Dope

by Sara Gran

At the precinct two young good-looking fellows in suits locked themselves in a room with me and asked me about a thousand questions over a metal table, which they slapped their hands on a lot. I was kind of in shock and it was hard to listen to their questions. Then they asked about a thousand more, and I began to wake up. I began to realize they weren’t asking me the questions they should have been. They weren’t asking why I was going to shoot Jim. They were asking why Jim killed McFall.

  Finally I started asking questions back. Like how did they know about Jim and McFall?

  “Shut up,” one of them said. “You’re looking at getting the chair for shooting Jerry McFall. We’ll ask the questions and you’ll answer ’em.”

  I didn’t think I would get the chair for shooting McFall, but I shut up anyway. Finally Springer came in the room, with a big smile on his face, and sat down next to me. The two good-looking boys smiled along with him.

  “Good work, Joe,” Springer said. “You helped me nail someone I’ve had my eye on for ten years now. We ought to put you on the payroll.”

  The good-looking boys laughed. I didn’t. “How’d you know?” I said. “How’d you know Jim killed McFall?”

  “You understand,” Springer said, “I don’t give a shit who killed Jerry McFall. When you people shoot each other, it’s like you’re doing me a favor. You know that.”

  I knew that.

  “But there’s too many people pushing junk in this city now. It’s in the goddamn Times practically every day. People are getting scared. So I’m getting pressure from above to make arrests. When McFall turns up dead, I know he’s selling dope, so I think maybe it was his connection, some kind of a lovers’ quarrel.” He laughed at his own joke. “Yeah, a lovers’ quarrel. Because the thing is, Joe—you might be interested in this, actually—we’re gonna be taking a new approach to all this. The mayor, he doesn’t want us to just pick up the street dealers anymore. He wants us to go after the big fish, the dealers who sell to all the guys who sell on the street. So when McFall gets killed, I figure maybe it’s his connection. A big fish. And then when I get back from the scene I get a phone call. There’s a man on the phone, telling me I ought to look into Josephine Flannigan for the Jerry McFall case. I didn’t know it then, but of course that was your friend Jim Cohen on the phone. Your sweetheart or whatever you call it at your age.”

  Springer laughed, and the good-looking boys laughed along with him. “Anyway,” Springer went on. “I start asking around, and I find out you’ve been asking around. Now I’ve known you since you were a kid, Joe, and I never had you pegged as a killer. Everything else, maybe, but not to kill a man, not for money. Maybe if it was a crime of passion or something like that, but not over money. So I figured either you had something going on with this McFall yourself, or someone was trying to set you up. And that’s what it was, huh? Someone trying to set you up. Anyway, I figured you’d get to the bottom of it fast enough, especially if you figured your life was on the line. If you thought I was falling for the setup. So we had a man follow you for a couple days, and you led us right to him. Jim Cohen. I’ve had my eye on him for a long time. When the stuff started flooding the streets again, I had him pegged for it right away. And it looks like I was right.”

  “You’ve had someone following me?” I asked. It was all sinking in slowly, one word at a time. “You’ve been following me this whole time?”

  Springer smiled. “That’s right, Joe. Surprised you didn’t notice it.” He tapped his hand on the table.

  “Of course,” I said, mostly to myself. “The black Chevy.”

  “Well, I don’t know what kind of a car Reynolds was driving,” Springer said. “We got a whole fleet of ’em for undercover work. All I know is that now we’ve got a major supplier down, which is gonna make my captain mighty happy. Plus we’ve got McFall’s murder tied up, not that I gave much of a shit, but it’s always nice to close a case.”

  “You knew I didn’t do it?” I said. “Jim could have killed me back there. I thought I was going away for life.”

  “Take it easy, Joe,” Springer said.

  “Take it easy!” I said, standing up. My hands started to shake. “For three days now I’ve been thinking I was going upstate for killing McFall, Jim is dead, and I almost got killed myself, you goddamn—”

  That was it for Springer. He stood up and backhanded me across the mouth, hard enough that I fell on the floor. Then he sat back down again. The good-looking boys laughed again. I didn’t. After a minute I reached over to my chair and pulled myself up into it. My hand was skinned from trying to stop the fall and my ass was bruised from my hand not doing the job.

  “Okay,” I said. My lip was swollen and I tasted blood. “Okay.”

  “I don’t want any more bullshit out of you, Joe,” Springer said. “I could let this whole thing go and let you take the fall for Cohen and McFall. Don’t forget it.”

  “Okay,” I mumbled through my swollen lip. “I know. I won’t forget it. But can I ask you something?”

  “Sure.” Springer smiled. I guess he always felt good after smacking a woman. “Go ahead.”

  “Whatever happened to the girl? Nadine?”

  Springer shrugged. “I don’t know. Her parents weren’t interested so I let it go. Her father said she’s a junkie and a whore and they don’t want nothing to do with her anymore.”

  “So where is she now?” I asked.

  “I don’t know and I don’t care,” Springer said, smiling again. “I guess she ended up wherever girls like that go. You’d know better than me, huh?”

  “Yeah,” I said. “I guess I would.”

  Chapter Twenty-eight

  Shelley was waiting by the door of the Sweedmore when I got home. I was surprised she knew where I lived—she’d never been by before. She was wearing a white suit and had a white scarf wrapped around her head and white gloves and a big white purse and dark glasses, with white rims, like a movie star. She looked pretty, but too pretty, like she was wearing a costume, and she seemed nervous, looking down at the ground and shuffling her feet a little, like she was shy. Maybe she thought I didn’t want to see her.

  “Hey,” I said. “How’s it going?”

  “Okay,” she said. She looked up. “I saw in the papers. About Jim and everything.”

  “The papers?”

  “Sure,” she said. “The morning edition.”

  I realized I’d been in the police station all night. Then I understood why Shelley had come.

  “You don’t have to worry,” I told her. “I mean, about me doing anything like I said I would—telling the people in your building or anything like that. If I was in the papers—”

  “No,” she said quickly. “I ain’t worried about that. I mean, I’m not worried. They didn’t even print your name. Just that there was a big shootout in Manhattan. A big drug dealer got killed. I had to kind of read between the lines to figure out what happened. Besides, even if they did, no one would know, right? I mean, I’m Shelley Dumere now.”

  “Right,” I said. “So. You wanna get a cup of coffee or something?”

  She looked around, and then looked back down at the ground. “Nah, I got to get to work. We’re starting rehearsals for the TV show today.” She smiled. “I was just . . . I just wanted to come by and tell you . . . you know, that I was sorry how it all turned out. I kind of . . .” She fidgeted with her hands a little, taking one in the other and squeezing it. “I kind of felt bad for not helping you out. For not telling you what I knew about McFall and everything when you first asked. Maybe things could have turned out different.”

  “It’s okay,” I said. There wasn’t much else to say.

  “Anyway,” Shelley said. “I guess it’s all over now. I mean, Jim’s dead. And the girl, Nadine—she turned out not to have anything to do with it all, right?”

  I thought about it for a minute. I had enough money left to live on for a few months. I didn’t have any reason to work. I didn’t have any reason to do anything, really. “I
guess I’ll find her anyway.”

  Shelley took off her sunglasses and looked at me. “Why?”

  I didn’t say anything.

  “She might not even be alive,” Shelley said. “I mean, you know what happens—”

  “Either way,” I said. “I guess I’ll find her.”

  Shelley looked around again, and didn’t say anything for a minute. Then she looked at me. “If you find her,” she said, “if you find Nadine, what are you gonna do with her?”

  I shrugged.

  “Her parents don’t want her, right?”

  “No. They don’t want anything to do with her.”

  “Well,” Shelley said, “she’s gonna need a place to stay and money and all that.”

  “I guess,” I said.

  Shelley started fidgeting with her hands again. “I know you don’t have so much—I mean, no offense or nothing. But, well, maybe you could let me know. Maybe you could let me know when you find her. If she needs money or a place to stay or anything like that. Or if you do. If you need anything.”

  “Yeah,” I said. “I’ll do that.”

  We stood there for a minute. Neither of us said anything.

  “Well, I ought to—”

  Suddenly Shelley reached out and took my hand. “I’m sorry,” she said. “I really am, Joe. I’m so sorry I didn’t tell you the truth.”

  “It’s okay,” I said. I squeezed her hand. “Really, it’s okay.”

  She swallowed and I thought she might cry. “You’ll call me, right? When you find the girl? You’ll call me?”

  “Yeah,” I said. “I promise. I’ll call.”

  Chapter Twenty-nine

  I went down to Allen Street and over to Third Avenue with her photo. The funny thing about street whores is how much they want to help. Every one took a good long look at her photo, and a few said they might have maybe seen her somewhere before—poor invisible Nadine—and that they’d keep their eyes open. And they meant it, too. But the other thing about whores is, they don’t keep their eyes open. They can’t. If they did, they’d see all the worst of the world. So I gave them all my phone number but I kept asking, on Allen, on Third, on the West Side Piers, even spots I knew out in Brooklyn, over the Williamsburg Bridge.

  The day after Jim’s funeral Yonah came to see me. We went out for a walk to the square by my house where the mental patients got their fresh air. He said that Gary, Jim’s boss, had paid for a big funeral for Jim, and that everyone came: every con man, every hustler, every thief. People came from all over the country.

  “Nobody blames you, doll,” he said. Yonah looked old and sad, wearing a worn suit and a frayed straw hat. It was summer now and the sun was bright and hot. We walked around the square. “He shouldn’t have done that to you. Everyone was saying that. You were always a stand-up girl. You always been right, and everyone knows it. We all went to the funeral, out of respect and all, but Jim was a bum. I mean, to do that to anyone, but his own girl . . .” Yonah shook his head. “His own girl. No one had any idea he was mixed up in dope again. Everyone feels real bad about what happened to you. Some of the guys, Gary and some of the other fellows, they were talking about taking up a collection for you. Or maybe giving you whatever they got when they sold off his stuff.”

  “Nah,” I said. “It’s nice of them, but I don’t need it.”

  “You sure?” Yonah said. “They want to do it. Gary, he thought he ought to take care of you, the way he would any fellow’s widow.”

  I shook my head. I didn’t want anything from Jim.

  We stopped and sat on a bench. Yonah looked at me. “How about you, Joe? You doin’ okay?”

  “Sure,” I said. “I’m okay.”

  “You couldn’t have known,” Yonah said. “It wasn’t your fault at all, none of it. You know that, don’tcha?”

  “I really thought—” I said. “I mean, I really thought Jim—”

  I started to cry.

  Yonah wrapped his big arms around me, and we sat in the park like that until it was time for him to go back home for his medicine.

  I kept looking for Nadine. Finally, on Twenty-seventh and Tenth, on my third trip there, I found a girl I knew from the old neighborhood, Laura, who had seen her. Laura had always been the pretty one on Fifty-third Street. She had curly blond hair and a perfect figure and bright blue eyes. Now she didn’t look so pretty. She looked like a dress that used to be nice, but then someone wore it too much and left it in the corner crumpled and forgot all about it.

  She was ashamed of herself, and when she saw me coming she turned away and put a hand over her face. I took her in my arms.

  “You look great, Laura,” I told her, because I didn’t know what else to say.

  “No I don’t,” she said. She smiled anyway. “It’s good to see you, Joe.” But she was looking around the block, shaking a little, and I figured if she didn’t get back to work soon she’d get a beating later. I took out Nadine’s picture and showed it to her.

  Laura smiled. “Sure, I know her. Sweet girl. Real sweet. She used to work out here. What happened to her?”

  “I don’t know. What do you know about her?”

  “Jeez. She used to work for Jesse, like me, for a while.” I knew Jesse. He was Laura’s pimp. “But she got bad, real bad. With the dope, I mean. She couldn’t keep it under control. Any trick came along with a little dope, she’d give it to him for free. Sometimes she’d take off with a guy for days. Jesse beat the hell out of her, a couple of times, but it didn’t do anything. She didn’t change. Finally Jesse just cut her loose. Now she can’t work around here no more. Jesse’d whip her ass till the skin came off if he saw her out here.”

  “So where do you think she is?” I asked.

  Laura shrugged. “You could always try Jezebel’s. I mean, where else is a girl like that gonna go?”

  Chapter Thirty

  The building was a four-story tenement like a million others in Manhattan. I opened the door and went inside. No locks. No one needed them here. It was a building no one had ever loved. The paint had always been gray and the floor had always been cheap scuffed linoleum. Fat old Jezebel was sitting at a little desk right inside the hallway, just like she always was. Her hair was thinner but it was pulled up in the same tight bun, dyed a dark black. Her fat face hung lower but the small mean eyes were the same. Even the shabby black dress was the same, or could have been.

  Jezebel’s was a place girls go when they’re tired of hustling and tired of trying and tired of being pretty and tired of scoring and just plain tired, exhausted and beat. No one’s looking for the girls at Jezebel’s. No one wants them. Maybe once they had families and friends and fellows, but not anymore. To the rest of the world they’re dead already. It’s only them that can’t see it. It’s only the girls themselves who think that somehow, in some way, they still matter. That they’re still alive.

  You never see any money, if you’re a girl at Jezebel’s, and that’s how you want it. Jezebel comes to your room three times a day and gives you a shot. If she can, she’ll shoot you in the foot, so stockings with garters can cover up your sores. If the veins in your feet are no good she’ll just do it wherever she can and charge the tricks less. There’s a kitchen downstairs with food whenever you want it. Usually no one wants it. A few times a day a girl stumbles in, in a nightgown or a house robe, and eats a few bites of tapioca or vanilla pudding. But you don’t need a lot of nourishment to lie in bed all day. The customers who come to Jezebel’s don’t expect anything else. That’s why the girls like it. No “I wish all the guys were as handsome as you,” no “What kind of work do you do, Mr. Smith?” That’s for places like Rose’s or the Royale. In Jezebel’s the girls just lie around all day until they can’t take it anymore, and then the ambulance or the coroner’s truck comes. No one was locked in. The girls could leave anytime they wanted. They didn’t.

  I figured I could get in and out of there quick, with or without the girl. Jezebel didn’t want any trouble and she didn’t wa
nt any girls anyone else was looking for.

  She looked up at me sharply. She didn’t recognize me. I didn’t expect her to. Probably ten girls a month came in and out of Jezebel’s.

  “What do you want?” she said. Her voice was flat and empty—a voice with no voice in it at all. “Well? What?”

  I took the picture of Nadine out of my purse and showed it to Jezebel. “Her.”

  She looked at the picture for a minute and then back up at me. “What do you want with her?”

  “I’m here to take her home.”

  Jezebel looked at me for another long minute. Then she stood up and began walking down the hall. I followed. At the end of the hall was a staircase. We didn’t go up. We went down, to a dark basement with concrete walls. Bare bulbs hung from the ceiling here and there, giving off just enough light to get the general idea of the place. A few dozen clotheslines were strung around the room from wall to wall. Hanging from them were old sheets, making little nooks of almost-privacy. We walked through the maze of curtains to the back of the room. You could see the curtains rustling and hear the ugly sounds coming from behind. Some of the curtains didn’t reach the floor and you could see a foot or a hand hanging off a bed. I tried not to look. I had seen it before, and I didn’t need to see it again.

  When we reached the wall Jezebel stopped in front of the last curtained-off nook.

  “She’s in there,” she said. “You want to go in, or you want to wait till he’s done?”

  I realized the curtain was rustling and a cot was squeaking on the other side.

  “I’ll wait,” I said. Over a few minutes the squeaking got louder and faster and then stopped. I turned my head. I didn’t want to see who was coming out. After a minute I heard the curtain rustle and footsteps walk away.

  “Go ahead,” Jezebel said. I would have knocked, but there was nothing to knock on, so I opened the curtain and went in.

  Nadine Nelson lay on the bed, staring at the wall. She hadn’t bothered to dress or to undress; she wore a yellow satin robe with a Chinese pattern, hanging open from her shoulders, covering her arms. Her hip bones stuck out and her ribs were plain enough to count. She didn’t wear anything else.