun was now in the priest's pocket, and the fat woman was turning the razor slowly in her hand, so that its edge caught glints of light. Judite thought, and this in itself was an awesome truth, that life had a peculiar way of repeating itself. Remembering what Paco had done to her breasts, she pulled the robe instinctively closed over her nightgown, using her free hand. Brother Anthony caught the motion.

"Who were his customers?" Emma said.

"I don't know. What customers?"

"For the nose candy," Emma said, and moved closer to her with the razor.

"I don't know what that means, nose candy," Judite said.

"What you sniff, my dear," Emma said, and brought the razor close to her face. "Through your nose, my dear. Through the nose you won't have in a minute if you don't tell us who they were."

"No, not her face," Brother Anthony said, almost in a whisper. "Not her face."

He smiled at Judite. For another dizzying moment, Judite thought he was the one who would let her go. The woman seemed menacing, but surely the priest—

"Take off the robe," he said.

"What for?" she asked, and clutched the robe closed tighter across her chest.

"Take it off," Brother Anthony said.

She hesitated. She pulled the towel away from her nose. The flow of blood seemed to be tapering. She put the towel back again. Even the pain seemed to be ebbing now. Perhaps this would not be so bad, after all. Perhaps, if she just went along with them, played along with them — surely the fat woman wasn't serious about cutting off her nose? Were the names of Paco's customers really that important to them? Would they risk so much for so little? Anyway, they were her customers now, damn it! She would give them whatever else they wanted, but not the names that were her ticket to what she imagined as freedom. She did not know what kind of freedom. Just freedom. She would never give them the names.

"Why do you want me to take oil the robe?" she asked. "What is it you want from me?"

"The customers," Emma said.

"Do you want to see my body?" she asked. "Is that it?"

"The customers," Emma said.

"You want me to blow you?" she asked Brother Anthony.

"Take off the robe," Brother Anthony said.

"Because if you want me to—"

"The robe," he said.

She looked at him. She tried to read his eyes. Paco had told her she gave better head than most of the hookers he knew. If she could reach the priest—

"Can I stand up?" she asked.

"Stand up," Emma said, and retreated several steps. The open razor was still in her hand.

Judite put down the towel. Her nose had stopped bleeding entirely. She took off the robe and draped it over the back of the chair. She was wearing only a pale baby-doll nightgown. The nightgown ended just an inch below her crotch. She was not wearing the panties that had come with the nightgown when she'd bought it. The nightgown and panties had cost her twenty-six dollars. Money she could easily get back from her new cocaine trade. She saw where the priest's eyes went.

"So what do you say?" she asked, arching one eyebrow and trying a smile.

"I say take off the nightgown," Brother Anthony said.

"It's cold in here," Judite said, hugging herself. "The heat goes off at ten." She was being seductive and bantering, she thought. She had captured the priest's eye — they were all supposed to be celibate, some joke — and now she thought she'd make it a bit more interesting and spicy, tease him along a little, make a big production out of taking off the nightgown. The fat woman would go along with whatever the priest decided; Judite knew women, and that's the way it was.

"Just take it off," Brother Anthony said.

"What for?" Judite said, the same light tone in her voice. "You can see what you're getting, can't you? I'm practically naked here, you can practically see right through this thing, so why do I have to take it off?"

"Take off the fucking nightgown!" Emma said, and all at once Judite thought she'd made a big error in judgment. The fat woman was moving closer to her again, the razor flashing.

"All right, don't… just don't get… I'll take it off, okay? Just… take it easy, okay? But, really, I don't know what you're talking about, Paco's customers, I swear to God I don't know what you mean by—"

"You know what we're talking about," Brother Anthony said.

She pulled the gown up over her waist, lifted it over her breasts and shoulders, and without turning placed it on the seat of the wooden chair. Goose flesh erupted immediately on her arms and across her chest and shoulders. She stood naked and trembling in the center of the kitchen, her bare feet on the cold linoleum, the ice-rimed window behind her. She was quite well formed, Brother Anthony thought. Her shoulders were narrow and delicately turned, and there was a gently rounded swell to her belly, and a ripe flare to her hips. Her breasts, too, were large and firm, quite beautiful except for the angry brown burn scars on their sloping tops. Very well formed, he thought. Not as opulent a woman as Emma, but very well formed indeed. He noticed that there was a small knife scar on her left shoulder. She was a woman who'd been abused before, perhaps regularly, a very frightened woman.

"Cut her," he said.

The thrust of the razor came so swiftly that for a moment Judite didn't even realize she'd been cut. The slash drew a thin line of blood across her belly, not as frightening as the blood pouring from her nose had been, really just a narrow line of blood oozing from the flesh, nothing so terribly scary. Even the searing aftermath of the razor slash was less painful than the blow to her nose had been. She looked down at her belly in amazement. But somehow, she was less frightened now than she'd been a moment earlier. If this was what it would be like, if this was the worst they would do to her—

"We don't want to hurt you," the priest said, and she knew this meant they did want to hurt her, would in fact hurt her more than they already had if she did not give them the names they wanted. Her mind worked quickly, frantically searching for a way to protect her own interests, give them the names of the customers, why not, but withhold the name of the ounce dealer — you could always find new customers if you knew where to get the stuff. Hiding her secret, hiding her fear as well, she calmly gave them all the names they wanted, all of the twelve she had memorized, writing them down at their request, scribbling the names and addresses on a sheet of paper, trying to conceal the shaking of her fist as she wrote. And then, after she had given them all the names, and had even clarified the spelling of some of them, after she thought it was all over, thought they had what they wanted from her now, and would leave her alone with her broken nose and the bleeding slash across her belly, she was surprised to hear the priest ask, "Where did he get the stuff?" and she hesitated before answering, and realized all at once that her hesitation had been another mistake, her hesitation had informed them that she knew the source of Paco's supply, knew the name of his ounce dealer and wanted it from her now.

"I don't know where," she said.

Her teeth were beginning to chatter. She kept looking at the razor in the fat woman's hand.

"Cut off her nipple," the priest said, and her hands went instinctively to her scarred breasts as the fat woman approached with the razor again, and suddenly she was more frightened than she'd ever been in her life, and she heard herself telling them the name, heard herself giving away her secret and her freedom, saying the name over and over again, babbling the name, and thought that would truly be the end of it, and was astonished to see the razor flashing out again, shocked beyond belief when she saw blood spurting from the tip of her right breast and knew, Oh dear Jesus, that they were going to hurt her anyway, Oh sweet Mary, maybe kill her, Oh sweet mother of God, the razor glinting and slashing again and again and again until at last she fainted.

Brother Anthony and Emma were smoking dope and drinking wine and going over the list of names and addresses Judite Quadrado had given them two days ago. A kerosene heater was going in one corner of the room, but the radiators were only lukewarm, and the windows were nonetheless rimed with ice. Brother Anthony and Emma were sitting very close to the kerosene heater, even though both of them insisted that cold weather never bothered them. They were both in their underwear.

They had smoked a little pot an hour ago, before making love in the king-sized bed in Brother Anthony's bedroom. Afterward they had each and separately pulled on their underwear and walked out into the living room to open a bottle of wine and to light two more joints before sitting down again with the list of potential customers. Brother Anthony was wearing striped boxer shorts. Emma was wearing black bikini panties. Brother Anthony thought she looked radiantly lovely after sex.

"So what it looks like to me," Emma said, "is that he had a dozen people he was servicing."

"That's not so many," Brother Anthony said. "I was hoping for something bigger, Em, I'll tell you the truth. Twelve rotten names sounds like very small potatoes for all the trouble we went to." He looked at the list again. "Especially in such small quantities. Look at the quantities, Em."

"Do you know the joke?" she asked him, grinning.

"No. What joke?" He loved it when she told jokes. He also loved it when she went down on him. Looking at her huge breasts, he was beginning to feel the faintest stirrings of renewed desire, and he began thinking that maybe he would let her tell her joke and then they would forget all about Lopez's small-time list and go make love again. That sounded like a very good thing to do on a cold day like today.

"This lady is staying at a Miami Beach hotel, you know?" Emma said, still grinning.

"I wish I was staying at a Miami Beach hotel," Brother Anthony said.

"You want to hear this joke or not?"

"Tell it," he said.

"So she eats a couple of meals in the dining room, and then she goes to the front desk and starts complaining to the manager."

"What about?" Brother Anthony said.

"Will you let me tell it, please?"

"Tell it, tell it."

"She tells the manager the food in the dining room is absolute poison. The eggs are poison, the beef is poison, the potatoes are poison, the salads are poison, the coffee is poison, everything is poison, poison, poison, she says. And you know what else?"

"What else?" Brother Anthony asked.

"The portions are so small!" Emma said, and burst out laughing.

"I don't get it," Brother Anthony said.

"The lady is complaining the food is poison..."

"Yeah?"

"But she's also complaining the portions are too small."

"So what?"

"If it's poison, why does she want bigger portions?"

"Maybe she's crazy," Brother Anthony said.

"No, she's not crazy," Emma said. "She's complaining about the food, but she's also telling the manager the portions—"

"I understand," Brother Anthony said, "but I still don't get it. Why don't we go in the other room again?"

"You're not ready yet," Emma said, glancing at his lap.

"You can make me ready."

"I know I can. But I like it better when you're ready before I make you ready."

"Sweet mouth," Brother Anthony said, lowering his voice.

"Mmm," Emma said.

"So what do you say?"

"I say business before pleasure," Emma said.

"Anyway, what made you even think of that joke?" he asked.

"You said something about the small quantities."

"They are small," Brother Anthony said. "Look at them," he said and handed the list to her. "Two or three grams a week, most of them. We ain't gonna get rich on two, three grams a week."

"We don't have to get rich all at once, bro," Emma said. "We'll take things slow and easy at first, start with these people who used to be Lopez's customers, build from there."

"How?"

"Maybe the lady can put us onto some other customers."

"What lady? The one eating poison?"

"The one who was supplying Lopez. His ounce dealer."

"Why would she want to help us that way?"

"Why not? There has to be a chain of supply, bro. An ounce dealer needs gram dealers, a gram dealer needs users. The lady puts us onto some users, we buy our goods from her, and everybody's happy."

"I think you're dreaming," Brother Anthony said.

"Would it hurt to ask?" Emma said.

"She'll tell us to get lost."

"Who knows? Anyway, first things first. First we have to let her know we've taken over from Lopez and would like to continue doing business with her. That's the first thing."

"That's the first thing, for sure."

"So what I think you should do," Emma said, "is get dressed and go pay this Sally Anderson a little visit."

"Later," Brother Anthony said, and took her in his arms.

"Mmm," Emma said, and cuddled closer to him, and licked her lips.

Emma and Brother Anthony were celebrating in advance.

He had bought a bottle of expensive four-dollar wine, and they now sat drinking to their good fortune. Emma had read the letter, and had come to the same conclusion he had: the man who'd written that letter to Sally Anderson was the man who was supplying her with cocaine. The letter made that entirely clear.

"He buys eight keys of cocaine," Brother Anthony said, "gives it a full hit, gets twice what he paid for it."

"Time it gets on the street," Emma said, "who knows what it'd be worth?"

"You got to figure they step on it all the way down the line. Time your user gets it, it'll only be ten, fifteen percent pure. The eight keys this guy bought… he sounds like an amateur, don't he? I mean, going in alone? With four hundred grand in cash?"

"Strictly," Emma said.

"Well, so are we, in a way," Brother Anthony said.

"You're very generous," Emma said, and smiled.

"Anyway, those eight keys, time they hit the street up here, they've already been whacked so hard you're talking maybe thirty-two keys for sale. Your average user buying coke doesn't know what he's getting. Half the rush he feels is from thinking he paid so much for his gram."

Emma looked at the letter again. "'The first thing I want to do is celebrate,'" she read. " 'There's a new restaurant on top of the Freemont Building, and I'd like to go there Saturday night. Very elegant, very continental. No panties, Sally. I want you to look very elegant and demure, but no panties, okay? Like the time we ate at Mario's down in the Quarter, do you remember? Then, when we get home…'" Emma shrugged. "Lovey-dovey stuff," she said.

"Girl had more panties than a lingerie shop," Brother Anthony said. "Whole drawerful of panties."

"So he asks her not to wear any!" Emma said, and shook her head.

"I'm gonna buy you one of those little things ballet dancers wear," Brother Anthony said.

"Thank you, sir," Emma said, and made a little curtsy.

"Why you think she saved that letter?" Brother Anthony asked.

"'Cause it's a love letter," Emma said.

"Then why'd she hide it in the collar of her jacket?"

"Maybe she was married."

"No, no."

"Or had another boyfriend."

"I think it was in case she wanted to turn the screws on him," Brother Anthony said. "I think the letter was her insurance. Proof that he bought eight keys of coke. Dumb amateur," he said, and shook his head.

"Try him again," Emma said.

"Yeah, I better," Brother Anthony said. He rose ponderously, walked to the telephone, picked up the scrap of paper on which he'd scribbled the number he'd found in the directory, and then dialed.

Emma watched him.

"It's ringing," he said.

She kept watching him.

"Hello?" a voice on the other end said, and Brother Anthony immediately hung up.

"He's home," he said.

"Good," she said.

He closed the suitcase.

So, he thought.

He looked around the apartment.

That's it, he thought.

He picked up the suitcase, walked out of the bedroom, and out of the apartment, and down the steps to the street.

She was waiting for him in the small dark entrance lobby downstairs.

He frowned and started to walk past her, taking her for a crazy bag lady or something, this city was full of lunatics, surprised when he saw the open straight razor in her hand, shocked when he realized she was coming at him with the razor, terrified when he saw his own blood pouring from the open wound in his throat.

She said only, "The opera ain't over."

Ice, 1983