Gilded Needles (Valancourt 20th Century Classics) Read Online Free Page B

merchandise they might come in the way of, promising to give two-fifths of the value in cash; this was appreciably higher than the usual one-third that was offered. The female thieves came gladly to Lena then, and even when she lowered her rates to the customary percentage, they remained with her.
    To front her business as a fence, Lena Shanks operated a small pawnshop in the adjoining house, which she also owned. These two buildings were ingeniously connected by two well-concealed doors on the second and third floors, and their common basement was a warren of tiny locked cupboards and rooms for the storing of stolen merchandise. All day long, with Ella at her side, Lena sat behind the grimy counter of the pawnshop, examining, appraising, and purchasing stolen goods. The subterfuge of the pawnshop was of only the most perfunctory nature. The few items displayed for sale in her shop were cracked, filthy, and useless, and the array was never changed.
    Daisy Shanks pulled her chair closer to the fire and began to detach the silk fringe from a shawl that had been taken from a house on West Nineteenth Street that morning. The gold clock on the mantel ticked loudly and the coals shifted themselves in the gilded grate. From outside came the occasional shouts and drunken songs of those passing along West Houston Street.
    At a quarter past one, Rob and Ella suddenly appeared in the doorway, quite clean and neatly dressed again.
    “Come here,” said their mother, smiling. The twins stepped forward and Rob handed his mother seven dollars in gold and silver.
    “Were you stopped?” asked Lena.
    “No,” replied Rob, “no one even looked at us, except to tell us to move to the side of the street, and a man in a black coat asked if my soul was saved.”
    “Did the man on Bleecker Street quarrel over the price?” asked their mother.
    Rob shook his head. “I told him seven dollars and he said was it a man or a woman, and I said a woman and he gave me seven dollars.”
    “Hold out your hand,” said Daisy. The children thrust out their palms, and their mother dropped a silver dollar into each. “Tomorrow we go out. Spend it how you like. To bed now,” she said, leaning forward to kiss each.
    Ella then turned to go, but Rob lingered a moment, glancing at his mother. “The lady upstairs, could I see her? Very beautiful, ain’t she?”
    “Lovelier than wax,” said Daisy. “Creep up. Creep up and see her, then come down here again, tell me how she sleeps. Ella, go ’long too.”
    The two children hurried up the stairs of the darkened room next to that in which the actress turned feverishly upon the bed. This was a small chamber, fiercely cold, directly beneath the roof, with one window that looked out over the houses in back. Ella stooped down near the baseboard and pushed aside a panel in the connecting wall. The twins crawled through, Ella first, and crouched behind a screen, listening to the drugged woman’s breathing.
    Rob peered around the edge of the screen and then stepped from behind, motioning his sister forward. They crept to the edge of the little iron bed and stood with their hands clasped, looking down at the actress. Her fine black hair was disheveled and her complexion of chalk and rouge had been ruined by hot tears and the coarse pillow beneath her head. The rubies in her ears were like spots of thick blood. The small watch on her breast ticked more loudly than her uneven breath came. Her features had become drawn and sharp under the influence of the drugs she had been given and the flickering failing light of the fire in the grate made them even more grotesque.
    So lightly that she did not stir, Rob touched two fingers to the sleeping woman’s braceleted wrist and felt her pulse. He nodded to his sister and they retreated behind the screen, slipped through the wall, replaced the panel, and stood erect in the dark frigid room behind.
    They smiled at one another, and whispered liltingly: “ ’Rings and watch and