Whisper Lake just knew her as Mizzy Modine, Dirty Mizzy, or “Old-Squirm-and-Kick”. Behind her back she was called “The Crab Queen of Beaver County”…and more than one scratching miner could attest to that one. But to her face she was never called anything but Mizzy. And mainly because she had a vile temper and packed a Smith & Wesson pocket .38 and was not afraid to use it. She had killed one man and shot up three others.
Mizzy was freelance, operated out of a crib over on Piney Hill, which sat in the brooding, gray shadow of the Arcadian mine…or one of them, at any rate. Her crib was a glorified shack that stunk of cheap whiskey and cheaper perfume, body odor and twenty-dollar sex. When the wind blew, the shack rattled and swayed and quite often it rattled and swayed when no wind blew. While townspeople might have said old Dirty Mizzy was “horizontally employed”, Mizzy didn’t look upon herself as a whore. She’d been selling what God gave her since she was fifteen and had worked dozens of mining camps, cow towns, and military depots from West Texas to the Wyoming Territory and had missed very little real estate in-between.
Mizzy considered herself something of an entrepreneur.
And maybe she was. In Whisper Lake, she serviced a steady stream of customers who weren’t real particular as to where they stuck their business…just grateful there was such a place. For those with more respect for what dangled between their legs, there were always the painted ladies who operated out of the sporting houses or high-dollar brothels where ten minutes with an imported French or Portuguese delight could cost you $400 or more.
Mizzy was an equal opportunity nightworker and was willing to spread her legs for any who could pay the price, regardless of race or cultural affiliation. And at twenty bucks a pop, what she offered was a bargain. And particularly in a mining town where prices tended to get inflated. And if you didn’t have twenty dollars, Mizzy was always willing to take what you did have in trade. Be that horses or cattle, buffalo furs or customized Winchester rifles, injun ceremonial daggers or a fancy pair of lizard boots. Because when she wasn’t whoring, she was selling goods out of her little shop…and she always had an eye on the inventory.
Some nights were busy, some nights were slow.
And tonight was just plain dead. So when there was a knock at the door of her crib, Mizzy grinned and the cash register in her mind rang up a sale. She quick lighted up the red tapers and turned down the oil lamp and prepared to receive a gentleman caller.
He came in out of the wind, his face just as pallid as spilled milk, offset by a sharp black mustache and eyes just as dark as chipped coal. He was tall and thin, dressed in a ankle-length frock coat and matching bowler hat.
“ Well, come in, kind sir,” Mizzy told him, “and just make yourself comfortable. Name’s Mizzy. Can I get you a drink Mister—”
“ No thank you, madam. That’s not why I’m here.”
Music to Mizzy’s ears. She sat back on the bed, a large fleshy woman with breasts the size of bunk pillows and a face painted-up brighter than carnival glass. Her visitor dropped a twenty-dollar gold piece in Mizzy’s glass compote tray and set his hat on the chiffonier, laid his coat across it. Mizzy loved the sound of that money ringing out against the glass. Maybe she didn’t like this fellow with those dark eyes and that graveyard marble skin and that hard slash of pink mouth…but she liked his money just fine, thank you very much.
He was not the romantic type.
He ordered her to strip and she did and he pushed himself into her almost immediately, an odd passionless look on his face as if he found the very act tedious and banal.
“ Oh yes, baby, oh yes,” Mizzy said, going through her spiel, pretending to be beside herself with his masculine talents, moaning and groaning and making the sharp little squeaking sounds that always got them
Mizzy was freelance, operated out of a crib over on Piney Hill, which sat in the brooding, gray shadow of the Arcadian mine…or one of them, at any rate. Her crib was a glorified shack that stunk of cheap whiskey and cheaper perfume, body odor and twenty-dollar sex. When the wind blew, the shack rattled and swayed and quite often it rattled and swayed when no wind blew. While townspeople might have said old Dirty Mizzy was “horizontally employed”, Mizzy didn’t look upon herself as a whore. She’d been selling what God gave her since she was fifteen and had worked dozens of mining camps, cow towns, and military depots from West Texas to the Wyoming Territory and had missed very little real estate in-between.
Mizzy considered herself something of an entrepreneur.
And maybe she was. In Whisper Lake, she serviced a steady stream of customers who weren’t real particular as to where they stuck their business…just grateful there was such a place. For those with more respect for what dangled between their legs, there were always the painted ladies who operated out of the sporting houses or high-dollar brothels where ten minutes with an imported French or Portuguese delight could cost you $400 or more.
Mizzy was an equal opportunity nightworker and was willing to spread her legs for any who could pay the price, regardless of race or cultural affiliation. And at twenty bucks a pop, what she offered was a bargain. And particularly in a mining town where prices tended to get inflated. And if you didn’t have twenty dollars, Mizzy was always willing to take what you did have in trade. Be that horses or cattle, buffalo furs or customized Winchester rifles, injun ceremonial daggers or a fancy pair of lizard boots. Because when she wasn’t whoring, she was selling goods out of her little shop…and she always had an eye on the inventory.
Some nights were busy, some nights were slow.
And tonight was just plain dead. So when there was a knock at the door of her crib, Mizzy grinned and the cash register in her mind rang up a sale. She quick lighted up the red tapers and turned down the oil lamp and prepared to receive a gentleman caller.
He came in out of the wind, his face just as pallid as spilled milk, offset by a sharp black mustache and eyes just as dark as chipped coal. He was tall and thin, dressed in a ankle-length frock coat and matching bowler hat.
“ Well, come in, kind sir,” Mizzy told him, “and just make yourself comfortable. Name’s Mizzy. Can I get you a drink Mister—”
“ No thank you, madam. That’s not why I’m here.”
Music to Mizzy’s ears. She sat back on the bed, a large fleshy woman with breasts the size of bunk pillows and a face painted-up brighter than carnival glass. Her visitor dropped a twenty-dollar gold piece in Mizzy’s glass compote tray and set his hat on the chiffonier, laid his coat across it. Mizzy loved the sound of that money ringing out against the glass. Maybe she didn’t like this fellow with those dark eyes and that graveyard marble skin and that hard slash of pink mouth…but she liked his money just fine, thank you very much.
He was not the romantic type.
He ordered her to strip and she did and he pushed himself into her almost immediately, an odd passionless look on his face as if he found the very act tedious and banal.
“ Oh yes, baby, oh yes,” Mizzy said, going through her spiel, pretending to be beside herself with his masculine talents, moaning and groaning and making the sharp little squeaking sounds that always got them
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