“When did you leave Iowa?”
“Three years ago. I won a beauty contest. I won a high school beauty contest, in Des Moines. That’s where I lived. The prize was a trip to Hollywood. I got off the Chief with fifteen guys taking my picture, and two weeks later I was in the hash house.”
“Didn’t you go back?”
“I wouldn’t give them the satisfaction.”
“Did you get in movies?”
“They gave me a test. It was all right in the face. But they talk, now. The pictures, I mean. And when I began to talk, up there on the screen, they knew me for what I was, and so did I. A cheap Des Moines trollop, that had as much chance in pictures as a monkey has. Not as much. A monkey, anyway, can make you laugh. All I did was make you sick.”
“And then?”
“Then two years of guys pinching your leg and leaving nickel tips and asking how about a little party tonight. I went on some of them parties, Frank.”
“And then?”
“You know what I mean about them parties?”