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Chapter One

A chill desert night of wind and rain. The trade at Mrs. O'Malley's house has been kept meager by the inclement weather and the loss of the neighborhood's electrical power since earlier in the day. Rumor has it that a stray bullet struck dead a transformer. For the past two days errant rounds have carried over the Rio Grande -- glancing off buildings, popping through windowpanes, hitting random spectators among the rooftop crowds seeking to be entertained by the warfare across the river. Even through the closed windows and the pattering of the rain, gunfire remains audible at this late hour, though the latest word is that the rebels have taken Juárez and the shooting is now all in celebration and the exercise of firing squads.

The house is alight with oil lamps. Its eight resident whores huddled into their housecoats and carping of boredom. Now comes a loud rapping of the front door's iron knocker and they all sit up as alert as cats.

The houseman peers through a peephole, then turns to the madam and shrugs. Mrs. O'Malley bustles to the door and puts her eye to the peeper.

"Well Jesus Mary and Joseph."

She works the bolt and tugs open the door. The lamp flames dip and swirl in their glass and shadows waver on the walls as a cold rush of air brings in the mingled scents of creosote and wet dust.

Mrs. O'Malley trills in Spanish at the two men who enter the dim foyer and shuts the door behind them. The maid Concha takes their overcoats and they shake the rainwater off their hats and stamp their boots on the foyer rugs.

"Pasen, caballeros, pasen," Mrs. O'Malley says, ushering them into the parlor.

Theycome into the brighter light and the girls see that they are Mexicans in Montana hats and suits of good cut. One of the men has appeared in photographs in the local newspapers almost every day for the past week, but few of these girls ever give attention to a newspaper and so most of them do not recognize him.

"Attention, ladies," Mrs. O'Malley says, as the girls assemble themselves for inspection. "Just look who's honoring us with a visit." She extends her arms toward one of the men as if presenting a star performer on a theater stage. "My dear old friend -- "

"Pancho!" one of the girls calls out -- Kate, whom the others call Schoolgirl for her claim of having attended college for a time before her fortunes turned. Only she and two of the other girls in the house -- a small brunette they call Pony and a fleshy girl named Irish Red -- were working at Mrs. O'Malley's last winter when this man regularly patronized the place. The three waggle their fingers in greeting and the man grins at them and nods.

"General Francisco Villa," the madam enunciates, fixing the Schoolgirl with a correcting look and poorly concealing her irritation at being usurped of the introduction.

The girls have of course all heard of him and they make a murmuring big-eyed show of being impressed. He is tall for a Mexican, big-chested and thick-bellied without conveying an impression of fatness. His eyes are hidden in the squint of his smile. The madam hugs him sideways around the waist and says how happy she is to see him again. He fondly pats her ample bottom and repositions her arm away from the holstered pistol under his coatflap.

"Hace siete o ocho meses que no te veo, verdad?" the madam says. "Que tanto ha occurido en ese tiempo."

Villa agrees that much has happened in the eight months since he was last in El Paso, living as an exile in the Mexican quarter with only eight men in his bunch. Now he commands the mighty Division of the North. He is one of the most celebrated chieftains of the Mexican Revolution and a favored subject of American reporters covering the war.

Would he and his friend like a drink, the madam asks. Some music on the hand-cranked phonograph?

Villa flicks his hand in rejection of the offer and returns his attention to the women, a man come to take his pleasure but with no time for parlor amenities. The girls have thrown open their housecoats to afford the visitors a franker view of their charms in negligee or camisole, but Villa already knows what he wants. He has come with the express hope of finding the Irish girl still here, and now beckons her. He much admires her bright red hair and lushly freckled skin as pale as cream -- traits not common among the women he usually enjoys. She beams and hastens to him.

Mrs. O'Malley pats his arm and says she just knew he'd pick Megan again.

"Y cual prefiere tu amigo?" she says, and turns to the other man.

"Pues?" Villa says to him.

He is taller than Villa, leaner of waist but as wide of chest, his mustache thicker, his eyes so black the pupils are lost in their darkness.

"Esa larguirucha," he says, jutting his chin at a tall lean girl with honey-colored hair and eyes the blue of gas flames. The only one of them able to hold his gaze, her small smile a reflection of his own.

"Ava," Mrs. O'Malley says. "Our newest." She turns from the man to the girl and back to the man, remarking the intensity of the look between them. "My," she says to Villa. "Parece que tu cuate se encontró una novia."

"Otra novia mas," Villa says with a laugh. Then says to the redhead, "Vente, mi rojita," and hugs her against his side and they head for the stairway. The Ava girl takes the other man by the hand and they follow Villa and Irish Red up to the bedrooms.

The rest of the girls resettle themselves, some of them casting envious glances after the couples ascending the stairs, chiefly at the Ava girl, who has been with them but a week, the one they call the Spook for her inclination to keep her own company and her manner of seeming to be elsewhere even when she's in their midst.

Under the Skin. Copyright © by James Blake. Reprinted by permission of HarperCollins Publishers, Inc. All rights reserved. Available now wherever books are sold.