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

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.”