“Wait’ll I get the light,” he said. “I can never find the damn string. —Come on, you bastard, where are you? There!” Now the room was illuminated by a bulb in the ceiling, covered by a ten-cent store shade; a long piece of butcher’s string had been tied to the chain. There were a double bed, a chest of drawers with a mirror over it, and an easy chair. One corner of the room, fitted out with a broomstick-clothes pole and a curtain on a wire, was used as a makeshift closet. Clinton imagined that in the days of Gloria, the room had been cheerful and modestly attractive.

But nothing he had yet seen corresponded with Clinton’s imagined picture of what a real whorehouse should be. Nor was he disappointed: oh, perhaps if he ran the place himself he might put one of the prostitutes to work cleaning up the place now and then, and put a few colored light bulbs around; but he guessed Berry-berry simply hadn’t got around to these finer points as yet.

“Is this room all yours?” he asked.

“What, this?” Berry-berry said, with a deprecating gesture that took in the room.

“I mean, if you get like a—a rush hour—will we have to get out and let . . .”

“Are you kidding?” Berry-berry said, with a touch of annoyance. “You think I have those tramps up here? Listen, they wouldn’t dare cross that threshold. Look, Clint, I’ll tell you something right now. This is a strictly temporary operation. I don’t like it at all; it’s not what I’m used to. In fact, it’s the first time I’ve ever had anything to do with a house. I’m only doing it now for the experience! Christ, look at that mess down there; you think I can live like that? Never. This is strictly for the jolts, and to tell you the truth, I’ve had ‘em, all the jolts I want. It’s nothin’ but a headache. See, the kind of a pig that likes to work a house is just too damn lazy for the better stuff. No initiative, no class. You can’t even get ‘em to shave their goddam legs unless you keep after ‘em like a house mother. To hell with it. Look, I wanted to try a house, just once; okay, now I’ve done it. I’m ready to move on. —Why? Do you think I’m trapped here?”

Clinton said, “Huh?”

” ‘Cause I’m not. Look here, I want to show you something.”

He opened the bottom drawer of the bureau. It was empty, except for a copy of the Cleveland telephone directory. “See that?” he said.

“What, the telephone book?” Clinton said.

“Is that all it is? A phone book?”

“Well, I guess so.”