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

“’Cause suppose you got HIV and you know it? What you gonna do?”

“I dunno. Get medicine, I guess.”

Rainbow stared. “Fish, I never knew you was dumb. They got no medicine for that. You get it, you’re good for a while, years maybe, but then you die. If you know it or you don’t know it, it’s the same thing.”

“But what do you do if a trick asks? I got a card from the clinic says I’m clean, but what do you do? Don’t they ask you?”

Rainbow snorted. “Yeah, and just you try asking them one time.”

“Yeah, but still. You can’t show you’re clean, maybe they decide to go with someone else. You lose the trick.”

“Jacky-boy give me a card. Danielle and Flash, too. Look just exactly like that one you got, but didn’t nobody have to pull blood out my arm for it.”

“A fake?”

“Hell-O, Fish. Welcome to the world, baby girl.”

“You know where he got it?”

“What? The card? Some guy he know downtown.”

“You know the guy’s name?”

“Uh-uh.” Rainbow eyed Silverfish, interested in this sudden new direction. “How come?”

“Well, I got a problem. See, I lost mine.”

“So? Tell Jacky-boy. He get you one of these.”

Silverfish shook her head. “It’s, like, the fourth thing I lost. After my cell phone, and my driver’s license, and a little pin he gave me. I don’t want him to get all pissed.”

“Oh.” Rainbow nodded slowly. Because Jacky-boy was so hard to rile, when he finally got mad at a girl he really went off. There was always the danger he’d kick her right out. They all knew that and they were all afraid of it. The time Silverfish lost the cell phone, Jacky-boy blew up at her. All the girls were there when it happened and they all remembered. Being thrown out by your pimp, being damaged goods working these streets unprotected or going with whatever bottom-feeder would take you on after that, was a bleak prospect none of them wanted to face. So Rainbow could be counted on to be sympathetic if Silverfish’s big fear was of getting on Jacky-boy’s bad side.

“I’m gonna go get tested again,” Silverfish said, “but the clinic says they got a waiting list, a month.” That wasn’t true; for an HIV test the walk-in clinic would take you anytime. But Rainbow wouldn’t know that.

Rainbow, always resourceful, said, “I see what I can find out for you.”

Silverfish had never had a driver’s license and Jacky-boy never gave her a little pin. But Rainbow wouldn’t know that, either.

Two days later Rainbow handed Silverfish a paper with a name and address on it. “He ain’t cheap. You need money?”

“Thanks, honey. But I got some saved up.”

Jacky-boy gave the girls allowances. Some of them spent it all on shoes and makeup, but Silverfish was careful with hers. She kept herself looking good, of course — the johns had to want you — but her only extravagance was hair dye. She thought about the hair dye, and the care she took with the job she did, and on her way downtown she bought herself a wig.

She explained to the guy downtown what she wanted. It wasn’t exactly what he thought she wanted from what Rainbow told him, so Silverfish went through it twice, to make sure he got it. She gave him her cell-phone number and, just to be really safe, told him a name to use if he had to call, and a message to leave so he’d sound like a john making a date but she’d know it was him. Jacky-boy had never once messed with her phone — though he’d made her pay for the new one herself after she lost the first one — because she followed the rules, always answering right away when it was his ringtone, even if she was with a trick. And she always told him the truth about where she was, because sometimes he was watching from somewhere and just calling to check up. But still, she gave the guy downtown this secret code. You never knew. A few days later he called, and she went downtown during the day, after Jacky-boy had come by the apartment and already left. She was supposed to be sleeping, and she knew she’d be tired when she went to work that night, but she’d feel much better with the guy’s papers in her purse.

The next time Silverfish saw Lady Mary, the girl looked good and she was cheerful and giggly, like before. They talked about just stuff: eyeliner, and whether they’d stay married to A-Rod even if he cheated on them — which they both would, it was a total no-brainer, a guy with that much money? And what guy didn’t cheat, come on, who cared? — and then a car slowed down for Silverfish (“Hey, you with the hair!”) and they said goodnight.

The time after that was pretty much the same, just her and Lady Mary, talking trash. But Silverfish was used to being right about bad stuff by now, and the next time, Lady Mary’s eye was swollen and the eyebrow had a big band-aid.

“What happened this time? Hey, girl, don’t look at the sidewalk, it didn’t ask you a question. What did you do, give Roach more lip?”

In a whisper, Lady Mary said, “I didn’t do anything.”

“You mean you don’t know?”

“No. I mean, I really didn’t do anything. He says I do better business when I’m messed up.”