So! That was why she hadn’t seen Babe. Pretty cute! No one thought of looking for her in a Five and Ten Cent store. Diamonds and ermine, and a car that was a jewel case and a rich nigger keeping her.

“The double-crossin’ heel!” ripped across Jenny’s mind. “Came up to Harlem, gits my confidence and then makes Lou and Harry give her the job that would’ve put me on easy street. The low down dog. The dirty two-face! She’d rob the gold tooth out of her mother’s head an’ cut her sister’s throat for a buck! She never came around to give a pal a good time when she got a break. All for herself any way you looked at it. The garbage-can maggot! Lower than dirt! Just no good! Stole the job I would’ve got if I hadn’t put her wise to it. The cesspool eel! To do that to a pal! Peddlin’ the ‘junk’ in the five and ten. Hundreds of dollars worth a day. Fat percentage! Jeeziz! I’m bein’ done out of a fortune. No wonder Lou and Harry closed up on me. Said the proposition fell through. Said that was the racket they meant to cut me in on. I’d of cleaned up. Now, what’ve I got? Lou an’ Harry pulls me out of the Pavillion, tellin’ me they don’t want to pay no more police graft for that spot! Well, pretty Babe Gordon, this is the last time you pull a dirty deal on me. An’ the last time Lou an’ Harry gives me the double-X. Goddam ’em!”

The next day Jenny appeared in the Baldwin Five and Ten Cent store. Mingling with the crowd, she drifted from one counter to another until she saw Babe who certainly didn’t look like the same broad that had been sparkling round with Money Johnson. But she couldn’t see anything phoney. The counter where Babe worked was loaded with cosmetics of all kinds, in all manner of cases. Jenny couldn’t tell who was buying dope that way.

Then suddenly she recognized the lily-white girl with the wan face and the delicate long fingers to whom she had sold dope in Toni’s joint. The girl made a purchase of Babe. Jenny watched her go out and a uniformed chauffeur follow. Jenny waited ten minutes longer on the look-out for familiar faces. Then she strolled up to Babe’s counter.

Babe greeted Jenny as if she had been eagerly expecting her call every day. Jenny felt at a disadvantage, but knew Babe wouldn’t be able to talk herself out of the drop she had on her now.

“Hello, Jenny,” said Babe. “Ain’t it tough what happened to me, an’ I got to work like this to make a livin’?”

“Yeah,” said Jenny. “You been havin’ such a hard time in Harlem, ain’t you?”

“Bearcat and me split up.”