Ben Soul

by Richard George

On Fridays look for packages wrapped in blue paper. Those will be the sheets returned from the dry cleaners.” Delta took a deep breath. “Got it? Think you can manage?”

  “Yes,” Vanna said, and she did. She soon came to appreciate her time cleaning the rooms. No Hanna Bollix disturbed her work. Hannah loomed over the rest of her waking hours like a miasma of misery. Payday came at the end of every month. Delta paid Vanna a modest stipend for her work. Vanna was furious to learn that ten percent of her wages was deducted automatically for a charitable fund the house supported. The fund paid for housing aging prostitutes in a convent with aging nuns. Vanna watched for months to see where Delta kept this money without success.

  The Cote of Soiled Doves

  Vanna grew accustomed to the routine of peeling vegetables and cleaning toilets that her new life provided. She had not wholly recovered from the psychic binding La Señora had inflicted on her. Her drive to go north to avenge herself did not disappear, but its coals were banked in the recesses of her spirit. She found the monotony of her days soothing. She rested, recuperating some of her power as she wielded the vegetable peelers and commode brushes of her new arsenal. The lines incarceration had scarred into her face softened and smoothed, though not enough to disguise her age. The gray streaks in her hair stayed. Where her figure had once been trim and womanly, now it was gaunt, and she had developed a light stoop.

  She discovered that all was not as sweet and cozy in the House as Delta Blow liked to paint it. Theoretically, Delta collected fees for all the ladies, and took a small percentage for House overhead before she disbursed the funds to each woman. She did not tell them she took ten percent off the top before she calculated the House fee. Delta considered this her moral right, as she had no other salary from the business.

  The ladies were contractually obliged to turn over any gratuities especially grateful customers lavished on them to the common fund, so Delta could take the House share. Vanna discovered every one of them had a tip stash in their rooms. Vanna deemed it appropriate that she, as maid of all work to these ladies, who seldom acknowledged her existence, should get a small gratuity of her own. The ladies could not report any thefts without exposing their own duplicity.

  Vanna became adept at ferreting out the tip cache locations. Amethyst had a purple teddy bear decorating her bed. It sat on the pillows, and was nearly as large as a Great Dane. Amethyst had installed a zipper in the teddy’s crotch. It was functional, and she slipped all her tips into a cavity in the toy’s stuffing. She collected a sizeable sum. Her waist was delicately thin, and her bosom most ample. The middle-aged men, the ones who had more money, frequented Amethyst.

  Diamond was a thin stick for those who liked such stringy meat. They were commonly stingy men, grim in their demeanor, quick about their business, and disinclined to tip. Diamond did have a small cache, stored in an old cold cream jar. Vanna took little of it. Diamond counted the money every evening when she came in, and again in the morning. She knew to a penny how much should be in her jar.

  Emerald was careless. She had great swaths of emerald cloth draped over every bit of furniture, and even an emerald sash framing a picture of the Virgin. The Holy Mother’s gentle gaze did not deter Emerald’s customers, or Emerald herself. Any gratuities Emerald received she carelessly laid on the bureau top or stuffed into a medicine chest on the wall of her apartment’s bathroom. Vanna easily extracted a large share of Emerald’s extra earnings without Emerald’s noticing.

  Jade was close with her funds. She had a small bamboo vase that held her tips. Each morning she took whatever was in the vase with her. Vanna never got a chance at Jade’s money. Onyx chose to decorate her room with an African art theme. Shields and spears ranged along the walls. Her cache reposed in the helmet that perched on top of a Masai warrior statue. Onyx catered to the young men, and got only a little money on the side, compared to ladies like Emerald and Amethyst. Opal served the working classes, truck drivers, dockworkers, and the like. Her room had simple furnishings. The visible fabrics ran to chintzes and machine lace. Her tips were moderate. She kept them in a mason jar in a drawer. Vanna found her gratuities to be a modest but steady source of income.

  Pearl was old for a woman in her line of work, and near retirement. Delta wanted to encourage her to retire, since she added little to the House income. If Pearl received any tips, Vanna never found where she stashed them. The furnishings in Pearl’s room were minimal, just what the House provided. Peridot decorated her quarters with vague landscapes drifting in mist. The few times Vanna had observed Peridot, she seemed to be drifting in mists herself. She did keep a cache of tips, though. She had taped a heavy nine-inch by eleven-inch envelope behind one of the landscapes. She stuffed the cash she earned there. She kept strict account of how much went in, and how much she took out. Vanna did not dip into her cache.

  Ruby loved sweets. Her plump figure testified to her weakness for chocolates. Her regular gentlemen callers, the clients most likely to leave a tip, commonly brought boxes of chocolates for her. Vanna had little use for chocolates, though she did, on rare occasions, help herself to a truffle or two. Sapphire and Turquoise were sisters. Ecru lace defined their decorative preference. The lace covered bureaus, accented framed pictures (mostly of dogs and horses), and fringed their bed shams. They sometimes entertained clients together. Old gentlemen, approaching senility, many of whom declined sex for conversation, were wont to leave the sisters with stock tips, or some sentimental bit of jewelry such as their grandmother’s rings. The sisters took in too little cash to help Vanna’s escape fund.

  The kitchen, of course, provided Vanna no opportunity for theft. Hannah Bollix kept tight control of the food money. She met their suppliers at the door, and disbursed funds as needed to obtain items, mostly vegetables Vanna wound up peeling. Vanna might have got away with an extra cucumber slice or two, but so much as even one cream cheese decorated cracker missing required a full and truthful explanation as to its disappearance. Vanna was not sufficiently fond of crackers to steal very many, and, Hannah did provide her an adequate amount of food.

  Vanna did not eat with the ladies at their grand meal. She served them, and laid out the plates and platters of canapés in the receiving parlor. When all was presented to Delta’s satisfaction, Vanna could take a quiet plate in the kitchen. When the House activity was in full swing, Delta expected Vanna to keep discreetly to her room. Vanna complained to Hannah Bollix that she had nothing to do but sit in the room and stare at the wall. Vanna intended to extend this complaint into a request for a television set. Hannah, however, determined it best to solve Vanna’s boredom by presenting her with a small library of religious texts to read. Vanna stacked them on her bureau to collect the dust of the ages.

  Irons in Vanna’s Fire

  Chill rain fell steadily. The sky was as dark at noon as it was at dawn and twilight. When night came the House’s clientele huddled in the parlor nibbling canapés and swilling hot chocolate. Hannah Bollix pressed Vanna into service filling wontons with ginger-spiced pork and shredded cabbage to make a special winter treat for the parlor people. Vanna took a basket of the deep-fried goodies to fill a chafing dish in the parlor. It was a lulled moment. Only two brothers sat on couches waiting for one or another of the ladies to service their needs.

  The brothers, Brandon and Clapton Irons, were callow fellows. Only a year apart in age, they were often mistaken for twins. They were pale, with faded blue eyes and weedy brown hair. They were altogether unprepossessing. Vanna slipped in quietly and dumped her basket of wontons into the chafing dish.

  “Are you the next one?” Clapton asked her.

  “Next what?”

  “Next working lady?” Brandon elaborated.

  “No. I work in the kitchen.”

  “A pretty lady like you?” Clapton said.

  “I’m not pretty enough for this kind of work,” Vanna said, and started to leave.
Brandon grasped her arm, not roughly, and held her in the parlor.

  “Clapton and I are tired of waiting,” Brandon said. “We’ve been here a half hour.”

  Vanna pulled her arm from the boy-man’s grasp. “I’m sure Delta will have someone to accommodate you momentarily,” she said. “Now, please let me go. I am not supposed to linger in the parlor.”

  “How much?” Clapton said.

  “Boys, boys!” Delta admonished them. “Donna is my cleaning lady and kitchen helper. She’s not a professional lady. Do have some of her wontons. There’s mustard sauce and soy and rice vinegar to season them.” She jerked her head at Vanna, indicating she should leave. Delta’s great beehive hairdo, flaming red tonight, slipped askew. Un-self-consciously Delta pushed it back into place with a touch of her hand.

  Vanna left. She heard Delta advising the weedy brothers behind her that they should wait for the “really pretty” ladies. Vanna fumed at Delta’s insult. Not for the first time Vanna wondered where Delta kept the fund for aging prostitutes. Hannah Bollix had mentioned that the fund’s receipts would soon be turned over to the convent for the care of geriatric fallen angels. Vanna wanted the money to escape. Her