"Since when ain't you interested?" Alamena asked sarcastically. "Since he just went out the door?"

"Anyway, I gotta go find Val," Doll Baby said defensively, moving off. She left immediately afterward.

Sitting on the lid of the toilet seat inside of the locked bathroom, Mamie Pullen was saying, "Dulcy, honey, I wish you'd keep away from Chink Charlie. You're making me awfully nervous, child."

Dulcy grimaced at her own reflection in the mirror. She was standing with her thighs pressed against the edge of the washbowl, causing the rose-colored skin-tight dress to crease inside the valley of her round, seductive buttocks.

"I'm trying to, Aunt Mamie," she said, nervously patting her short-cut orange-yellow curls framing the olive-brown complexion of her heart-shaped face. "But you know how Chink is. He keeps putting himself in my face no matter how hard I try to show him I ain't interested."

Mamie grunted skeptically. She didn't approve of the latest Harlem fad of brownskin blondes. Her worried old eyes surveyed Dulcy's flamboyant decor-the rainbowhued whore-shoes with the four-inch lucite heels; the choker of cultured pink pearls; the diamond-studded watch; the emerald bracelet; the heavy gold charm bracelet; the two diamond rings on her left hand and the ruby ring on her right; the pink pearl earrings shaped like globules of petrified caviar.

Finally she commented, "All I can say is, honey, you ain't dressed for the part."

Dulcy turned angrily, but her hot long-lashed eyes dropped quickly from Mamie's critical stare to Mamie's man-fashioned straight-last shoes protrudmg from beneath the skirt of Mamie's long black satin dress.

"What's the matter with the way I dress?" she argued belligerently.

"It ain't designed to hide you," Mamie said drily, then, before Dulcy could frame a comment, she asked quickly, "What really happened between Johnny and Chink at Dickie Wells's last Saturday night?"