Read Online Everybody Pays by Andrew Vachss - Free Book Online

the rest of them can’t tell. You got blimps like Marcia cooing into the phone like she’s the hottest piece of stuff in town. You think if the marks could
see
that fat slob they’d still get turned on?”
    “Yeah, I guess maybe you’re right, Delva,” the man said, an undercurrent of sneer in his voice. “I mean, if any of the guys you phone-fuck knew you was a dyke, that’d sure—”
    “Oh, bullshit.” The blonde laughed. “Truth is, it’d be a big turn-on for them. They’d think they were so hot, they got me to go over, change sides, right? Besides, men
love
lesbians, don’t they? You can get guys to watch girl-girl stuff all day. Try to get a bunch of girls to watch two gay guys getting it on—they’d fall asleep.”
    “Maybe you’re—”
    “Oh, you
know
I’m right, don’t you, Lester? I mean,
you
know it.”
    “Look . . .” The man gulped. Sweat cracked under the hair-sprayed strands carefully combed to cover his bald spot, but the practiced sneer stayed in his voice. “. . . they’re all the same in the dark, Delva. Pussy is pussy—and yours ain’t gold.”
    The blonde leaned forward again, twisting her body even more radically, her face only inches from the gray man’s. Her red silk sheath rose to just past mid-thigh, displaying thick black bands around the tops of her fishnet stockings. “You sure . . . ?” she whispered.
    “Cut it out already!” he snapped. “You think I’m a trick?”
    “No,” the blonde said calmly. “I think you’re a genius, like I said. How’d you ever get a little girl to be such a good actress? I mean, I heard her on the phone a couple of times—you’d swear she was really into it.”
    “She
is
really into it. What can I tell you? That’s one grown-up little girl.”
    “Where’d you ever find her? One of the ads?” the blonde asked, pointing a long red-lacquered fingernail at a newspaper column circled in red: help wanted.
    “Not that way! Jeez, how you gonna put an ad like that in the paper? What we do, it’s all legit, top to bottom. You know that. There’s nothing illegal about any of this. Like I told you when you signed on, all you girls are independent contractors, right? There’s a First Amendment, too, maybe you don’t under—”
    “So how
did
you find her, Lester?”
    “I got an ad running. ‘Phone Hostess,’ you know. Anyway, this woman calls me, right? Regina, you remember her?”
    “Uh-uh,” the blonde said, a puzzled expression on her heavily made-up face.
    “She was only here a few weeks. Anyway, one day, she comes in to get paid—that’s the only reason any of them would come
here
. Hell, that’s why
you’re
here, right?”
    “Ah, you know me so well.” The blonde smiled. “So what happened next?”
    “Next? Oh, you mean with the . . . Okay, she comes in. And she’s got this little girl with her. She was, I dunno, eight, nine, ten . . . whatever—I can’t tell with kids. So this Regina, she says the kid wants to
work
, okay? I thought it was a gag, but I figured, what do I got to lose? So I give her a tryout. Right here. And let me tell you, Delva, this kid’s a pro. She was talking so hot to the marks that called, I couldn’t believe it. And once the word got out, we were
smoking
, I’m telling you. There’s nothing like the real thing.”
    “And then—”
    “Let me finish for
once
, all right? It’s true. What you said. The diddlers really
can
tell the difference. The word got around—now little Lolita’s the hottest thing in town. You know what her rate is? Four ninety-five! That’s a buck sweeter than we can get for anybody else, including
you
, Delva. And the beauty part is, it’s all legal. One hundred percent legit. The kid’s an
actress,
see? I don’t know how her mother got her trained so good, but—”
    The blonde got to her feet, stood facing the man, hands on hips. “You got my money?” she demanded.
    “Sure. I got it right here. What’d you think, I was gonna run out