“What?”
She stood back up, towering over Charlie. “I need the money first. Those are the rules, kid. No money up front and you can hit the road.” She stuck out an open palm.
Charlie stared at it.
“I don’t got time for cheapies, right?” she said. “Like yesterday, right? This short guy, this Paki, wouldn’t shut up. ‘The last prophet’s the only right one,’ he said. ‘Muhammad’s the last prophet. Muhammad’s this and that. You have to follow the last prophet, right, because that’s the way it goes, right? When a new one comes along, he’s the proper one. Jesus, Moses, Abraham — they’re all too old. Their time’s passed, right? Muhammad’s the only real prophet for our time. Muhammad, Muhammad, Muhammad. The newest one. Don’t believe what anybody else says. Pray to Allah. Listen to Muhammad. Somebody tells you something else, it’s wrong. I know the truth. Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.’ Cheapie Paki didn’t have a penny. Wouldn’t leave me alone, right? Just wanted to yak my ear off. I don’t got time for that.” She glared at Charlie, palm out. Her face was like an angry bird’s. “You gonna pay or scram?”
Charlie raised his chin. “How about if I —”
“Pay or scram, kid?”
“All right, all right,” Charlie said. Warily, he took a crumpled twenty out of his pocket and placed it in her hand.
She stuffed the bill in her handbag.
“So, like, we could do —” Charlie began.
“Don’t worry, kid,” she said, zipping up her bag. “Whatever you want. We’ll have lots of fun. Buckets … buckets of fun.” She snorted, turned to me. “What about you. What’s in your pockets?”
I shook my head.
“You forgot how to speak?”
“No.”
“Then let’s see.”
“See what?”
“Show me what’s in your pockets.”
“Oh. There’s nothing. Nothing.”
“Then show me.”
I didn’t understand.
“Empty your pockets, kid.”
“Oh,” I said, pulling the lining out of my pockets.
She looked at each one closely, sticking her neck forward. They were empty save for my back-door key. “Cheapie,” she muttered, then turned to Charlie. “Twenty’s all you got, huh?”
“Yeah.”
“So if I checked in your wallet right now there wouldn’t be a penny?”
“You don’t believe me?”
“If I checked in your wallet, there wouldn’t be a penny?”
“No.”
“Then show me.”
“What?”
“Show me your wallet, kid. I wanna see if you’re messing with me.”
“I’m not.”
“Then show me.”
“I ain’t showing you my wallet,” Charlie said.
“’Cause you got more dough, right? Lousy cheapie. Trying to rip —”
“No.”
“Why not then?”
“’Cause I don’t want you touching my wallet.”
“Oh,” she said, throwing her hands in the air, “so you’ll trust me with your cock in my hand but not your money, eh? Want me to touch your little pee-pee but not your wallet, right? Ha! If I were you, kid, I’d be lots more afraid of the damage I could do with your —”
“Screw this,” Charlie said. “Give me back the twenty, miss. I don’t want nothing from you. Forget it.” Switching roles, he stuck out his palm.
She ignored it. “Won’t even fork over fifty for the best there is! Bet you buy your sneakers at Value Village, you misers, you … you stupid cheapie kids! Think I’m gonna give it up for nothing, right? Give you each a freebie? You think I’m gonna —”
“Listen, just give me the —”
“Six hundred, one fella pays!” She sliced her arm through the air. “Six hundred dollars! Just for an hour. Six hundred for one hour! That’s big time. More than a lawyer makes. And I work for myself. Every penny goes in my pocket. That’s real money. I make real money. I buy nice things. Prada, Gucci — all that shit! And you think I got time to give you two —”
“We don’t want nothing, lady. Just give me my money back and we’ll —”
“Lousy cheapskates!” she hissed, twirled around, and began strutting away from us down the sidewalk. “Misers! Cheapers! Cheapsters …”
“I ain’t leaving you alone till I get my money,” Charlie said, trying to catch up.
“You’re gonna walk me home?”
“If I have to.”
She didn’t answer, kept walking. I was following, too, a little way behind Charlie.
“You think I’m stupid, lady?” Charlie said. “Give me the money.”
“Don’t got it.”
Charlie sped up. “What?”
“You never gave me shit, kid. Nothing. Never paid me nothing. Don’t know what you’re talking about. You’re talking nonsense. Trying to rip me off.” She took longer strides. “Now get outta here. Quit bothering me. Go to bed.”
Charlie ran up beside her. “You think you’re gonna rob me, lady? Give me the money.”
Again she picked up her pace. “Scram, kid.”
Charlie matched her speed. “Give it.”
“Dunno what you’re talking about, kid.”
“C’mon, lady. Enough of this. I gave you my twenty. Hand it over.”
She gained a step on him. “It’s past your bedtime. Go home. Your mother’s probably wondering where —”
“You stupid whore! You ugly … you …”
She stopped, didn’t turn around, waited.
Crying.
She must be crying. Sobbing silently, a hand over her mouth, eyes squeezed shut the way my sister did for three weeks straight after being dumped by her first boyfriend.
But when the hooker turned around and looked down at Charlie, her face was dry and she was smiling, squinty-eyed, cheeks all bunched up as if he were a dressed-up little girl or a cute-eyed kitten. She put her hands on her knees, again crouched to Charlie’s height, and said, as if he were an old friend of hers, “Used to sleep in her bathtub, right, ’cause she figured it was the only safe place in her apartment. Her bathtub. She put a mattress in her bathtub, right? Pillow, blanket, everything. Figured there were ghosts in all the other rooms, right, and they’d get her at night, so she sleeps in the bathtub. Tub’s the only place she feels safe, right? And her home’s in Russia. Has no family in Toronto. She’s the only person in her family to ever leave the country, right? And listen, one night she’s about to go to bed and she sees something buried in the plaster on her bathroom wall, a piece of paper or something, right? So she digs it out, and it’s a photograph. It’s her grandfather. It’s a picture of her grandfather who never left Russia. His picture’s buried in the wall of her apartment. In her bathroom. In Toronto. How did it get there,