"Well, Pearl, how was I to know? He came down into the street, and said that he gave you two bucks."
"As long as you've been a Pimp, you should fall for that stuff—Screw—get out of my sight."
"O. K. Baby, but remember that if you ever need me, all you gotta do is just say the word. You know I'm all for you."
"Nuts—I've been in this burg a week, and all I done is turn Two Dollar tricks, and split with you, and for what? You ain't never brought me one dime, but you sure ain't missed any meals. I don't need you or any other guy from now on. I got my permit today from the Chief of Police of Juarez, to hustle all I want on the Mex side, and I'm doing it, starting tonight."
One week had passed since the person of Pearl Jones had stepped off the west-bound Texas & Pacific train in El Paso, with one thought in mind, and that to make as much money as possible in as short a time as possible, and without bother from the police if—possible, which is not POSSIBLE, even in a border town like El Paso, as Pearl had already found out.
In order for Pearl to hustle on the Mexican side of the border in the City of Juarez, it was absolutely necessary that she have a written permit from the Chief of Police, or any official whom she happened to please in the usual way that a girl of her ilk had to please one, when there wasn't enough money in the pocket to buy the permit. Consequently, Pearl found out later she could have had a permit from the most lowly Immigration official to the Mayor himself, but in the midst of her efforts to please, the Chief of Police seemed to be the one who was affected quickest in her efforts to—please—. Hence the permit.
Juarez, Mexico, chief port of entry to Mexico, population of forty thousand souls, mostly lost ones, separated from the United States by the Rio Grande River, if it may have the luck to be called a river, which at no time is deep enough to wet the crucial spot of one's anatomy, in case one has to run through it owing to lack of time to make the bridge, which has often been the case.
"Well, this is a night for celebration," thought Pearl, as she left her hotel to walk down to the corner of Stanton Street, to catch the Juarez car. The car was filled from door to door with old Mexican women, wrapped in black shawls, which would have been black with dirt had they been originally any other color, and loaded down with topping bags filled with the bare necessities that their own Immigration was kind enough to let them bring in, and anything else that they might hide under the numerous dirty underskirts they might happen to have on.