38
The door to the place was unlocked. Maybe it couldn't be locked. It sagged in its frame. Inside there was a scrawny old guy in a rickety chair shoving sticks into a stove. It was hot enough to broil steaks but he was grumbling about the cold. He was one giant liver spot. "Drop it on the counter," he said, not bothering to look up.
"What?”
He looked, then. At me, then at Maya. His brushy white eyebrows wormed around. "You together?”
"Yes.”
"Well, whatever. Have to charge you. Six marks silver. First time? Take any box where the curtain is open. You don't like what you get, you can move once on the house. You still ain't satisfied, it's another mark every move until you light.”
I put the money down. He went back to feeding the fire. Maya gave me a puzzled look. I shrugged and stepped up to a curtained doorway.
It opened to reveal a long hallway. A half-dozen curtained alcoves opened to either side. Four had their curtains drawn. We walked down the hall and back. I heard soft voices behind the drawn curtains. Where the curtains were open there was nothing but a chair and a table pushed against a wall of glass. There was nothing behind the glass but darkness.
"What is this place, Garrett?”
"I guess if you have to ask you don't belong here." I led her into the nearest open room and drew the curtain. The place was five feet deep by six wide and very dark with the curtain closed. I felt for what looked like a pull cord and gave it a tug. Bells tinkled somewhere overhead, muted. A light appeared high on the other side of the glass.
A well-dressed and impossibly beautiful woman came down a spiral staircase into an eight by twelve room that might have been a lady's bedroom transported from the Hill. It was a set, obviously, but just as obviously perfect in every detail.
"Garrett," Maya whispered, "that woman isn't human. She's pure high elf.”
I saw it but I didn't believe it. Who ever heard of an elfish whore? But Maya had it right. She was elfish, and so damned beautiful she hurt my eyes.
She began to undress as though unaware that she was being observed, pulled a chair up to a table facing the glass from the far side, then sat in her under things. She began removing makeup slowly. The glass must be a mirror on her side.
Maya pinched me. "Stop panting. You'll fog the glass.”
The elfish woman heard something. She cocked her head quizzically. She asked, "Is someone there?”
That was a voice men could kill for. I didn't know her from dog food. I like to think I'm as hard-nosed a cynic as they make, but I had no problem imagining that silver-bells whisper on my pillow, sending me whooping through the teeth of Hell.
She stood up and slipped out of another layer of clothing.
Maya said, "I'm not going to ask what this one has that I don't." She sounded awed.
I was petrified.
"Is someone there?" she asked again.
I reached out and touched the glass. A sound-permeable glass that could be seen through from one side only? Someone had invested heavily in some very specialized designer sorcery. And I could see the touch of genius in it. This mundane bit of voyeurism and pretense was a hundred times as erotic as any crude stage coupling of women with one another, nonhumans, apes, or zebras. And the main reason was the natural talent of the woman behind the glass. She turned every move into something ripped out of a blazing fantasy.
She touched the glass where my fingertips rested. "That's all right. You don't have to talk if you don't want." It felt like my fingers were pressed to a grill.
I wanted. I wanted desperately. I was in love. And I was as tongue-tied as a twelve-year-old with designs on someone Maya's age.
I yanked my hand away.
I didn't know what to do.
Maya stepped in. "Who are you?”
"I'm whoever you want me to be." She registered no surprise at a woman's voice. "I'll be whatever you want. I'm your fantasy.”
Yes. Oh, yes.
She started on the last layer of clothing.
I turned around. I couldn't handle it, not with Maya there.
I wondered if there was some drug in the air, or maybe a subtle sorcery that enhanced the normal magic of a beautiful woman disrobing.
I knew what kind of acting Jill did. She'd be a natural here. She had the looks, she had the style, and she had the heat when she wanted. Put her in one of those rooms, and she could be bewitching.
I rested my hand on Maya's shoulder, whispered, "I'm going to check the other boxes.”
She nodded.
When I stepped out only two sets of curtains were drawn. A man was just leaving. I went up and down the hall quickly. Four of the empties had signs up indicating there would be no response if you rang. I guessed the place was a twenty-four-hour operation and only one woman used a setup. Most would be on duty now because the Tenderloin was headed into its busy hours.
I rang a bell and conjured a redhead who reminded me of Tinnie but wasn't Jill Craight. I got out before she worked a spell on me.
The old man was in the hall. He looked at me quizzically. I dropped coins into his hand. "I'm going to take the tour.”
"Suit yourself." An old veteran of the Tenderloin. No surprises. None of his business what I did as long as I paid.
Each woman was as marvelous as the last but none were Jill. I even waited out the occupants of the two busy boxes. One of the ladies wasn't Jill and the other put out her sign and refused to answer her bell.
Twelve possibilities whittled down to five. I considered working on the old man, discarded the idea. Unless I wanted to sit on him he'd warn Jill that somebody was asking questions. I knew where to look now. All I needed to do was come back until I'd seen them all.
I went back to box one. Maya and the elfish woman were chattering like sisters. The woman had her clothes on. Just as well. There are limits to what a man can take.
Maya glanced back to make sure it was me. "I'm almost done. Time's up anyway.”
They exchanged a few pleasantries in a way that made me suspect I'd interrupted some girl talk. Maya got up and leaned close, whispered, "You have to leave a tip. That's the way they make their money. The old man keeps what he takes.”
Except for the kingpin's cut, of course. Which would come out of the tips, too.
"Where?”
Maya showed me a slot in the tabletop which was the only way to pass objects from one side of the glass to the other. I rilled it with a generous sprinkle of silver. I wasn't out much. It had come from the kingpin to begin and some of it might have gone to him from here.
Maya squeezed my arm. She was pleased with me. I figured the woman had run a good game on her. I led her out of there.
A man was coming in the front door as I parted the hall curtains for Maya. I caught only a glimpse of a little dink with a shiny head and an epic schnoz. He froze. Maya froze. I walked into her. We tangled. When we untangled he was gone. "What the hell?”
"That was him, Garrett. He recognized me.”
"That was who?”
"The guy that was in that apartment. The one that ran me over.”
The old man fed his fire. He saw nothing. He heard nothing.
That runt had some eye if he'd recognized this Maya as the filthy girl who'd been in that apartment.
I plunged into the street and saw a lot of what the old man saw inside. The dink was a magician. Or maybe he was just so short he couldn't be spotted in the crowd.
It's carnival every night down there. I have to admit it's not all whoring and sleaze. There are tamer entertainments. Hell, two doors from where I stood there was a bingo hall with the vanguard of its regiment of old ladies just arriving. But sleaze is the axis of the Tenderloin and the misery there outweighs the innocuous entertainments.
I asked my angels if they'd seen the little guy. They didn't know what I was talking about. I asked the barker. He hadn't seen a thing and was too busy to chat. Irked, I told him, "I'll be back tomorrow. We'll talk when you're not so pressed.”
"Yeah. Sure. Nobody's going to say I don't cooperate with the organization.”
Exasperated, I collected Maya and headed home.