George reached under the counter and slapped down a bottle in front of her. She gave him a bill, and while he was getting change she looked round the room. She saw the three, sitting watching her. They sat like waxworks, suspended in everything but her. She looked slowly from one to the other, then she tossed her head and turned back to the bar.
“I ain’t got all day,” she said. “Stir your stumps, can’t you?”
George put the money on the counter. Aw, Miss Hogan—” he began.
She picked up the money and the bottle quickly. “Forget it,” she said, and walked out.
The three turned in their chairs as she went, their eyes fixed in a bright, unblinking stare. They watched her push the swing doors and disappear into the hot, sunlit road.
There was a lengthy silence.
Then Freedman said, “She ain’t got a thing under that dress, did you see?”
Walcott still stared at the door, as if hoping she’d return. He nervously wiped his hands on a cap he held on his knee.
Wilson said, “If I were Butch I’d take the hide off her back… the little whore.”
George said, “Ain’t she a looker? There ain’t another skirt in this dump like her, ain’t that right?”