She held his attention for another year or so running these cons before he started drifting. As Kit got older, Manny seemed less interested in taking her to work. She was growing, and when she looked in the mirror, her features seemed all out of whack. Her nose spread out, her face grew round and made her narrow eyes look piggish. Maybe she wasn’t as useful if she wasn’t cute. The less he took her out, the more she worried she would wake up one morning and he’d be gone.
But it wasn’t just that he didn’t take her out. He was acting bad, too. Sometimes he went to the bars and came back with loud women who would burst through the door, laughing out smoke and grabbing him by the crotch. It made her furious to see him drunk or high and distracted while she had waited all night, counting the water stains on the ceiling and biting her toenails to the quick. Manny and his guest would go at each other with her in the room, so Kit would have to slink out with a blanket and stew in the parking lot or by the pool, if there happened to be one.
One woman, Kit had liked. Her name was Red.
They were staying at a motel outside a tiny town called Harper, Texas. The motel looked nice on the outside, with its striking A-frame registration building, but inside the rooms there was a loud odor of must and armpits. Kit had been hanging around all day watching the tube and picking at her nails, just waiting for Manny to get home. He dragged Red through the door around eleven without introducing her and disappeared into the bathroom. It seemed like he was in a mood. The shower shrieked on and steam seeped out the bottom of the door.
Red was stirring to look at. Long legged, all done up, in high-waisted jeans with fringed holes in the butt cheeks, a peasant blouse that showed her midriff, high-heeled cowgirl boots, her blond hair teased and piled on top of her head like a drawstring purse. Kit thought it must take a lot of work to look like that.
The woman eyed her surroundings and landed on Kit. “Well, heyyyy, how arrre yew?” she said as if they had known each other all their lives. “I’m Red. It’s Winifred, actually, but, Lord, who goes by Winifred, can you imagine? What’s your name?”
She couldn’t hide a smile. “I’m Kit.”
“Kit! I love that! Three letters, just like me. How fun. I love names.”
Kit sized up the newcomer, completely unprepared for this level of pep.
“You like my outfit?” Red posed, hands on hips, weight shifted hard to the left. “It’s new. I gotta stay fresh or the boys’ll get bored and the cops’ll get wise. Not like they don’t know me already but anytime there’s a newbie they haul me in and I gotta go through the whole shebang like it’s my first bust. And it’s just tiresome at this point, you know, we—the cops and me—we got a gentlemen’s agreement that they let me work my territory and I throw them a freebie from time to time—very clean, very private, no issues whatsoever—and we all live together in peace.”
Kit fidgeted with her jeans, unsure how to talk to this person.
Red fished a frosty Dr Pepper from the ice bucket and pulled the tab with some difficulty. “These nails, I swear, they are barely worth it but you know it’s all part of the fantasy, right? You wouldn’t think it, but at heart I’m a very practical girl—it’s true! Don’t look at me like that. Underneath the glamour I’m a sneakers and capris kinda girl.”
“How long have you known Manny?” Kit asked.
“Manny, oh boy, couple years now, whenever he comes through town we do a job or two. He’s a piece of work. He’d steal a walker from an old lady. No scruples, none whatsoever. But I don’t judge, not me—uh-uh, no way, I seen ministers and doctors and husbands do stuff—well, I won’t even start, but let’s just say, between you and me, let’s just say this: the better they try to look on the outside, the more nasty shit they got going on in their hearts. And that’s a fact. And I might be a dropout, but I seen everything you could see and that’s worth something, don’t you think?”
“Is he”—Kit paused halfway through a question that only had one answer she wanted to hear—“Are you together?”
At this, Red cackled and coughed, and Kit could smell menthols on her breath. “Aw, that’s the sweetest thing I ever heard. I mean, he is a fine specimen, and in another life, I would absolutely fuck him, but no, we’re business associates.”
“What do you mean by that?” Kit asked, jealous to learn she wasn’t Manny’s only partner.
“Well,” Red said, looking toward the bathroom. “I guess it’s okay to tell you. You’re cool, right?” Kit nodded. She didn’t volunteer that Manny had Kit stealing for him, too. “For example,” Red said, leaning in and lowering her voice. “Big shot in a Caddy pulls up, maybe didn’t wake up this morning looking for a date, but I walk by and . . .” She drags her fingertips from her head to her hips and back again. “Well he didn’t see me when he woke up this morning. So, he pulls up and winks and I lean through the window and compliment him on his big car and his big hat and what else is big in there, if you know what I mean. Ninety percent of what I do is flattery. And all the while, Manny is popping the trunk and takes whatever he can get. He’s very smooth.”
“What if you get caught?”
“Well, if they catch you, it’s not like they can call the cops because I’d just rat on ’em, but the problem is they won’t be paying for sex anytime soon, not from me! Can’t hardly blame him, though, can you?”
“You’re a whore?” Kit said. She realized the idiocy of this question only after it came out of her mouth.
Red set to laughing again, holding her crotch with one hand, waving off Kit with the other. “I can’t! Stop it! I’m gonna wet myself!”
She waddled to the bathroom with her knees pinched and left the door open, laughing out bursts of urine while Manny showered on. She poked the shower curtain violently.
“Where’d you get this girl? She’s a stitch!”
“I told you, didn’t I? She’s my niece,” Manny said, his voice muted from the steam and rush of water.
“Niece, huh?” She flushed the toilet and arranged some fallen strands of hair around her face and pouted at her reflection. “Who are your parents? How come he never mentioned you before? I have five sisters, well, four, actually, God bless her, Linda’s with the Lord, she drowned in a creek when we were all teenagers, drinking and cuttin’ up and being stupid. That’s why I don’t drink anymore on principle. Keeps me sharp anyway, and you gotta be sharp to stay in this business, I’m not joking. Razor sharp.” She drew a long, magenta nail across her throat. “Especially when you’re a free agent like me. You gotta be smarter than the streets.”
That was the first thing Red said that made any sense.
She washed up, came back to the bedroom, and lit a cigarette.
“So, did you get your period yet? First kiss? Tell me everything.”