BERNIE: Are you kidding me?
DANNY: Yeah?
BERNIE: Are you fucking kidding me?
DANNY: Yeah?
BERNIE: Are you pulling my leg?
DANNY: So?
BERNIE: So tits out to here so.
DANNY: Yeah?
BERNIE: Twenty, a couple years old.
DANNY: You gotta be fooling.
BERNIE: Nope.
DANNY: You devil.
BERNIE: You think she hadn't been around?
DANNY: Yeah?
BERNIE: She hadn't gone the route?
DANNY: She knew the route, huh?
BERNIE: Are you fucking kidding me?
DANNY : Yeah?
BERNIE: So wrote the route.
DANNY: No shit, around twenty, huh?
BERNIE: Nineteen, twenty.
DANNY: You're talking about a girl.
BERNIE: Damn right.
DANNY: You're telling me about some underage stuff.
BERNIE: She don't gotta be but eighteen.
DANNY: Was she?
BERNIE: Shit yes.
DANNY: Then okay.
BERNIE: She made eighteen easy.
DANNY: Well, then.
BERNIE: Had to punch in at twenty, twenty-five easy.
DANNY: Then you got no problem.
BERNIE: I know I got no problem.
DANNY: So tell me.
BERNIE: So okay, so where am I?
DANNY : When?
BERNIE: Last night, two-thirty.
DANNY: So two-thirty, you're probably over at Yak-Zies.
BERNIE: Left Yak-Zies at one.
DANNY: So you're probably over at Grunts.
BERNIE: They only got a two o'clock license.
DANNY: So you're probably over at the Commonwealth.
BERNIE: So okay, so I'm over at the Commonwealth, in the pancake house off the lobby, and I'm working on a stack of those raisin and nut jobs . . .
DANNY: They're good.
BERNIE: . . . and I'm reading the paper, and I'm reading, and I'm casing the pancake house, and the usual shot, am I right?
DANNY: Right.
BERNIE: So who walks in over to the cash register but this chick.
DANNY: Right.
BERNIE: Nineteen-, twenty-year-old chick . . .
DANNY: Who we're talking about.
BERNIE: . . . and she wants a pack of Viceroys.
DANNY: I can believe that.
BERNIE: Gets the smokes, and she does this number about how she forgot her purse up in her room.
DANNY: Up in her room?
BERNIE: Yeah.
DANNY: Was she a pro?
BERNIE: At that age?
DANNY: Yeah.
BERNIE: Well, at this point we don't know. So anyway, I go over and ask her can I front her for the smokes, and she says she couldn't, and then she says Well, all right, and would I like to join her in a cup of coffee.
DANNY: She asked you . . .
BERNIE: . . . yeah.
DANNY: For a cup of coffee?
BERNIE: Right?
DANNY: And all this time she was nineteen?
BERNIE: Nineteen, twenty. So down we sit and get to talking. This, that, blah, blah, blah, and “Come up to my room and I'll pay you back for the cigarettes.”
DANNY: No.
BERNIE: Yeah.
DANNY: You're shitting me.
BERNIE: I'm telling you.
DANNY: And was she a pro?
BERNIE: So at this point, we don't know. Pro, semi-pro, Betty Coed from College, regular young broad, it's anybody's ballgame. So, anyway, up we go. Fifth floor on the alley and it's “Sit down, you wanna drink?” “What you got?”, “Bourbon,” “Fine.” And goddam if she doesn't lay half a rock on me for the cigarettes.
DANNY: No.
BERNIE: Yeah.
DANNY: So this changes the complexity of things.
BERNIE: For a bit, yes. But then what shot does she up and pull?
DANNY: You remind her of her ex.
BERNIE: No.
DANNY: She's never done anything like this before in her life?
BERNIE: No.
DANNY: She just got into town, and do you know where a girl like her could make a little money?
BERNIE: No.
DANNY: So I'm not going to lie to you, what shot does she pull?
BERNIE: The shot she is pulling is the following two things: (a) she says “I think I want to take a shower.”
DANNY: No.
BERNIE: Yes. And (b) she says “And then let's fuck.”
DANNY: Yeah?
BERNIE: What did I just tell you?
DANNY: She said that?
BERNIE: СКАЧАТЬ