wall, looking for so many loved ones. She thought of showing the woman Conor Lewis, but decided there was no point. The only thing that made sense was posting it where hundreds of passersby would see it every day.
‘Clarence drove off one day after he was outta work long past the county checks, but he sent us money from a address in Los Angeles that don’t exist. This is awful embarrassing.’
‘No, it isn’t,’ Maeve said. ‘Please think of me as your friend. Let’s have dinner. I’m very hungry.’ She didn’t ask how long the husband had been gone, because it was obviously quite a while for them to have wended their way as far as L.A.
The little girl stabbed the button for the WALK signal over and over, and then they trooped across to the Old-Time Movies Cafe, which had several plastic booths along the blank wall, mostly free. It didn’t look like a gourmet hangout.
‘This is all on me,’ Maeve said, as if there might be any question. ‘I mean it. Let me treat you guys. I believe everything friendly that you do comes back to you a hundred times over.’
‘You’re too good,’ the woman said shamefully, but quickly she had the big plastic menu open.
‘Forget it. Where are you staying? Please tell me the truth.’
‘I can’t,’ Felice said. ‘It ain’t a good place. It ain’t even really a place.’
‘Aw, I can get you to a shelter,’ Maeve said impulsively. She was imagining the two living in a refrigerator box in an alley, and she wondered how close she might be to a fate like that herself if things changed just a little in her life and she found herself all of a sudden dead broke in a strange city where she had no friends. ‘You may not know about shelters, but they exist, and they’re for people like you – good people with a sudden need for a place to stay.’
‘God made the earth for the poor just as much as the rich,’ Felice said adamantly. ‘We mayhap look pigpen, but we ain’t unclean folk at heart.’
‘Of course not, I know that. You need some food and hot water and a little helping hand, that’s all.’
‘Rice Thibodeaux, you get away from our women!’
He turned to glare. It was Sister Mary Rose, though she sure didn’t look much like the nuns he’d known in N’Orleans, always whacking his knuckles and his shoulder with their rulers. Those nuns wore blue serge habits in all weather and white cotton wimples over their heads. Actually, this woman reminded him more of a whippet out at the dog track at Gentilly, skinny and nervous and fast, with freckles and a lot of limp reddish hair going gray. She had an unruly energy about her that he found very disturbing in a woman. He wasn’t even sure he’d want to fuck her.
‘It’s a free country, sister,’ he insisted.
‘We have a restraining order against all John Does, and you’re definitely John Doe – Rice Thibodeaux.’
Catholic Liberation Women’s Shelter was on the Little Tokyo side of Skid Row – that is, the north side – and it had a little lawn in front where the women and their kids could sit outside protected by tall chain link with a hoop of razor wire at the top.
There were sometimes good pickings there, to get laid on the cheap or even free, and Rice Thibodeaux liked to drop by and look them over, chat up the likely ones a bit, the ones maybe not so good looking, maybe a little fat or plain. You knew they weren’t getting any inside there, and he could offer his services.
The nun was smoking like a firestack, which was becoming odd in L.A. for almost anyone, let alone a nun. He knew by experience this nun never backed down on a challenge. Some day he’d carve her up a bit, show her what a little pain could make you do.
‘Gotta run,’ he said. ‘Gotta see a man about a walrus.’
‘Well, if you get hard up again, Monsieur T., you just take up with that walrus. We’re not interested here.’
A couple of the women chuckled, and he stored that away in the get-even bin, too.
Six distinct
‘Clarence drove off one day after he was outta work long past the county checks, but he sent us money from a address in Los Angeles that don’t exist. This is awful embarrassing.’
‘No, it isn’t,’ Maeve said. ‘Please think of me as your friend. Let’s have dinner. I’m very hungry.’ She didn’t ask how long the husband had been gone, because it was obviously quite a while for them to have wended their way as far as L.A.
The little girl stabbed the button for the WALK signal over and over, and then they trooped across to the Old-Time Movies Cafe, which had several plastic booths along the blank wall, mostly free. It didn’t look like a gourmet hangout.
‘This is all on me,’ Maeve said, as if there might be any question. ‘I mean it. Let me treat you guys. I believe everything friendly that you do comes back to you a hundred times over.’
‘You’re too good,’ the woman said shamefully, but quickly she had the big plastic menu open.
‘Forget it. Where are you staying? Please tell me the truth.’
‘I can’t,’ Felice said. ‘It ain’t a good place. It ain’t even really a place.’
‘Aw, I can get you to a shelter,’ Maeve said impulsively. She was imagining the two living in a refrigerator box in an alley, and she wondered how close she might be to a fate like that herself if things changed just a little in her life and she found herself all of a sudden dead broke in a strange city where she had no friends. ‘You may not know about shelters, but they exist, and they’re for people like you – good people with a sudden need for a place to stay.’
‘God made the earth for the poor just as much as the rich,’ Felice said adamantly. ‘We mayhap look pigpen, but we ain’t unclean folk at heart.’
‘Of course not, I know that. You need some food and hot water and a little helping hand, that’s all.’
‘Rice Thibodeaux, you get away from our women!’
He turned to glare. It was Sister Mary Rose, though she sure didn’t look much like the nuns he’d known in N’Orleans, always whacking his knuckles and his shoulder with their rulers. Those nuns wore blue serge habits in all weather and white cotton wimples over their heads. Actually, this woman reminded him more of a whippet out at the dog track at Gentilly, skinny and nervous and fast, with freckles and a lot of limp reddish hair going gray. She had an unruly energy about her that he found very disturbing in a woman. He wasn’t even sure he’d want to fuck her.
‘It’s a free country, sister,’ he insisted.
‘We have a restraining order against all John Does, and you’re definitely John Doe – Rice Thibodeaux.’
Catholic Liberation Women’s Shelter was on the Little Tokyo side of Skid Row – that is, the north side – and it had a little lawn in front where the women and their kids could sit outside protected by tall chain link with a hoop of razor wire at the top.
There were sometimes good pickings there, to get laid on the cheap or even free, and Rice Thibodeaux liked to drop by and look them over, chat up the likely ones a bit, the ones maybe not so good looking, maybe a little fat or plain. You knew they weren’t getting any inside there, and he could offer his services.
The nun was smoking like a firestack, which was becoming odd in L.A. for almost anyone, let alone a nun. He knew by experience this nun never backed down on a challenge. Some day he’d carve her up a bit, show her what a little pain could make you do.
‘Gotta run,’ he said. ‘Gotta see a man about a walrus.’
‘Well, if you get hard up again, Monsieur T., you just take up with that walrus. We’re not interested here.’
A couple of the women chuckled, and he stored that away in the get-even bin, too.
Six distinct
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