Pimp

  Within ninety days after the Serena cop, I had copped two more young broads. A week later a small-time pimp came to town from Rhode Island. He had a beautiful young whore with him. He was jealous. He followed her in the street. I stalked her. He forgot to follow her. I stole her. I’d had her several months when the town got shaky. The rollers forced Serena out of her joint. I put her in the street.

  Then I heard about a small town in Ohio—Lima—that was jumping with good tricks and wide open. I could possibly open up a couple of houses there.

  My luck was soaring. With my pad rent and a pad a piece for the girls, I needed a tighter setup to cut down my nut. My skull was whirling as I drove the Hog to pick up my stable in the street. They got in. I tossed their scratch in the glove compartment.

  Dawn was breaking as the big Hog scooted through the streets. My five whores were chattering like drunk magpies. I smelled that stink that only a street whore has after a long, busy night. The inside of my nose was raw. It happens when you’re a pig for snorting cocaine.

  My nose was on fire. The stink of those whores and the gangster they were smoking seemed like invisible knives scraping to the root of my brain. I was in an evil, dangerous mood despite that pile of scratch crammed into the glove compartment.

  “Goddamnit, has one of you bitches shit on herself or something?” I bellowed. I flipped the wing window toward me.

  For a long moment there was silence. Then Rachel, my bottom whore, cracked in a pleasing-ass kissing voice, “Daddy Baby, that ain’t no shit you smell. We been turning all night. Ain’t no bathrooms in those tricks’ cars we been flipping out of. Daddy, we sure been humping for you. What you smell is our nasty whore asses.”

  I grinned widely, inside of course. The best pimps keep a steel lid on their emotions. I was one of the iciest. The whores went into fits of giggles at Rachel’s shaky witticism. A pimp is happy when his whores giggle. He knows they are still asleep.

  I coasted the Hog into the curb outside the hotel where Kim, my newest, prettiest girl, was cribbing. Jesus! I would be glad to drop the last whore off. I could get to my own hotel to nurse my nose with cocaine and be alone. Any good pimp is his own best company. His inner-life is so rich with cunning and scheming to out-think his whores.

  As Kim got out I said, “Goodnight Baby, today is Saturday. I want everybody in the street at noon instead of seven tonight. I said noon, not five minutes after or two minutes after. At twelve sharp I want you down, got it Baby?”

  She didn’t answer. She did a strange thing. She walked into the street around the Hog to the window on my side. She stood looking at me for a long moment, her beautiful face tense in the dim dawn.

  Then in her crisp New England accent she said, “Are you coming back to my pad this morning? You haven’t spent a night with me in a month. So come back, okay?”

  A good pimp doesn’t get paid for screwing. He gets his pay-off for always having the right thing to say to a whore right on lightning tap. I knew my four whores were flapping their ears to get my reaction to this beautiful bitch. A pimp with an overly-fine bitch in his stable has to keep his game tight. Whores constantly probe for weakness in a pimp.

  I fitted a scary mask on my face and said, in a low, deadly voice, “Bitch, are you insane? No bitch in this family calls any shots or muscles me to do anything. Now take your stinking yellow ass upstairs to a bath and some shut-eye. Get in the street at noon like I told you.”

  The bitch just stood there. Her eyes slitted in anger. I could sense she was game to play the string out right there in the street before my whores. If I had been ten-years dumber I would have leaped out of the Hog, broken her jaw, and put my foot in her ass. The joint was too fresh in my mind.

  I knew the bitch was trying to booby-trap me when she spat out her invitation. “Come on, kick my ass. What the hell do I need with a man I only see when he comes to get his money? I am sick of it all. I don’t dig stables and never will. I know I’m the new bitch who has to prove herself. Well Goddamnit, I am sick of this shit. I’m cutting out.”

  She stopped for air and lit a cigarette. I was going to blast her ass off when she finished. I just sat there staring at her.

  Then she went on, “I have turned more tricks in the three months I have been with you than in the whole two years with Paul. My pussy stays sore and swollen. Do I get my ass kicked before I split? If so, kick it now because I’m going back to Providence on the next thing smoking.”

  She was young, fast with trick appeal galore. She was a pimp’s dream and she knew it. She had tested me with her beef. She was laying back for a sucker response.

  I disappointed her with my cold overlay. I could see her wilt as I said in an icy voice, “Listen square-ass bitch, I have never had a whore I couldn’t do without. I celebrate, Bitch, when a whore leaves me. It gives some wormy bitch a chance to take her place and be a star. You scurvy Bitch, if I shit in your face, you gotta love it and open your mouth wide.”

  The rollers cruised by in a squad car. I flashed a sucker smile on my face. I cooled it until they passed. Kim was rooted there wincing under the blizzard.

  I went on ruthlessly, “Bitch, you are nothing but a funky zero. Before me you had one chili chump with no rep. Nobody except his mother ever heard of the bastard. Yes, Bitch, I’ll be back this morning to put your phony ass on the train.”

  I rocketed away from the curb. In the rear-view mirror I saw Kim walk slowly into the hotel. Her shoulders were slumped. Until I dropped the last whore off you could have heard a mosquito crapping on the moon. I had tested out for them, solid ice.

  I went back for Kim. She was packed and silent. On the way to the station, I riffled the pages in that pimp’s book in my head. I searched for an angle to hold her without kissing her ass.

  I couldn’t find a line in it for an out like that. As it turned out the bitch was testing and bluffing right down the line.

  We had pulled into the station parking lot when the bitch fell to pieces. Her eyes were misty when she yelped, “Daddy, are you really going to let me split? Daddy, I love you.”

  I started the prat action to cinch her when I said, “Bitch, I don’t want a whore with rabbit in her. I want a bitch who wants me for life. You have got to go. After that bullshit earlier this morning, you are not that bitch.”

  That prat butchered her. She collapsed into my lap crying and begging to stay. I had a theory about splitting whores. They seldom split without a bankroll.

  So I cracked on her, “Give me that scratch you held out and maybe I’ll give you another chance.”

  Sure enough she reached into her bosom. She drew out close to five bills and handed it to me. No pimp with a brain in his head cuts loose a young beautiful whore with lots of mileage left in her. I let her come back.

  At long last I was driving toward my hotel. I remembered what Sweet Jones, the master pimp who turned me out, had said about whores like Kim.

  “Slim,” he had said, “A pretty Nigger bitch and a white whore are just alike. They both will get in a stable to wreck it and leave the pimp on his ass with no whore. You gotta make ’em hump hard and fast to stick ’em for long scratch quick. Slim, pimping ain’t no game of love, so prat ’em and keep your swipe outta ’em. Any sucker who believes a whore loves him shouldn’t a fell outta his mammy’s ass.”

  My mind went back to Pepper. Then back even further and I remembered what he had said about the Georgia.

  “Slim, a pimp is really a whore who has reversed the game on whores. So Slim, be as sweet as the scratch, no sweeter, and always stick a whore for a bundle before you sex her. A whore ain’t nothing but a trick to a pimp. Don’t let ’em Georgia you. Always get your money in front just like a whore.”

  I was on the elevator riding to my pad. I thought about the first bitch who had Georgiaed me when I was three. She had flim-flammed me out of my head. She would be old and gray now. If I could find her, I would sure get the bitch’s unpaid account off my conscience.

  I snorted a c
ouple of caps of cocaine. Two hours later I took a yellow. I fell asleep.

  When I woke up at noon, I knew I had to make a move. Rachel’s parents were trying to cross me. Kim might split back to the sucker. My whole stable, except Kim, were local girls. A pimp is asking for trouble when he doesn’t move his action away.

  Control is easier and tighter away from the familiar setting. A girl in strange surroundings depends more on her man. She needs his advice and guidance more. Girls copped in smaller towns have to be moved fast.

  That night I went to Ohio. I put down the foundation for the move. I rented two houses and furnished them beautifully. I made contact with a fellow who collected the oil for the heat. I got the okay to go at a C a week for each house. I moved my whole family there. I was just in time. A month later Detroit folded and the lid slammed down.

  There was a good dope connection in the new town. I started capping H with my C. I’d mix them and shoot speedballs. When I went to bed I got sound sleep. I seldom had those bad dreams. I got hooked on H. It didn’t worry me. I was getting long scratch.

  I was thirty years old. For the second time in my pimping career I could see solid success and lots of long green in my future. How could I know that elephant bitch, Serena, would get jealous? She brought the whole green-back house of cards crashing down around me. I missed a murder rap by a fraction of an inch. The fraction was in Serena’s chest.

  Within the year that I had set up my houses, tricks from all over the county were beating a path to them. They were wild to sample those luscious young freaks. Pimping had never been better.

  I was in a wonderful mood as I walked in the sunshine. I noticed Serena was coming up the street with a sack of groceries in her arm. She had croaked two people in New Orleans. She walked toward me smiling. When she got close to me she got the ice pick out of the sack. She jabbed it toward my chest. At the time I was quite quick, so I leaped back. The point of it slashed the edge of my pocket right over my ticker. She was trying to drive the point right through my ticker.

  I was without a pistol at the time. I could buy a pistol from any hardware store. I bought a .32 and a box of fifty bullets. I took it up to her pad and loaded it at the kitchen table.

  She said, “Daddy, what’s that for?”

  I said, “That’s to croak any bitch that tries to hurt me.”

  She said, “Oh Daddy, you know I was just upset. Forget about it.”

  I said, “No, I’m not going to forget about it. I’d kill my own mother if I thought she was going to hurt me.”

  Later that evening about midnight the other girls and I were returning from a cabaret. I put the key in the door. I opened it and smelled the heavy odor of Tabu. The heavy scent that only Serena used. I hesitated. My eyes became accustomed to the gloom. I saw Serena standing over in the corner of the living room with an ice pick in her hand. She had slipped into Rachel’s house through an open basement window. I drew my gun.

  I said, “Serena!”

  She said, “Yes, mother-fucker, I’m killing you and them whores this morning.”

  She started crying.

  I said, “Serena, don’t come by that end table. If you do I’m going to kill you. You know I always keep my word.”

  She said, “I wouldn’t give a mother-fuck.”

  She lunged past the end table. I shot her. When I shot her the only thing that saved her life was the fact that she had a forty-six inch bust. The fatty tissue absorbed the bullet at almost point-blank range.

  When I shot her, blood splattered. I struck her in an artery. It blew all over my face, all over her. Her dress had a ringlet of sparks. I set her on fire. She had elephant toughness. It didn’t even knock her down. The bitch grabbed at me. She had dropped the ice pick.

  She grabbed her chest and said, “Daddy, don’t kill me!”

  I was tempted. I really intended to kill her. I started to shoot her through the head. I didn’t. I don’t really know why except there were witnessess, those four whores. She staggered past us through the door and down the street. We all got into the Fleetwood and raced out of town leaving everything.

  I sped toward Mama. I hadn’t seen her since that Christmas visit. Her hair was snow white. Jesus! Was she excited and happy to see me. I told her what had happened. She got a friend to drive her back there. She loaded all the clothing on a trailer. She visited Serena in the hospital.

  Serena begged my mother to tell me to come back. She wouldn’t file charges. It was all her fault and she loved me. I knew that if I had gone back Serena would have driven a butcher knife through my heart in my sleep.

  20

  STABLE MOVES

  It had been a sucker move to come to Mama. Fortunately she had moved from over the beauty shop. She now lived in an almost all-white neighborhood. Here I was with four idle whores in a closed town where I had fallen three times. It was the point of origin for the white slave rap that the copper-hearted runt had crossed me with. There were a couple of sneak ten-dollar houses in town.

  I stayed inside the house at Mama’s. Every joker in town knew me. They all had diarrhea of the mouth. I couldn’t put my action in the street in this hot town. They’d had an easy go in Ohio. They were soft. I could put them down only in a town where I had a fix. I knew that none of them, if busted, could stand up under the clever grilling of the F.B.I.

  I had a ten G bankroll. I was housing and feeding four whores in an expensive hotel. I was a pig for banging speedballs. No fresh scratch was coming in. With only a ten G stick I knew I would soon be in trouble. I had to make a move fast. It was bad for morale of the stable to keep them on their asses.

  After a week of confinement at Mama’s house, I slipped out of town to cop H and C for myself, and gangster for the girls. While in the city I looked up Sweet. I was careful because all the heat in the neighborhood knew me.

  Sweet insisted I give him all the details of my escape. He shook his skull in awe when he heard them. Miss Peaches had died of old age. His eyes were sad when he told me about it. Glass Top was still out West in Seattle. Patch Eye did a little bookie business for him. Sweet had lost his glory. He looked a hundred years old. His backbone was the old white broad who owned the building.

  Sweet had just beat a murder rap. He had killed some pretty jerk from St. Louis who had insulted him in the Roost. The poor chump had called Sweet an ugly, gray-ass bastard. Sweet had drawn his pistol on him. He prodded him into an alley. He made him kneel and then he pissed on him. This was too much to take, so the kid lost his temper. Sweet shot him through the top of the head.

  Sweet was laughing, in a good mood as he told me about it. It had cost him five grand to beat it. He told me he got a wire that Red Eye got life for croaking a whore in Pittsburgh.

  Sweet had a complete answer to my problem. He said that since Serena hadn’t beefed I should go back into Ohio. No state was better at the time for house or street. Before I left I went to his John. The door had a padlock on the outside.

  He looked at me, grinned, and said, “Pal, my crapper is out of order.”

  I went downstairs to the John in the bookie joint. On the way out I asked Patch Eye why Sweet didn’t get his toilet fixed.

  The old ex-pimp, without looking up answered, “Shit, ain’t nothing wrong with the crapper. That cold bastard has his two whores locked in there for fucking with his scratch. They been in there three days.”

  I walked toward my car. I wondered how long Sweet would keep them there and how long the whores could live with just water.

  I got back from the city. I stopped downtown at Rachel’s suite. I stayed for the night. I outlined the move. The next morning I was looking out the window down on the street. There was a stooped white-haired joker dumping barrels of hotel garbage into a huge truck. It was Steve. I’d know him in hell!

  A hot-flash shot through me. I don’t know what happened after that. Rachel told me I snatched my thirty-two from my coat pocket in the closet. I ran to the service elevator in my pajamas. She followed me
all the way to the street. I didn’t say a word. The truck had pulled away when we reached the sidewalk.

  She got me back upstairs. It had been a sucker play for a fugitive. Lucky for me no rollers showed on the scene. I dressed and told Rachel I’d be back later and I wanted the rest of the stable in her joint.

  I stopped at a leather-goods shop and bought a small valise. It was about the size that a doctor carries. I stopped at several banks and cracked some of my big bills into enough singles to fill the bag. I went to Mama’s to prepare the flash. I filled it almost to the brim with singles. I put the remaining big bills on top. I was getting ready to ship my stable. With my plan I could ship them without a strong fix. Even new whores think twice before leaving a rich pimp.

  That afternoon they were all in Rachel’s plush suite. She was the boss bitch. They had twenty-five dollar a day, neat rooms on the same floor. I walked in. They were smoking gangster and eager for my speech.

  They were anxious to get back on the track. I had loosened the catch on the bag. I casually hurled it onto the table before them. A bale of hundred-dollar bills jumped from the bag. Reefer enhances what you see. I saw on those whores’ faces that they were seeing every dollar of the mountain of greenbacks they had given me for the years I had been their man.

  Confidence flooded their eyes. I finished my briefing and my instructions. I had built my shining castles in the air. Brother, I could have sent those whores to Siberia, in bikinis, in the wintertime. Keeping her wife-in-laws and my scratch straight up there in Toledo was the first acid test for Rachel as a bottom woman.

  I stayed around Mama’s for a week. She was bugging me to embrace the Holy Ghost and the Fire. She begged me to square up and repent my sins. No, it was a little late for that. I moved onto Ohio again.

  Cleveland was only a short hop to Toledo. I set up a mad apartment in the larger city. Cleveland was jumping. I was ready for the best pimping of my career. Kim ran off with a wealthy white trick but I didn’t miss her. Both towns were crawling with young fine whores. The name of the game was still “cop and blow.”