Cold Blood Read Free Page B

it and I know it. I mean, I dunno what else we can do. How many more ads can we afford to run, if we don’t drum up any customer by the end of the week?”
    Here it comes, thought Rosie, scowling.
    “You’ve said that every week.”
    She hated it when Lorraine started on this tactic, partly because she knew everything she said was true but also because it made her afraid. Afraid Lorraine would leave, afraid that without Lorraine she would go back on the booze, afraid Lorraine would too.

    “Got to face reality.”
    Lorraine prodded her empty cigarette pack, hoping she’d overlooked a stray one. But it wasn’t to be, so she looked over the stubs in her ashtray again.

    “Yes, I know, I know, and I hear what you are sayin’, but at the same time we got to stick to it. Everyone knows any new business takes time to take offeven Bill Rooney told us that.” Lorraine appeared not to be listening as she rummaged in her purse and started to check her loose change.

    “I mean, w^tould get a case in tomorrow that’d make everything you just said obsolete,”
    Rosie said a little too cheerfully.

    “What?”
    Lorraine asked challengingly.

    “Obsolete,”
    Rosie repeated flatly.

    “Really? Well, you’ve been saying that for the past month and we haven’t had so much as a telephone call. And if you want to check the logbook out, we are hardly likely to get some case off the street that’d pay for your cupcakes and my cigarettes, never mind the rent on this place and your apartment. So get it straight, Rosie. Shit, I need a cigarette.”
    Lorraine crossed to the hooks by the toilet closet. She yanked down her raincoat.

    “Maybe the rain’ll stop soon.”
    Lorraine pulled on her raincoat.
    “Oh yeah, so it’s all gonna be okay if the sun shines?”
    “Maybe.”
    “You’re a dumb optimist.”
    “What?”
    “Optimist, Rosie. Even if the sun cracked the pavement, that’s not gonna help us. Two stray dogs, a missing senile grandfather, a two-week stint in a department store to cover for their in-house detective’s vacation, five car traces, four warrants and a woman suspecting her husband of having an affair with his secretary, and since the wife was your size and his secretary looked like Julia Roberts, it didn’t t A us long to investigate, and that… that is it, Rosie, that’s all there’s beerltor the past nine months.”
    “You always gotta get personal. If you look on the good side, you’ve been sober nine months more, and so have I, come to think of it, so my guess is we’ll make it. This is just a bad patch.”
    Lorraine clenched her teeth.
    “No, it isn’t, Rosie, it’s just a fact. We are flat broke and searching my ashtray for butts is not exactly what I had planned for the future. We might as well admit it, face it, before we get any deeper in debt.”
    “But we are facing it,”
    Rosie said stubbornly.

    Lorraine closed her eyes as if talking to a child, her voice sounding annoyingly overpatient.
    “No, we are not. Fact is this whole idea was shit, and to be honest I don’t feel like patting myself on the back ‘cause I remained sober. Truth is, right now I feel like tying one hell of a load on and the only thing stoppin’ me is that I have no money.”
    “Never stopped you before,”
    snapped back Rosie.

    Lorraine’s eyes were like cold chips of ice.
    “What’s that supposed to mean? What are you suggesting, Rosie? Come on, spit it out, are you saying I go out and screw a few guys to keep this place open? That what you think I should do?”
    Rosie blushed and turned away. She loathed Lorraine when she was like this, she could get so cold, so unapproachable, so downright nasty. But unlike the times they’d bickered about the agency before, there wasn’t another sarcastic retort forthcoming, just an ominous silence.

    Lorraine was staring at herself in the small mirror glued to the back of the door. Her hair needed a cut and new highlights. She leaned closer, frowning, as she