Page 19

But he had already left the interview booth and was heading for the door.

June’s voice cut through the air. “Wait.”

Mad Dog stopped instantly, glancing over his shoulder.

June had left her chair to confront him with her arms folded. “Big, scary lout, ain’t you,” she commented with a touch of scorn.

He turned to face June fully, seeming baffled by the woman in front of him. Although he was easily twice her weight and towered over her, he took a step back and lowered his eyes respectfully. “I ain’t scary,” he said.

“Are you planning to butcher everyone in the house while we’re sleeping?” she demanded.

He seemed genuinely shocked by the suggestion. “I’d never do nothing like that.”

“Hmph.” June glared at him. “If Miss Martin hires you, I’ll be making your food. And if you put a foot wrong, I’ll cook your goose for yer. Understand?”

Mad Dog nodded humbly and fled as soon as June returned to her chair.

After the door had closed behind him, June said, “That one’s ‘no.’ Obviously.”

“I like him,” Reina protested.

“He smells like he were raised in Noah’s ark.”

“That can be improved.”

“And all them tattoo marks. He is trying to scare people, no matter what he says.”

“I don’t think so. I think he’s merely . . . illustrated. Like a book.”

“I’ll bet he is,” June said dourly. “I’ll bet he’s got more pictures on him than a Winterborne’s mail-order catalog.”

The door opened, and a lanky girl entered the room.

“God save us,” June said, “this one’s a baby.”

“I’m fifteen,” the girl said indignantly.

Reina gave June a reproving glance.

“Sorry,” June said hastily. “I’ll be quiet.”

The girl sat on the other side of the table. She was pale and rawboned, inhabiting her dress like a collection of jackstraws. The bleached blue depths of her eyes held a slightly eerie luminosity.

Reina smiled at the girl and glanced through her file. “Your name is Belinda Claw?”

“Yeah.”

“I’m Miss Martin, and this is Miss Rummage. How do you do?”

“I do all right, I guess.”

“You’re very young to have been sent to prison,” Reina remarked in concern. “Why weren’t you in a girls’ reformatory?”

“Don’t it say in me papers?”

Reina looked down at the file. “Vagrancy . . . keeping unsavory company and . . . something about offenses with blades?”

An unsettling grin crossed the girl’s face, equal parts cheerful and evil. “I was one of the High Rips, y’see.”