Page 13 of If Looks Could Kill
“You are not,” said Pearl.
“Not what?”
“You’re no reporter,” my companion insisted. “You’re too young.”
“Got eyes and ears, haven’t I?” the girl replied. “A pencil, paper, and a decent brain.”
A girl my age, a reporter! It sounded thrilling. “What newspaper do you write for?”
She thrust out her chin. “Whatever paper recognizes the genius in what I send them.”
Not yet published, then. I took a second look at our new acquaintance.
She was shorter than either of us. Her eyes were bright and intelligent, framed by thin-rimmed spectacles.
Her brown hair was cinched back in a ponytail.
Her clothes were simple. Her long skirt, I realized, was divided.
Not trousers, but not not trousers, and her boots were men’s, or at any rate, boys’.
“You two got names?” the newcomer asked.
We admitted that we did and named ourselves.
“So why were you promenading around the block?” Freyda opened a crumpled bag of peanuts, shelled one, and popped the nuts into her mouth. “What, are you a pair of Temperance gals, fighting the Battle of Jericho and hoping these saloon walls fall down?”
Pearl’s eyes lit up at that. “As a matter of fact—”
“We’re looking for a girl we saw yesterday,” I said before Pearl could start sermonizing. “On the second floor, above the Lion’s Den.”
The girl’s eyes bulged. “You’re looking for someone in Mother Rosie’s crib?”
“Crib?” repeated Pearl. “Oh! You mean, a, um, nursery for children?”
Freyda snorted with laughter. “Children!” She shook her head. “I mean, you’re more right than you know, but no. Not a nursery for children.”
“A crib,” I told Pearl in a low voice, “is closer to, um, what we suspect is going on.”
Freyda missed nothing. “So you’re wise to it already?”
“You mean,” said Pearl, “that it’s a house of ill repute?”
The girl shrugged. “Well, its repute ain’t healthy, Pearl, I can tell you that. But it’s not a brothel, if that’s what you mean. More of a, erm, sleeping pad for the gals who work at one.”
“Who is Mother Rosie?” I asked.
Freyda looked to the left and the right, then leaned in closer. “Only a nice Jewish mother—and I can say this, being Jewish too—who runs brothels all over the East Side.”
Pearl and I exchanged a glance. “So the women and girls who live there…”
“Work somewhere else,” supplied Freyda, “and sleep here when they’re off-duty.”
“How do you know all this?” Pearl asked our new friend.
“Who doesn’t?” she said. “Everyone knows you don’t interfere with Mother Rosie.”
I thought of the stern woman I’d seen in the window yesterday afternoon.
“What do you want with this girl you mentioned?” Freyda inquired.
“We met her before,” Pearl said. “We gave her directions to Spring Street. We think she went there to find a job and ended up stuck.” Pearl swallowed. “We hoped we could help.”
“Ain’t you sweet,” the girl said, without too much irony, “but she’s beyond helping now, you can bet. Once Rosie’s got her, there’s no getting her out until the undertaker hauls her out.” She offered us her pouch. “Peanuts?”
Pearl shook her head. I accepted some.
“So you’re a pair of Good Samaritans, are you?” Freyda said. “You don’t look like Salvation Army. Uh-oh…” She saw Pearl’s face. “You are a couple of Sallys? I’ll be darned.”
“We’re soldiers,” declared Pearl, “in God’s army of salvation.”
“But you’re no older than me,” protested the girl reporter. “How old’re you?”
“We’re both eighteen,” I told her.
“Shoot,” she replied. “All that clean living must be doing you good. I’m seventeen, and I thought you were my age.”
“I really need to get some pimple cream,” I told Pearl, who looked scandalized.
“I still don’t get how you’re soldiers in the Brass Band Jesus Army,” Freyda said. “Where’s your getup? The jacket, the bonnet, the red ribbons?”
“We’re incognito,” I explained. “In disguise, to find that girl.”
“Salvation incognito,” Freyda said approvingly. She dug in her pockets looking for something. “Wait. You’re not going to try to save me , are you?”
Pearl shook her head. “No. We don’t try to convert Jews.”
Freyda gave Pearl a frozen look. “This is one of those moments,” she said slowly, “where I don’t know if I should say ‘thanks’ or ‘nuts to you.’ I’m not good enough for your Jesus?”
“It’s not like that,” I said quickly. “We’re not looking to change anyone’s religion.
If someone’s Episcopalian, we want them to stay Episcopalian.
Baptists, stay Baptist. Catholics, stay Catholic.
Jews, stay Jewish. We just want the people who haven’t felt like they’re welcome in any of the Christian churches—because they’re too poor, can’t afford a pew; too sinful, can’t change; that sort of thing—we want them to have a place to come find Jesus. ”
Freyda watched me through narrowed eyes. “And that’s it?”
I nodded. “That’s it.”
“You’re Christians, then.”
“Supposedly,” I told her. Pearl groaned.
“But you’re not looking to Christ-ify me?”
I laughed. “Only if you really beg us to.”
She cocked her head to one side. “And if I don’t?”
“Then that’s a lot less work for me,” I said, “and we can be pals.”
Pearl looked stricken. She would like to Christ-ify the universe and its pet poodle, but I was quoting Commander Ballington Booth’s words, and I stood by them.
Freyda Gorbady handed me a grimy typewritten card from her pocket. FREYDA GORBADY, INVESTIGATIVE REPORTER , it read, with an address printed below.
“I want to write about you two,” she said. “Shadow you. Run a feature. ‘A Day in the Life of a Hallelujah Lass: An Undercover Study.’ The public would eat it up like ice cream.”
“Undercover?” asked Pearl. “Will you pretend to be one of us?”
“Nixey,” Freyda said. Then her eyes grew wide. “But wouldn’t that be something? I could pull it off. What a fizzer! Old Pulitzer would have to print me then, wouldn’t he?”
“Let’s stick with plan A,” I said, laughing. “You can shadow us.”
Pearl made a squeaking sound in her throat. I could read her like a book. She had no idea whether or not this would be allowed. I needed to sweeten the deal to sell this to Pearl Davenport.
“If,” I added, “you use your investigative skills to help us find the girl we’re looking for.”
Freyda rubbed her chin with ink-stained fingers. “Got to pay the racket, haven’t I?” A thought seemed to strike her. “You want to find this girl so you can preach to her?”
“No!” I said, then lowered my voice. “No. We just want to help her.”
“Help her what?”
“Look,” I said, “if we can get her ear for two minutes alone and she tells us she’s where she wants to be, we won’t trouble her any further, all right? But if she’s not, then maybe someone on the outside can help her get back home.”
Freyda studied us. “I don’t get it,” she said at length. “Gotham’s full of lost souls. Why this girl? What’s special about her?”
I looked to see if Pearl wanted to answer, but she seemed stricken. It was up to me.
“We feel responsible for her.” I knew the words sounded foolish.
Freyda watched me curiously.
“When she arrived, she seemed so innocent… and hopeful,” I floundered. “We feel we missed an opportunity to… recognize what was going on and warn her.”
The Girl Reporter frowned. “You’re not God. What were you supposed to do?”
“We’re not saying it makes sense,” I said. “And we know she’s just one girl.” I swallowed. “But so is Pearl. And so am I. And that’s enough.”
Freyda studied our faces. I met her gaze, but Pearl’s emotion, I think, held more weight.
“So will you help us?” I asked Freyda. “We’ll let you write your article.”
She pursed her lips and thought a moment, then thrust out her hand. “All right, Miss Tabitha, you drive a hard bargain. I’m in. When do we start?”
“Not right now,” Pearl said. “We’ve got to get back and change for evening knee drill.”
Freyda turned to me. “Translation?”
“Prayer meeting.”
She nodded. “I figured. When can you come prowling around with me?”
I sighed. “Almost never,” I told her. “We work all day, and most evenings. This little pocket of time, on Sunday afternoon before prayer meeting, is just about the only time we get to do whatever we choose.”
Freyda nodded, then handed me her notebook and pencil. “Tell you what,” she said, “write down the address where I can find you, all right?” She grinned. “Some other day, when it’s not prayer meeting time.”
“I should warn you,” I told her, “we hold prayer meetings about every half hour.”
“Hoo-ey,” Freyda said, “you sure know how to make hunting a prostitute in a brothel sound like the more enjoyable option.” She paused, as if struck with creative inspiration.
“We should give ourselves a name.” She stretched her hand across her vision as if reading a gigantic newspaper headline.
“The Sunday Salvation Squad.” She winked.
“Only I’m not in it for the type of salvation you girls peddle, see? I’m using it as a double intendry.”
Pearl looked perplexed. “A double what?”
“A double entendre ,” I explained, courtesy of high school French. “A double meaning.”
“Right, one of them,” said Freyda. “How d’you like the nickname?”
“It’s a pip.” I tried to keep a straight face.
Freyda seemed pleased. “Say, where do you work?”
“Steve Brodie’s saloon,” I told her. “When you get there, just look down.”
“Steve Brodie’s saloon?” she repeated. “That don’t make sense.”
“Very little of what we do does,” I said.