The door sighed as it shut us in the little foyer that contained the bank machine. "I hate these things," said Shaw. I kept forgetting his first name, probably to avoid any chance of intimacy -- which is sort of funny, considering I was going to sleep with him once I deposited the money he had paid me.
"You could have waited outside," I told him.
"Nah," he said. "Too cold." After nightfall, the temperature had dropped unexpectedly, and then the rain came. There were three other people in the foyer, and their breath had fogged the glass walls so we couldn't see the street. Every once in a while, the headlights of a car rushed by.
"I like them," I said. "With a teller, you have to ask for the money. This way, it feels like it's my money. I want it, I get it." That was tactless of me, but I'd had a few drinks.
The man at the machine was making about a million transactions. All we could see of him was the back of his London Fog raincoat, some short gray hair, and a pink dome of scalp. He kept referring to a notebook, signing little slips of paper, punching the buttons, and muttering to himself. Maybe he was a foreigner, it didn't sound like English. The other people in the foyer hadn't noticed us yet. I hadn't looked at them yet -- the etiquette of line-ups, right? -- but now I did, and I shut up, preparing myself for some unpleasantness.
Between us and him were Lincoln and Opal. Lincoln is Bad News, your basic pimp with a fast car, flashy clothes, and a certified attitude. Opal is his. She's thin but flabby, and if she said she was twenty she'd be exaggerating by five years. They hadn't noticed me yet. Opal probably wouldn't notice me; she looked like she was doped to her blue eyeshadow on Talwin. Lincoln was fidgeting, waiting, but he wasn't going to start anything with a citizen. He was irritated at me because I refuse to work for him.
Why should I? I see him use up girls like Opal. I hear how he shakes them down for money twice a night and pops the cash into the nearest ATM. Besides, I'm not a prostitute. I'm a hooker. There's a difference.
A lot of people don't understand that. The point is that a prostitute lives off it, while a hooker is a citizen, and only hooks when she needs the money. And my rent was due tomorrow, so I'd gone down to the health club and found Shaw, who wanted dinner and a movie and a bit more, and here we were, on the cusp between the social and sexual halves of the evening, and me making sure that my rent cheque didn't bounce.
"It reeks of witchcraft to me," Shaw said of the bank machine. "You got your personal number, which is your true name, you got your offerings, you got your gifts from the gods."
Still muttering, the citizen slipped a piece of paper into an envelope, licked it and closed it, stamped it once with the meaty edge of his fist to keep it shut, and then fed it to the deposit slot.
"See?" Shaw said. "This guy's even praying to make sure it works." I shifted uncomfortably. The passenger's window in Shaw's car didn't quite close, and the seat had got wet, which meant that my seat had got wet.
The machine offered the citizen a transaction slip, and Lincoln shifted on his feet, preparing to move in. The citizen collected the slip and punched some more buttons. He took out another piece of paper.
"Do you want to hurry it up?" Lincoln asked. He looked back at us for the first time, for our support before hassling the man, and he spotted me.
"There's another machine in the mall, a mile up the road," I said.
The citizen didn't pause or look back; he said, "It'll just be another moment." His voice was high and nervous.
"I heard that before," said Lincoln. "Let's go, baby." He and Opal squeezed past us to get to the door. Lincoln took the opportunity to pinch my butt. "Hey, Ellen, baby. Cleared up that case of the crabs yet?" Opal stood in front of the door, sucking her lower lip. She'd scraped off all the Sunburst Orange lipstick.
Shaw almost flinched. I smiled at Lincoln. "Why, Lincoln? You run out?"
Shaw said, "You two, uh, know each other?"
"You should have seen'em, man. They were purple, I swear, they were this big." He indicated his thumbnail. "Well, you're gonna see them soon enough." He made me a gift of his attention again. "Glad you brought someone, sweetcheeks. Girl alone could pick up unsavory companions." Translation: I ever catch you alone, I'm going to break your face.
"That must be Opal's problem."
The lights flickered and there was a sudden hum as the heating came on.
Opal was still standing there. "You pull it, stupid," said Lincoln. "It's called a door."
"There," said the citizen. He gathered up his papers and picked up his briefcase.
Shaw turned to me and said, "He's done." Shaw liked to state the obvious.
Lincoln said, "Well, Christ, I didn't wait twenty minutes to let you go first." He forced his way past us again to the machine.
Opal said, "The door's stuck."
I said, "You've got to turn down the little handle."
A tiny line appeared between her eyebrows as she thought about this. "I am," she said, then tugged on it again. The door chuckled on its hinges. Opal sucked on her lower lip some more.
The citizen stopped beside us. "Your comments were perceptive," he said to Shaw, ignoring Opal. I was stuck with creeps to the right of me, the left of me, everywhere but behind me. I leaned against my back against the window in the vain hope that the heater would dry the seat of my jeans. It didn't feel like the heat was on yet, though I could hear it humming to itself. The citizen continued. "Did you ever think that new technologies give rise to new demons, new spirits to appease?"
"Sure," said Shaw. He held up his right hand; his index finger started at the second knuckle. "You have to feed the punch-press every once in a while. Usually a couple of months after a new pressman starts." He grinned; it was the most human I'd seen him.
"Exactly," said the citizen.
"I can't get it open," said Opal, so Shaw and I went to help. We were trying to open the door, so I didn't look at Lincoln again until he screamed.
Lincoln was pressing buttons on the console, trying to cancel the transaction. There was this cracking popping sound, like when you crack your knuckles or maybe like when a dog cracks a bone to get at the marrow.
The machine was sucking Lincoln in.
I mean, that sounds simple -- "the machine was sucking him in" -- but the slot isn't that big. The slot was handling a hell of a lot more than it should have, considering the act was like trying to suck a chicken through a soda straw. The deposit slot had stretched and expanded like rubber or elastic. Even Opal stopped tugging at the door to watch.
It was up to his arm before Shaw shouted, "We've got to help him," loudly, in my ear. I wasn't as fast as Shaw in getting to Lincoln. Lincoln couldn't even scream any more, all he could do was hiss air. His eyes had rolled up in his head, showing only the whites.
There was blood all over, running in rivulets and streams down the stainless steel front of the bank machine. I didn't get any on me, though.
Shaw handed me a penknife and then he stripped my belt from around my waist and cinched it tightly around Lincoln's biceps. "Here!" he said. "Cut it off. Cut it off!"
I fumbled trying to open the knife. I couldn't, my hands were shaking too much. It didn't matter because the citizen said, "Don't bother." I looked at him, and he had a gun in his hand.
I dropped the knife on the floor and stepped back, which also put me closer to the gun, but it didn't look like I was going to win no matter where I stood.
Lincoln had slumped down beside the bank machine, now, and Shaw had his hands shoved into Lincoln's armpits, tugging at him.
"Get away from him," said the citizen. "Now, or I'll shoot you."
Shaw stopped tugging and looked up. "He's got a gun," he said to me. Like I said: the obvious.
I nodded. Shaw came next to me. He was spattered and smeared with Lincoln's blood. My twenty-two dollar belt was just disappearing into the machine. I didn't watch any more; I turned my face to the window. It sounded awful, and the heater seemed to hum and catch every time there was an especially loud crack of breaking bones.
Shaw watched, which was fine with me. I was trying to wipe away some of the moisture on the window so maybe someone outside would see what was going on, but the windows were double glazed and the moisture was between the two panes. I couldn't wipe it away.
The sound went on for a long time. The rain against the window didn't cover much of it.
I looked back a little too soon. I saw his four-hundred dollar Italian shoes pulled up tight against the deposit slot, and then they fell to the floor with a sticky splat after his feet were sucked out of them. Some of the blood was already congealing.
Opal giggled and clapped her hands. I was going to be giggling soon, too -- what I wanted right now was some Talwin or Valium or even a really stiff drink.
Then the machine spat out Lincoln's bank card. Spat it right out, no polite offering. It landed on the floor near my feet. I picked up the card and it felt greasy, like a mutton bone. I dropped it again. The greasy feeling wouldn't come off my fingers.
"Now you," said the citizen to Opal. "Make a deposit."
She looked at him. She had, oh, the emptiest face. "I can't," she said. "I don't have a card."
"Use his," he said, indicating Lincoln's card on the floor.
"I don't know his number."
"She's telling the truth," I said. "He wouldn't tell his number to one of his girls."
"What's your name?" he said to her, almost gently.
"Opal," she said.
"Is that your real name?" he asked her. She nodded. He thought for a moment, and said, "Okay, then, use 6713 as your number."
I said, "Don't be stupid, Opal."
"Will I be with Lincoln?"
"Yes," he said.
"You'll be dead," I told her.
She said to me, "Sure, you can go around not being dead. It's fine for you to live without a man. But not me." Then a thought struck her, gently; it travelled very far. "Besides, being dead can't that much different from being wasted."
Shaw looked like he was going to try something. The citizen said, "Don't bother. She's only some worthless hooker."
"Prostitute," I said. "Hookers only hook when they need the money."
"Worthless in any case."
"Hey," said Opal with some spirit. "I can't remember the number." He repeated it to her.
I said, "Where'd you get that number, numerology?" If I could get him talking for a few moments, Opal would forget the number. I had no sympathy for Lincoln, but Opal was different.
"That's right."
"We played with that in high school. You know, figure out if your latest guy was right for you. You added it pretty fast."
He was proud as he said, "I've always been good with numbers. That's how I got into this." He shrugged. "I was embezzling, nothing big, just to make ends meet. One day there was this audit coming up. Well. I was about to be on the hot seat. But I had this theory -- "
"About spirits," said Shaw. He'd spotted my ploy.
"Yes," he said. "The details are tedious, but I got in communication with the manitou -- or demon, if you want -- of automatic tellers." He briefly held up his notebook. "It's a rather involved process. The demon agreed to give me money in exchange for blood."
"Yeah, well, there's lots of that," Shaw said.
It didn't disturb the man at all. "Well. I've got bills to pay, and I need three of you to pay them."
"You mean, one of us might live?" I asked.
"No, I can always use the extra cash. Opal -- it's 6713." Opal was in fact standing there, trying to remember the number.
"Now press a blue button to indicate type of transaction," Opal read off the little window. "I want to make a deposit, don't I?"
"Yes. And sign your name on one of the envelopes, please."
"I don't have a pen," she complained.
"Oh, for--" He reached into his coat pocket with his free hand, and that's when Shaw charged him. They struggled for a little while, and then the gun went off. Three times. Shaw had a surprised, stunned look on his face as he slumped to the ground. "We'll deposit him first," said the man. He told Opal to move over to where he could cover both of us with the gun, and then he pressed some buttons. He took out Shaw's wallet and dropped the driver's license into an envelope. "The signature's the important thing," he said, though I noticed he was pretty careful about making sure Shaw's hand held the envelope as it was put into the slot.
I didn't watch. It sounded just as disgusting as the first time. Opal watched. "Ick," she said. "I got blood on my best skirt. There's blood all over." She had finally noticed; maybe she was coming off the Talwin.
He said cheerfully, "I've got rags and cleaners in my briefcase."
Opal sounded relieved as she said, "That's okay, then."
Maybe she wasn't coming off the Talwin.
* * *
When Shaw was gone, the citizen said, "Okay." He sounded almost cheerful. "You next," he said to me.
"Why not her?" I said, pointing at Opal. "It's still on her pimp's card."
"I want to be with Lincoln."
"See? She wants to go next."
"She won't give me any trouble. You might."
"I'll be good, I promise," I told him.
"You're just stalling," he said. "Be proud. You're greasing the wheels of international finance."
"I want to be worth more than she is," said Opal, moving forward.
"You stay there! And you, you get over there or I'll shoot you," he said to me.
"Big threat," I muttered, but I went over to the machine anyway. My feet stuck to the floor. The machine was winking at me, rolling its smoked plastic visor up and down. "Yes, here I go, off to join Lincoln," I said loudly as I inserted my card. "Lincoln always wanted me," I said as I entered my number. "Work for me, Ellen, he used to say, I'll treat you right," I said as I pressed the Deposit button. The maw of the slot opened. There was no blood inside it, just slick gray metal.
If Opal hadn't been so wasted, it might not have worked. She walked right over to the citizen and said, "You're not letting her go before me. I'm Lincoln's woman, he said so himself. I should go next." She fairly stamped her feet in a tantrum.
"I'm just going to shoot both of you now," he said. He took the gun off me and pointed it at Opal. Bad move.
Opal had been on the street a lot longer than he had, and though she would put up with anything from Lincoln, she wasn't going to put up with a gun. She kicked him in the groin, he shot her in the stomach, and while he was bent over I kicked him in the head. Hard. Twice. Then I kicked the gun away from him.
I didn't spend any time looking at Opal, who was sitting on the floor crying, because the machine was waiting for a deposit. I took the gun from him, and then I treated him the same way he had treated Shaw. His driver's license said his name was Gerard Fowler.
I was shaking pretty badly by the time Fowler was gone. Opal was crying pretty loud so I told her to shut up. She wasn't going to live very long; there was a hole in her back the size of my fist. If she hadn't been so doped, she would've known she was dying. Instead, she kept whining that her skirt was ruined and that she wasn't with Lincoln.
I edged up to the machine to snatch my card out of the slot. The little message window was flashing its message: PRESS OK FOR ANOTHER TRANSACTION. I watched it, expecting something else or maybe not, considering that it had already got its three "deposits".
Then it flashed this:
PLEASE.
PRESS OK FOR ANOTHER TRANSACTION.
PLEASE.
"Ellen," whined Opal, "My skirt's ruined. Lincoln bought me this skirt. See? That proves he doesn't want you, Ellen, he wants me. Ellen, I want to be with Lincoln." Her voice was like a cheese grater. I understood why Lincoln used to hit her.
PLEASE it flashed.
"Go ahead," I told Opal.
* * *
The first thing I checked was his notebook. It was in English, just simple step-by-step instructions for contacting the whatever. After that, it took me a long time to clean the foyer.
The point is, a hooker doesn't live by hooking. She just does it when she needs the money. The same as this -- only when I need to make ends meet.
I like banking machines.
They make me feel like it's my money.