Lourdes: A Vampire In The Old West

15. My Eyes Are Green

Her hair done up to disguise the new bruise over her brow, Jane knocks on Dicky's door. His room hides above the stage at the end of a twisting hall. It's not a place she likes to visit. Squeals and snorts from inside. It's not a place any of the Peculiar Pussycat's hostesses like to visit. Jane raps on the door again. This time, shuffles behind the unvarnished wood.

"Just a minute!" Dicky's voice booms. Seven minutes later, the door opens and a little girl with bobbed black hair runs out. She doesn't look Jane in the eye. Instead, brushing against the woman, the little girl hurries down the hall and trips over a loose floorboard. She falters and plants her face into protruding nails and uneven carpentry.

The moment after the girl's head hits the ground, Jane is beside her. She extends a hand to help the child to her feet. The minute girl looks at the hand, considering it for the longest time, before reaching out. She offers Jane her right hand.

"Jane, you're wasting my time!" Dicky bellows from his inner sanctum. Behind his desk, he peers into the sliver of hallway revealed to him. He can just make out the girl on the ground, the woman above her, and their two hands. He rolls his eyes. "If the kid falls, the kid falls. Let her learn her lesson! And if you want to talk to me, get your ass inside before I move on to more important things."

"Sorry..." Jane whispers to both Dicky and the girl. She lifts the child up. She watches her disappear in a fog of soft sobs and then turns to the impatient man. Swift steps carry Jane to Dicky's door, and one reticent step brings her beyond it.

The man's office is a rank place smelling of bourbon and excrement. His brass cane, propped just inside the door, leans on a half-empty liquor cabinet. Above and around it hang nude photos of all the brothel's workers and erotic lithographs, sordid scribblings created by a man with neither good taste nor any talent for art. Jane's clover eyes meet her own sepia-shrouded gaze, her vision coming to rest on a picture of herself dressed in only a cavalry officer's boots and cap. Both Janes, the woman in the image and the woman in the office, possess the same feigned smile.

"What can you do for me today?" Dicky asks Jane. The man, his suit more ruffled than usual, pours himself a glass of bourbon. He doesn't pour a second for his guest.

"Did you see my show today?" Jane asks, seating herself across from the saloon's proprietor.

"Yeah," Dicky nods. "Fantastic stuff."

"Thanks," Jane grins. "And thanks for seeing me."

"I still don't know why I'm seeing you, so why don't you spit it out," Dicky states with words spiked with bemusement. He finishes his drink and pours himself another. He doesn't even consider offering one to the woman.

"Tell me, Dicky, how long ago did I start working for you?" Jane asks.

"I don't know," Dicky responds. "About 20 wrinkles ago."

"That sounds about right," Jane agrees with a forced laugh. "And, in those 20 wrinkles, I've paid attention to things. For example, you always screw the new girls during my act. Whenever I'm on stage, you're up here breaking in the latest unlucky member of our family." Dicky narrows his eyes. Jane waves the daggers off. "But I'm not here to judge. I don't care about that. I want to talk about something else. See, from time to time, you talk about getting out of this business. You say if you ever save up $100,000 you're going to retire."

"I say that a lot," Dicky smirks. "If I ever save up $100,000, I'm going to burn this place to the ground. Problem is this town's too cheap or you girls ain't sexy enough. Either way, I'm not ever going to leave this patch of sand."

"Actually, boss, I think the problem is you spend most of what us girls make on games of cards," Jane corrects.

"Crooked games of cards," Dicky grumbles. "The jackass running the game's cheating, I know it."