The Day of the Locust Chapter 16 Summary

How It All Goes Down

  • Tod returns home the following day to find a crowd surrounding the Greeners' apartment. Harry is dead.
  • Tod enters the Greeners' apartment and finds Faye crying in her room. Before he can say anything, Mary Dove bursts in and gives her friend a hug.
  • Upset, Faye claims that she killed Harry. Uh-oh. But that's not entirely true: she believes that she killed him by mentioning Ben Murphy, an old peer of his.
  • There's a knock on the door—it's Mrs. Johnson, "the janitress" (16.24). Funerals are apparently her specialty, so she immediately begins planning Harry's.
  • There's just one problem—Faye is broke. She refuses Tod's and Mary's offers of money, saying instead that she wants to work at Mrs. Jenning's whorehouse.
  • Tod tries to convince Faye otherwise, but the girls are giggly and pay him no mind.