The Guest Room(67)
“You know how to make sure they’re not cops, right?” she asked me. My heart sank a little because for a second I feared she knew who I was. I must have been silent too long, because she said, “You know, undercover cops?”
I shook my head. “How?”
“Have them touch your boobs before you touch them. Maybe even have them finger you before you touch them.”
“Why?”
“A cop can’t arrest you for prostitution if he engages.”
“And then it’s okay?”
She laughed a little bit. “It’s never okay. But at least you’re not going to get busted.”
…
I almost didn’t go back to work on Sunday afternoon. I saw the newspapers on Sunday morning. I turned on the TV set in my hotel room and saw what the reporters were saying. There were no pictures of Sonja and me, but there was—everywhere!—the word manhunt. Two TV anchor ladies argued about how “dangerous” we were. One said we weren’t dangerous at all. We had “merely” killed the creeps who were holding us hostage. The other said maybe that was the case, but we were still very violent. I thought I was going to be sick.
I told Sonja it would be crazy to go back out to the clubs on Sunday afternoon, but she said there was no reason to believe anyone would think either of us were the girls from the party. She reminded me that everyone was thinking “pair.” She reminded me that no one knew what we looked like. She reminded me that it was so crazy what we were doing, who would guess for even a second we were the girls from the party.
And she was right. Once again we danced and did what we had been taught to do. We made men happy and we made more money.
When we were done with our second shifts early on Monday morning, I asked Sonja, “And when we get to Los Angeles, what? Really, what?” We were near the entrance to the subway on the Broadway, where we had agreed we would meet. It was four-fifteen in the morning. It was still busy. Four-fifteen in the morning, and there were people out like it was the middle of the day in some places. There were all those yellow cabs and cars and trucks delivering bread.
“What do you mean?”
“You know what I’m asking,” I told her. “Who will help us there?”
“Kim,” she said.
“I’m serious.”
“Honestly? I don’t know. I just know we can’t stay here.”
…
It was amazing how many men wanted to take me to dinner. It was amazing how many men told me they wanted to take me to hotel room after my shift ended. It was amazing how much money they said they wanted to spend—if I left the club for a few hours.
But, in the end, I knew I would make more if I stayed. Men always pay more at places like that when they’re hungry.
…
On Monday, late in the morning when I was waking up, I saw on the hotel TV that the Russians had been arrested. I saw they had also arrested some of the girls.
I was so excited that I watched the TV standing up, clicking between the news stations to see the story over and over. I wished that Sonja had been with me. I felt a little, tiny glimmer of hope and wanted to hold her hands and jump around the room. I am not kidding: that was how I felt.
But as I watched the story a third and a fourth time, I realized that I did not recognize any of the names. It didn’t seem like Yulian or Konstantin was in the group the police guys had arrested. And they didn’t reveal the names of the girls. (Not that I would have known them. No one had introduced Sonja or Crystal or me to any of the other courtesans.)
And then I wanted to ask Sonja what she thought it meant that Yulian and Konstantin were not in jail. I wanted to know if she knew any of the names who were. But we were really trying not to use our cell phones—just in case. And so I sat on the bed and smoked and waited to go to work and smoked some more. I did not care that I was stinking up the room and they might kick me out or try and make me pay big penalty fine.
…
When we left the clubs after our Monday-night shifts, we figured we were done, and we went to our hotels to get some sleep. We wouldn’t go back to the clubs ever. It was all about how much money we could make in three days and nights from lap dances and tips—and we had made lots. Sonja said she had reached the passport guy on the ninth or tenth dial and was going to meet with him Tuesday at lunchtime. I said I would join her, but she said I couldn’t. She promised me she would call my phone between two and three in the afternoon and hang up. That was the signal that I should go downstairs from my hotel room and meet her at the pizza parlor.
…
I woke up around nine in the morning on Tuesday and could not fall back to sleep, even though I had only been in bed a few hours. I went outside and walked around the Times Square. I was just about to light a cigarette when I saw two men looking at me, and I was sure they were Russian. I was standing in front of a beautiful Broadway theater. Maybe this was crazy paranoia, but I still wrapped my hand around the Makarov I had tucked into my skirt and hidden behind my jacket. And then, when I saw a yellow taxicab with its white light on near me, I waved to the man and jumped inside. I told him to go to Thirteenth Street. I just made that up. I had no reason to go to that street. When we got there, I told him to go to the Second Avenue. When we got to the Second Avenue, I told him to go to the Central Park. I kept looking out the back window like I was in one of the movies we used to watch back in Russia, but I never saw a car following me.