This time it was only twenty dollars. Next time it might be much more. Even with a nice pension and some properties, a person couldn’t afford a stepson like that.

But worst of all was the disgrace.

George was pasting the article in the Junior Achievement scrapbook that was one of his mementos from his last semester at school. He pasted it on an empty page between his biology drawing of the aorta of a duck and his civics project on the history of the Constitution. He had to give it to that Mancuso guy: he was really on the ball. George wondered if his name was on that list the cops had found in the cabinet. If it was, it might be a good idea to go visit his uncle who lived on the coast. Even then, they’d have his name. He really didn’t have enough money to go anywhere. The best thing was to stay at home for a while. That Mancuso might spot him if he went downtown.

George’s mother, vacuuming on the other side of the living room, hopefully watched her son work on his school scrapbook. Maybe he was getting interested in school again. She and his father didn’t seem to be able to do anything with him. What chance did a boy without a high school education have nowadays? What could he do?

She turned off the vacuum cleaner and answered the doorbell. George was studying the photographs and wondering what that vendor had been doing at the Night of Joy. He couldn’t have been some kind of police agent. Anyway, George hadn’t told him where the pictures came from. There was something funny about the whole business.

“The police?” George heard his mother asking at the door. “You must have the wrong apartment.”

George started for the kitchen before he realized that there was nowhere to go. The apartments in the housing project had only one door.

Lana Lee tore the newspaper into shreds and then tore the shreds into smaller shreds. When the matron stopped by the cell to tell her to clean it up, the members of the ladies’ auxiliary, all three of whom were sharing the cell, said to the matron, “Beat it. We’re the ones living in this place. We like paper on the floor.”

“Shove off,” Liz added.

“Get lost,” Betty said.

“I’ll take care of this cell all right,” the matron answered. “You four have been making noise ever since you come in last night.”

“Get me out this goddam hole,” Lana Lee screamed at the matron. “I can’t take another minute with these three bats.”

“Hey,” Frieda said to her two apartment mates. “Doll doesn’t like us.”

“It’s people like you been ruining the Quarter,” Lana told Frieda.

“Shut up,” Liz said to her.

“Can it, sweets,” Betty said.

“Get me outta here,” Lana screamed through the bars. “I just been through one fucking hell of a night with these three creeps. I got my rights. You can’t stick me in here.”

The matron smiled at her and walked away.

“Hey!” Lana screamed down the corridor. “Come back here.”

“Take it easy, dearie,” Frieda advised. “Quit rocking the boat. Now come on and show us those pictures of yourself you got hidden in your bra.”

“Yeah,” Liz said.

“Get out the snapshots, doll,” Betty ordered. “We’re tired of looking at these frigging walls.”

The three girls lunged for Lana at the same time.

Dorian Green turned one of his severe calling cards over and printed on the reverse side: “Stunning apartment for rent. Apply at 1A. “He stepped out onto the flagstone sidewalk and tacked the card to the bottom of one of the black patent leather shutters. The girls would be gone for quite a while this time. Police were always so adamant about second offenses. It was unfortunate that the girls had never been very sociable with their fellow residents in the Quarter; someone would certainly have pointed out that marvelous patrolman to them, and they would not have made the fatal mistake of attacking a member of the police force.

But the girls were so impulsive and aggressive. Without them, Dorian felt that he and his building were completely unprotected. He took special care to lock his wrought iron gate securely. Then he returned to his apartment to finish the job of cleaning up the litter left from the kickoff rally. It had been the most fabulous party of his career: at the height of it Timmy had fallen from a chandelier and sprained his ankle.

Dorian picked up a cowboy boot from which a heel had been broken and dropped it into a wastebasket, wondering whether that impossible Ignatius J. Reilly were all right. Some people were simply too much to bear. Gypsy Queen’s sweet mother must have been heartbroken over the dreadful newspaper publicity.

Darlene cut her picture out of the paper and put it on the kitchen table. What an opening night. At least she had received a little publicity from it.

She picked up her Harlett O’Hara gown from the sofa and hung it in the closet while the cockatoo watched her and squawked a bit from its perch. Jones had certainly taken over when he found out that man was a cop, leading him right over to the cabinet under the bar. Now she and Jones were both out of a job. The Night of Joy was out of business. Lana Lee was out of circulation. That Lana. Posing for French pictures. Anything for a buck.

Darlene looked at the golden earring that the cockatoo had brought home. Lana had been right all along. That big crazyman was really the kiss of death. He sure treated his poor momma cruel. That poor lady.

Darlene sat down to ponder job possibilities. The cockatoo flapped and squawked until she stuck the novelty earring, its favorite toy, in its beak. Then the phone rang, and when she answered it, a man said, “Listen, you got some great publicity. Now I run a club in the five hundred block of Bourbon, and…”

Jones spread the newspaper on the bar of Mattie’s Ramble Inn and blew some smoke at it.

“Whoa!” he said to Mr. Watson. “You sure gimme a good idea with all this sabotage crap. Now I sabotage myself right back to bein a vagran. Hey!”

“It look like this sabotage go off like a nucular bum.”

“That fat freak a guarantee one hunner percen nucular bum. Shit. Drop him on somebody, everbody gettin caught in the fallout, gettin their ass blowed up. Ooo-wee. Night of Joy really turn into a zoo las night. Firs we get a bird, then the fat mother come draggin along, then three cats look like they jus excape from gym. Shit. Everybody fightin and scratchin and screamin and that big fat freak layin in the gutter like he daid, peoples fightin and cussin and rollin all aroun that big cat pass out in the street. Look like a barroom fight in a westren movie, look like a gang rumble. We got us a big crowd on Bourbon look like we could have us a football game. Po-lice drivin up draggin off that Lee bastar. Hey! It turn out she don have no pal at the precinc anyways. Maybe they be haulin in some of them orphan she been sponsorin. Whoa! That paper sure sending out plenny mothers takin pictures and axin me all about wha happen. Who say a color cat cain get his picture on the front page? Ooo-wee! Whoa! I gonna be the mos famous vagran in the city. I tell that Patrolman Mancusa, I say, ‘Hey, now this cathouse shut down, how’s about tellin your frien on the force I help you out so maybe they don star draggin my ass off for vagran?’ Who wanna get stuck in Angola with Lana Lee? She was bad enough on the outside. Shit.”

“You got any plan for gettin you a job, Jones?”

Jones blew a dark cloud, a storm warning, and said, “After the kinda job I jus had workin below the minimal wage, I really deserve a pay vacation. Ooo-wee. Where I gonna fin me another job? Too many color mothers draggin they ass aroun the street already. Whoa! Gettin your ass gainfully employ ain exactly the easies thing in the worl. I ain the only cat got him a problem. That Darlene gal ain gonna have no easy time gettin herself and that ball eagle gainfully employ. Peoples see wha happen the firs time she stick her ass on a stage, they be throwin water in her face if she be comin aroun lookin for work. See wha I mean? You drop somebody like that fat mother for sabotage, plenny innocen peoples like Darlene gettin theyselves screwed. Like Miss Lee all the time sayin, that fat freak ruin everbody inves’men. Darlene and her ball eagle probly starin at one another right now sayin, ‘Whoa! We really boffo smash for openin night. Hey! We real openin big.’ I plenny sorry that sabotage goin off in Darlene face, but when I see that big mother, I couldn resis. I knowed he make some kinda esplosion in that Night of Joy. Ooo-wee. He really go off. Hey!”