Chances

“Sure, Whitejack.”

  “How’d you know my name?”

  “Everyone knows your name out on the island—you sure is some big man.”

  His smile broadened. “Knows how to say the right things.”

  “And knows when it’s time not to say anything at all.”

  He burst out laughing. “Shee-ii-t, I got me one can talk!”

  She laughed with him. “You sure have!”

  They bathed her, fumigated her, deloused her, fed her, had her examined inside and out by a doctor, dressed her in a pink satin robe, and put her to work immediately.

  Madam Mae was as tall as Whitejack, voluptuous, with a long curling blonde wig that contrasted Starkly with her jet black skin. She was a working madam, charging exorbitant prices for her occasional services. She was in her late thirties and had been an active prostitute since she was twelve years of age.

  She hated Carrie on sight, but she knew a good business proposition when she saw one. “You want to take her on, we’ll do it,” she told Whitejack. Carrie had not been wrong on that score. “But you stay out of her pants,” Madam Mae warned. “I don’t like sharing what I got with no child.”

  Whitejack laughed uneasily. “I wasn’t thinkin’ of it, mama!”

  “The hell you weren’t!”

  “Aw, shee-ii-it. You think I mess with that when I got you?”

  “I think you mess with anything that breathes I don’t watch you real close!”

  Carrie was determined to succeed. She wasn’t worried about making any deal with the house until she had established herself. A fifty-fifty split suited her fine to start. She collected her belongings from Florence Williams and was delighted to find her six hundred dollars intact. Florence even asked if she wanted to come back, but Carrie declined the offer. Madam Mae ran a much larger operation, and once she got herself established she wanted to work nonstop. Money was the name of the game. And she was set to make herself a stash.

  Madam Mae’s clientele was more varied than Florence Williams’s. She kept an open house, with ten very hard-working girls: two other blacks, a Puerto Rican, three white-skinned blondes, a fat Mexican girl, a Chinese, and a perfectly formed pretty midget called Lucille.

  Carrie had to work hard to stand out. But she had ambition. She wanted to be the best.

  From her very first client, they started coming back for more. Carrie knew how to make a man feel like a man. They came to her with their limp dicks, their problems, and their stories of woe. She sent them off refreshed, invigorated, and properly fucked.

  She hated every one of them.

  They loved her.

  Lucille was the only girl in the house who spoke to her. The others were suspicious, and jealous of hanging onto their regular johns.

  “I bin here five years,” Lucille confided. “Whitejack found me workin’ in a freak show. He was real kind to me, told me I’d like this better, and honey—he sure was right.”

  Carrie had no eyes to start making friends, she just wanted to concentrate on business, but in a way Lucille reminded her of herself. They were both freaks, both outcasts only good for one thing.

  “I’m goin’ to get out of here one day,” Carrie confided, “I’m goin’ to be bigger and better than Madam Mae. I’m goin’ to have the best place in town.”

  “I’ve heard that before.”Lucille giggled.

  “Yeah, but I mean it,” Carrie replied. And she did. Why else was she subjecting herself to anything that came her way? If she couldn’t be the best she might as well be dead.

  Her reputation grew. So did her list of regular customers.

  “What you got I should know about?” Whitejack asked jokingly one day.

  She placed a manufactured smile on her face but her eyes remained cold. “I told you, didn’t I? Sweet, black, hot, an’ young. You-all knows that’s what whitey dick likes.”

  Whitejack glanced around. They were in the parlor alone together. He reached over and casually placed his hand inside her kimono on her breast. “You turned out to be a star, girl.”

  “Sure. I told you I was good.”

  He didn’t move his hand. “I shoulda kept you for myself. Set you up in a room someplace.”

  Whitejack was getting hot. Carrie glanced knowingly at his tight white trousers. She could see his prick straining the material. Getting Whitejack hot was some achievement.

  She licked her lips. She was looking good and knew it. “So why didn’t you?”

  His hand started to move on her breast. “Little girls ain’t my attraction.”

  “I ain’t no little girl, Whitejack. I bin around.”

  “So you have.” He was moving in on her, pressing his hardness against her thigh.

  At that particular moment Madam Mae and two of the girls came walking in the room.

  Whitejack backed off double quick, but not before Madam Mae’s beady eyes had taken in everything that was going on. She shot him a deadly look. “We pay for it around here, honey. You-all want a little session with the child, you-all gonna have to pay.” Her voice dripped sarcasm.

  Whitejack recovered his composure. “Day I pay for it, woman, I am one dead man.”

  Madam Mae didn’t skip a beat. “You said it, honey,” she murmured sweetly.

  The girls laughed, and the doorbell chimed, interrupting any further exchanges.

  Three fresh-faced college boys came piling into the parlor. Madam Mae treated them nicely, gave them a drink, and put them at their ease. She indicated her girls. “Take your pick,” she offered. “Anyone you like.”

  Carrie smiled prettily at one of them and took him by the hand to her bedroom.

  He was nervous as hell. Sweating, red-faced, jumpy.

  “What’s your name, sweet stuff?” she purred.

  “Hen… ry.” His voice broke on the ry.

  “So Hen… ry. You and I are going to have us a really beau… ti… ful time. O.K., Henry?”

  He nodded nervously. He was eighteen years old and this was his first prostitute.

  Carrie peeled his clothes off, clucking with admiration at his puny body. When she took off his shorts she couldn’t conceal a shudder. Thin and white, like a wriggly white worm.

  She sighed. “Hen… ry, you sure are one bee-ig bad exciting man! You sure as hell are! You an’ me are goin’ to have us a time like you only ever dreamed about. Right, sweet stuff? Right?”

  Gino

  1924-1926

  On July 9, 1924, Gino Santangelo, after a five-week wait in the Bronx County Jail, was taken to court, pleaded guilty to attempted burglary, and was given an eighteen-month prison sentence. He got off easy, Aldo Dinunzio was sentenced to two years. They were sent to Sing Sing prison together.

  Aldo was convinced someone had fingered them, and he was hot to get his revenge. “Who the fuck ya tell?” he asked the two boys who had been on the job with him. “Who knew about the warehouse?”

  They both denied telling anyone. But Aldo kept questioning and bugging them, and it eventually came to light that one of them had boasted about the job to his sister.

  Aldo was satisfied with this information. At last he had someone to blame. “The bitch!” he mumbled constantly. “She musta gone to the cops. When I get out of here that bitch won’t find her miserable life worth living.”

  Gino tried to calm him, but Aldo was having none of it.

  “The moment I leave this place—the moment I set foot on the street—the bitch gets it. You wait, you see.”

  Gino learned the best way to handle prison life was to keep to himself and stay out of trouble. He shared a small cell with an old man who was in on an intent-to-kill charge. They ignored each other. It seemed to be the best way to stand being hemmed up together.

  The old man would urinate noisily in the bucket provided, and most nights he would sexually relieve himself just when Gino was getting to sleep. It was disgusting, but Gino learned to ignore it. He tried to forget about women and sex and warm bodies. He found himself getting a constant hard-on
but refused to jerk off like everyone else. Occasionally he was racked with a wet dream, and he would wake up annoyed and dissatisfied.

  He missed sex more than anything. And he daydreamed about the women he would make love to when he got out. The one he thought about most was the little blonde from Fat Larry’s. He hadn’t even talked to her since she had given him the big brush, but he knew that he would. And once he hit home base on her magic button… oh, boy. Just watch out.

  Costa’s letters kept on coming, and one day Vera turned up to visit him. She didn’t look good. Nothing had been done about the two front teeth Paolo had knocked out, and her skin was lined and swollen from too much booze.

  “You little bastard,” she complained. “Short memory, huh? Not a word from you in months. Finally found out where you were, so here I am.”

  “Jeeze.” He was embarrassed, his eyes magnetically drawn to the gap in her smile where there should have been teeth. “It’s real nice of you to drag out to see me.”

  “’Course it is. But what’s a stepmother for if she can’t make one lousy visit? An’ I’m tellin’ ya now, Gino, I ain’t comin’ back to this shithole. It was bad enough when I hadda come see Paolo here. You can come see me when ya get out, O.K.?”

  “Where is the old man?”

  “The prick took my money and ran. The same day I got out the hospital, too.” Ruefully she pointed to her mouth. “Guess he didn’t like the view.”

  “I got some dough if you wanna get your teeth fixed,” he said quickly.

  She gave a lewd laugh. “Thanks, kid, but I gotta tell you—havin’ no front teeth is real good for business. I can do things most guys don’t believe!” She leaned close to the wire mesh separating them. “I’ll do it for you when you get out.”

  He laughed. “Come on, Vera!”

  She giggled. “Just tryin’ to cheer you up. I know all you guys think about here is sex. It must get hard.”

  “It sure does!”

  “Aw, shit! What a joker! Same as ever.” She stood up. “Gotta go. But Gino, thanks…. You know what I mean. Ain’t never had anyone look out for me before. It was a pretty good feelin’.”

  “How’d y’know it was me?”

  “Are you kidding?”

  Doing time in Sing Sing was hard. Gino was assigned to a construction gang, and although the work was back-breaking the company was interesting. He was making good connections and learning a lot, mixing with older, experienced men who had been around and knew what it was all about.

  The months passed fairly quickly, and with time off for good behavior, Gino found himself up for parole within a year.

  There was a shock in store for him when he came before the parole board. Costa Zennocotti’s adopted father had written a letter offering to take him for a vacation. It seemed he had no choice. Straight out of jail and onto a train bound for California without even time to get laid.

  He was confused. He hardly knew Costa Zennocotti—only through his letters, really. Shit! What kind of suckers wanted to give a vacation to someone like him?

  Costa waited impatiently at the railway station in San Francisco with Franklin Zennocotti, his adopted father. He had grown somewhat, filled out, and, although short for his sixteen years, was a nice-looking boy.

  “I don’t know if this is such a good idea,” Franklin said for the twentieth time in weeks.

  “Aw, come on, dad,” Costa replied. “You gave me a chance, didn’t you? And look what happened to me.”

  Franklin couldn’t help smiling. Costa was right. Look what had happened to him. He was the brightest kid around. He got top grades in school and was a pleasure to have around the house.

  Still, adopting Costa was one thing, having his jailbird friend to stay was another. But it was only for a month. And Costa had begged, indeed pleaded. “He saved my life, dad,” he explained simply, “and if there is something we can do for him…”

  Costa had never asked for anything before. It would have been difficult turning down his one and only request.

  So a vacation for Gino Santangelo it was, and Franklin Zennocotti hoped it wasn’t the mistake he felt it might be.

  Gino strutted as he left the train. It hid the fact that he was just plain nervous. He fingered the scar on his cheek and marveled at the bright sunshine.

  He took off his lumber jacket and rolled it in a ball under his arm. Then the smell of his own sweat hit him, and he quickly put the jacket back on again.

  He spotted Costa immediately, but the little runt didn’t seem to notice him. Well, of course, he had probably changed…. And then again he did look much older than his years. Everyone thought he was more than nineteen.

  He had time to inspect Costa and the man standing with him. They looked so… clean. It was the only word that came to mind.

  He headed toward them, and finally Costa recognized him. “Gino!” he exclaimed, and to Gino’s embarrassment he ran up and enveloped him in a hug. Shit! Maybe the kid’s early experiences had turned him into a fairy. “It’s so good to see you!” Costa said excitedly. “Come and meet my father.” He dragged him over to Franklin Zennocotti, who gave a tight-assed smile.

  Gino knew the expression. It said, I don’t like the look of you. Why do I even have to talk to you?

  “Hey,” Gino said, extending his hand, “pleased t’meetcha.”

  During the drive from the station he heard about a lot of things that didn’t interest him one bit. Swimming galas and tennis clubs and who the fuck knew what else. What really interested him was the diamond-backed brand-new Cadillac they were riding in. How he wanted to get behind the wheel of that.

  The house was straight out of a Hollywood movie. Real big, with pillars and leaded shuttered windows. In the back was a swimming pool. Costa’s mother fussed around him, offering him cookies and lemonade and insisting he take his jacket off.

  Jeeze! What a setup!

  He clung to his jacket, wolfed down a few cookies, and then Costa suggested he show him to his room.

  Gino bounced around on the balls of his feet, inspecting everything: the view, the bed, the walk-in closet. “Jeeze!” he kept on exclaiming, “You really got some setup here, kid.”

  “How did you get that scar on your face?” Costa blurted out, desperate for something to say.

  He frowned, and his hand rushed to finger his scar. “You think it shows a lot?”

  “Not really….” Costa kicked vaguely at the carpet. Trust him to say the wrong thing.

  Gino scowled and moved to inspect himself in the closet mirror. “Yeh,” he muttered, almost to himself, “the doctors did a lousy job of sewing it up.”

  “I hardly noticed it,” Costa said quickly.

  “Bullshit. You fuckin’ mentioned it first thing.”

  “Shhhh! My mother and father would throw you out if they heard language like that.”

  Gino narrowed his eyes. What the hell had he let himself in for?

  Gino found he had been totally wrong about Costa. The kid was terrific. So goddamn nice it was sickening! And not a fairy, not anything. The kid had never even been kissed, let alone laid. Gino felt it was his duty to do something about that. Too much swimming and tennis was not good for anyone. A little fucking would break up the monotony.

  “Hey,” he said to Costa, “there’s gotta be a cathouse around here somewhere.” He had to have a woman; otherwise he was going to bust right open.

  “A cathouse?” Costa was blushing before he even got the words out.

  “Aw, come on,” Gino encouraged, “we’ll go together. Listen, kid, if I don’t have a skirt soon I’m a gonna split a gut!”

  Costa was excited and horrified. He did know of a whorehouse down near the wharf. Two of his friends had been there and come back with glowing if somewhat improbable reports.

  “After dinner tonight we’ll say we’re goin’ to a movie,” Gino decided.

  Costa went into a state of unconcealed excitement. His mother regarded him solemnly over dinner. “You look flushed
, Costa, dear. Are you sure you’re feeling all right?”

  “Fine, mother, fine,” Costa replied quickly, glancing anxiously over at Gino.

  Franklin caught the look. “Maybe you should forget about going to the moving picture show and stay home.”

  “No, no,” Costa objected, “there’s nothing wrong with me.”

  Franklin patted his lips with a napkin. “Don’t be late, then. I may have let you off your studies this month, but that doesn’t mean I expect you to carouse every night.”

  “Dad, this is only the second time we’ve been out since Gino’s here.”

  Franklin regarded his adopted son solemnly. “Gino did not come to San Francisco to go out,” he said sternly. “He came here so that we could give him some idea of what life in a proper family home is all about. During his stay I am sure that he has learned a lot.” He fixed Gino with a penetrating stare. “Isn’t that so? Don’t you feel that you have learned about respect and caring for other people?”

  “Hey,” Gino stated quickly, “I always cared about other people.”

  “The people you robbed?” Franklin replied, quick as a flash.

  He flushed. “Well, they was people I didn’t even know…. The big boys, they got things like insurance. They expect to get… taken.

  Franklin glanced quickly at Costa. “You see, son,” he explained carefully, “that is an attitude that exists among the more… deprived members of society. I was hoping we would be able to help Gino to see things a different way. To understand that no one expects to get… taken, as he puts it. And hard-working businessmen are no different from anyone else.”

  “Bull,” Gino muttered.

  “I beg your pardon?” questioned Franklin coldly.

  He coughed. “Somethin’ in my throat,” he explained.

  Costa pushed his chair from the table and got up. “We’d better be going,” he said quickly.

  The cathouse down by the wharf was a disappointment. Gino felt it was bad news as soon as they arrived.

  His worst suspicions were confirmed when he took a look at the woman who opened the door. She had acned skin, cracked lips, and a bad wig. She winked immediately and hauled them inside. “Coupla nice randy bucks come for a good time, huh?” She was wearing a faded beaded dress that had seen better days, and her bosom sagged with the weight of a thousand lays. “It’s ten apiece,” she said quickly. “Who’s first?”