“Will that make me think it’s okay that you killed three people?”
Trixie pulled her hand away. “Probably not. But I’d like to tell you anyway. All that I’ve put you through the last few days, I think you’re entitled to the truth, no matter what you think of me after hearing it.”
“Sure, then. Go ahead.”
She slipped her hands into the pockets of her jeans, turned her back to me, and took a step away. “You heard a bit, inside, from Claire, about what it was like. With Merker and the rest of them.”
“I got a taste.”
“I didn’t turn tricks for them. Some of the dancers, they hooked too. Made a lot of money that way. Guy sees you onstage, wants a piece of you real bad, he’s willing to pay. And a lot of the girls, they were happy for the extra cash. I won’t tell you I never did things I shouldn’t have. I’d be lying. Especially at first. But I was good, taking clothes off, doing the moves, and I was still a good warm-up for the business upstairs, even if I wasn’t one of the girls going up there. I was still good for getting them in the mood, you know?”
“Sure,” I said.
She turned back to face me. “But once I started giving Merker suggestions, how to make more money, worked my way into the back room and started helping with the books, I didn’t have to flash my tits anymore. But the thing is, with that crew, no matter how smart you are, no matter what other talents you might have, when it comes right down to it, if you’re a woman, you’re just a whore.”
I closed my eyes for a second.
“After Eldon, Katie’s dad, died, they started looking at me differently. No one would have touched me as long as he was around. He’d have beat the shit out of them, killed them, probably. But once he was gone, there’d be comments, little cracks, like ‘Hey, ledger lady, I’ve got six inches for you to calculate.’ Or, ‘Let’s multiply.’ Clever stuff, you know?”
And then she told me about the night of November 18, 2001. The night they took turns.
“They held me down. Like fucking dogs. Everyone except Leo. He just stood off in a corner, shaking his head, whimpering like. Fletcher was first, then Gary, then Smith and Heighton. One after another.”
She waited, wondering whether I wanted to react, whether I had anything I wanted to say, but all I could do was listen.
She told me about Gary’s visit to her apartment two days later. Finding her with her eleven-month-old girl in her arms. Hands her a “Come Back to Work Soon” Hallmark card with $110 inside.
I listened. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw the hawk circling.
“You know the part I can never figure out?” she said, looking at me again. “The ten bucks. A hundred, and ten. Was that the tip? Was the ten bucks for expenses? What the fuck do you think the ten was for? Baby formula, maybe?”
All I could offer was a shake of the head.
“But you know what I did? I went back to work. Went back and did my fucking job. I’d already been planning my move, I was moving the money around, into accounts, skimming off cash where I could, and I wasn’t done yet. I still needed more. I was putting together getting some new ID, in the name of Trixie Snelling. I was putting things into place, to make a new life for myself and my daughter. But I didn’t have enough. So I had to go back there, go back and sit in that room, day after day, putting on my smiley face, with a pack of rapists.”
Softly, I said, “I don’t know how you could do that. It must have been…I don’t know. I can’t imagine.”
“And I carried on, making like nothing happened, like a hundred and ten dollars and a Hallmark card was all it took to make the memory of a gang bang go away. And for a while, they were even a little sheepish. Getting me tea, being real sweet, you know? Like, hey, sorry about turning you inside out, but here’s a cup of Earl Grey.”
“So,” I said, “that wasn’t the night it happened.”
“No. Gary, round about this time, I thought maybe he was starting to get suspicious. I was scared shitless that he’d start asking questions, about the books, questioning the totals. The club owed money everywhere, but he didn’t know. But I did my best to snow him, buried him in numbers. So he’d buy it for a while, but I knew I was running out of time.
“I could have used another week at least, but things sometimes have a way of unraveling. Gets to be April 9, 2002. Gary and Leo, they’re out getting pizza.”
And the ones left behind, Heighton and Smith and Fletcher, decide it’s time for a repeat performance.
“No matter how much money I’d stashed away, even if it wasn’t enough, I’d made a vow to myself that what happened that other night, that was never going to happen again.”
Back at the house, Claire was on the porch, waving to us. “Five minutes!” she shouted.
Trixie waved, turned back to me.