“Fo’ Gawd’s sake! What yo’ mean by disgracin’ mah place with yo’ goddam suicidin’? Think of mah reputation and do your carrin’s on somewhere else.”

The bell rang.

“Mah gawd! Who’s dat? Now whut yo’ goin’ to do?” Gert asked Topaze who was still struggling in the window. “Fall out er stay in, while Ah sees who’s at duh do’. Make up yo’ mind!”

The girls finally dragged Topaze to the sofa.

“Ah’m sorry Ah put him in jail,” she sobbed. “But he done said he loved me.”

“Ah, nuts. Dat’s whut he told ever’ one o’ us here. But we ain’t gain’ to hell over it, like yo’s aiming to.”

Cokey Jenny walked in with Gert.

“Hello, everybody,” Jenny greeted them. “Just come up for a shot of liquor. Feelin’ low. Things is rotten. What’s the matter with Topaze?”

“Just gain’ out duh window to put a knife in dat Gordon scum yo’ used to hang aroun’ wit,” one said.

Jenny removed her hat.

“I ain’t seen her since Money grabbed her off,” she said. “Guess she’s laying low till the ball an’ chain’s off his leg.”

“Lak hell she is!” Topaze was on her feet, and shouting again.

Jenny stared and said,

“Lou and Harry told me they don’t know nothin’ about her, ain’t seen her in weeks.”

Topaze laughed fiendishly.

“Well, Ah know where she is. In her place where duh bastard ought to be! Where she won’t get no mo’ uplift fum Money Johnson!”

“Yeah? Where is she?” Jenny’s attention was riveted on Topaze.

“In duh Baldwin Five an’ Ten store.”

“Since when?”

“All duh time she been wit’ Money Johnson. She’s sellin’ stuff over duh counter. Hundreds o’ dollars worth ever’ day.”

“Who says?”

“Ah knows a white woman who gits it fum her. Here’s how she gits it.” Topaze thrust her hand into her bosom and brought out a gold-plated rouge compact.

Jenny’s cold eyes became dark pools of hate and her cruel lips drew taut. A sinister leer gashed her face, which suddenly appeared like a death mask. Only the eyes gave evidence of life.

“Ah knows plenty about her activities,” Topaze said. “An’ believe me she won’t bother Money Johnson no mo’, what with me knowin’ about this.” She held up the compact like a torch of freedom.

Jenny looked like a blanched carcass as she sat silently drinking her gin. Finished, she drew up her skirt, pulled out a greasy dollar bill from her stocking, paid Gert and started for the door.

“Goin’?”

Jenny nodded her head in a daze, and with eyes looking grimly into space shuffled out into the hall. Once on the street she walked and walked, unaware of direction, indifferent of traffic.