“Look, I can’t talk to you about this right now,” she says, glancing at a car pulling up outside the doors. “I’m working.”
“I’ll wait.”
She looks like she might argue, then presses her lips together and nods. “My break’s in an hour.”
“I’ll be right over here,” I say, pointing to a plush chair in the lobby. I take a seat and pick up a travel magazine, flipping through it without really seeing the pages. The man in the suit comes back and leers at my legs for a while. I ignore him. When he leaves, another guy comes into the lobby and sits in the next chair. He clears his throat a few times, like he’s trying to get my attention. After that, a guy who just left his family in the pool room asks if I’m busy later this evening.
Why does everyone think I’m a whore?
By the time Gloria comes around the desk and motions for me to follow her, I’m about to go off on one of them. I’m not even wearing slutty clothes.
“Let’s go out back,” she says. “I’m going to need a cigarette for this.”
“I didn’t know you smoked,” I say, following her out a back door to a narrow set of concrete steps with a metal railing.
“It’s the south, honey,” Gloria says, fishing a pack of Parliaments from her purse. “Everybody smokes. But people think it’s nasty, so I don’t go around broadcasting it.”
“So, what’s up?” I ask.
“First off, what I’m about to tell you is top secret information,” she says. “No one can ever know I told you, and you can never repeat what I’m about to tell you to anyone.”
“O-kay.”
“And second, if I tell you this, you can never tell anyone I work here, or that I’m not rich, or that I’m on… Scholarship.” She whispers the last word, though there’s no one to hear us but a dumpster.
“Deal.”
“And last, you can’t tell anyone I smoke. Only poor, trashy people are supposed to smoke.”
“In that case, gimme one, would you?”
She hands me a cigarette. “Swear you won’t tell anyone anything I’m about to tell you.”
“I swear,” I say, guilt gnawing at my ribs. I hate lying to her and being a bitch to her, but I’ve come too far to walk away now. I can feel it, like I’m standing on the ledge of the bridge, about to let go. This is what I came for, and I know I’m going to tell Mr. D or there would be no point in getting the information to begin with.
She sits down on the step and pats the spot beside her. I sit with my back to the railing and reach for the lighter.
“Okay, so, do you know what people call the Hockington?”
“Yeah,” I say. “I’ve lived here all my life.”
“Okay, okay,” she says, nodding and lighting up. Her hand is shaking, and it takes her three tries to get her cigarette lit. Like, what the fuck is she about to tell me? Is this really it? The thing that’s going to get me even with Mr. D? I can feel the excitement inside me like an egg about to hatch some darkling little monster.
“Look, I know what it’s known for,” I say. “And if I hadn’t, I would after spending the last hour in the lobby. What I don’t understand is why Royal is hiring prostitutes. He obviously can get it for free. Is he, like, a serial killer who murders them because no one notices when they disappear?”
“He’s not hiring escorts.”
I drag on the cigarette, waiting while she looks at me expectantly, like I’m supposed to get something out of that.
“Then what?” I ask.
She sighs. “So, about once a month he comes here with a lady, an older lady like you saw today, like, not old, but older. I tried to warn you. I told you he doesn’t date high school girls.”
“Are you sure they’re not, like, relatives or something?” I know it’s stupid. I saw him kiss that woman. Part of my brain just can’t accept it, though. He’s a fucking god. He could get anyone.
“No,” she says, shaking her head. “He takes them out and wine-dine-sixty-nines them.”
I shake my head. “No. You’re wrong. Royal doesn’t do that.”