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that Juanita show her her dolls. She had seen most of them at one time or another on the sidewalk outside the shop, not a one of them that wasn’t missing clothes or an arm or leg. “Old friends,” she said, and asked their names. That got them by until supper was served. Chicken and rice and salad. It wasn’t much easier to talk with the mother than with the child.
    “Señora Cabrera was like family,” Mrs. Rodriguez said, and Julie hoped to God they could get a conversation going on that old lady.
    “I wish I’d known her.”
    “She could teach you. Do you have good powers?”
    “Pretty good.”
    “You will read the cards for me and I will tell you the truth.”
    “Okay.”
    “I am like a daughter to her, you know? Juanita, she tells everybody, her grandchild. Sometimes she plays for hours in the waiting room—an old deck of cards.”
    Julie felt she was being measured for a built-in baby-sitter. Something. “Do you work, Mrs. Rodriguez?”
    Mrs. Rodriguez ignored the question. “People like to see a child. If their luck is not so good, a child speaks for something better going to happen in the future. They come in to find out.”
    She was being offered a little shill.
    “She never interrupts and does what she’s told. Five days a week Papa works for the subway. Weekends and nights he does the moonlight. He sends all his money home to buy a farm. I think his brothers steal it from him. He never knows, but if I steal it, he knows twenty-five cents.”
    Julie would have thought from the looks of the place that Papa was a pretty good provider. She betrayed the thought, glancing around the room. She didn’t care. To hell with all complainers.
    “I like nice things. You can see?” The woman smiled.
    “Beautiful,” Julie said.
    “When you finish your supper I will show you the bedroom.”
    Oh, boy. That invitation to supper: Mrs. Rodriguez had popped it, seeing Rita come and go downstairs. “I think I’ve had enough to eat thank you. It was delicious.”
    Mrs. Rodriguez ordered the child to clear the table. She spoke in Spanish. The child obeyed like a mama doll. Julie was given the bedroom tour.
    Louis-something-or-other-style chairs, a taffeta cover on the bed, crystal jars on the dresser. Just the place for Papa when he came up out of the subway. It smelled like a perfume factory.
    “Very nice,” Julie said, staying close to the door.
    “You’d never know from the outside, would you?”
    “That’s for sure.”
    “So we can make the same arrangement?”
    “Hold everything. What arrangement?”
    The smile slipped out of the voice and off the face. “I know the arrangement with Mr. Goldie.”
    “I canceled that contract, Mrs. Rodriguez.”
    “But that girl…”
    “A friend and she doesn’t go with Goldie.”
    “She’s on the street. I’m not on the street.”
    “So?”
    “Now and then, just one. Goldie never knows and Juanita stays downstairs with you. We go half and half. It is such a good arrangement. What harm?”
    “I’m just not into that scene. I’m sorry.” Sorry!
    “Friend Julie”—the woman’s lips curled nastily around the words—“I don’t believe you.”
    “Okay. Ask Goldie.”
    “Don’t smart-ass me, little blond bitch.”
    Right out of Goldie’s repertoire.
    “Thanks for the supper, Mrs. Rodriguez.” Julie got out of the bedroom and found her purse.
    “What did you come up here for?”
    “To bring flowers to Jesus. Buenos noches, Juanita.”
    “Julie, wait. I do not understand, you know? I think everything is the same.” The voice had changed again, buttery, and she closed the bedroom door behind her. “I will make us coffee. Good Spanish coffee.”
    “I don’t think so, Mrs. Rodriguez, but no hard feelings. What you do is none of my business. I don’t care. I don’t judge, I don’t care. Okay?”
    “Okay. What harm?”
    “I said it’s none of my business. Only I’m not in the racket.”
    “If somebody comes… Terry maybe, and asks for