your rocks off I’m gonna give you the rundown on that stem you’re working tonight. Get on your back. Stretch your legs out and put your arms above your head. That’s right you sweet freak bitch.”
6. DRILLING FOR OIL
That thunderbolt El train had trembled the room a half dozen times. Dawn had broken through a smeary sky. Fingers of pale gray light poked through the frayed window shades.
She was lying in my arms. I saw flakes of brown blood beneath her chin. Her heart against my side was sprinting like a wildcat’s facing the hounds. I could hear the clip-clop of an ice-huckster’s horse. The creaking wagon wheels were in rhythm to his pitch.
He sang, “Ice Man! Ice! A hundred for twenty, fifty for a dime. Keep your watermelon cold and your pork chops fine, ’vite Old Joe up to chitlins just any old time. Ice Man! Ice!”
I thought, “Even the ice man is starving down here. I gotta get down up-there on that stem. Off Preston’s run-down, that stem must be a sonuvabitch. I gotta down her there. It’s where the scratch is.”
“When I rundown to her I have to be cool and confident. I can’t falter and tip her I’m still going to school. I gotta really remember the get down rundown I hustled from those pimps in the joint.”
I said, “Phyllis, Daddy’s been out there casing those streets. It’s like walking in a river of tricky crap. If I had any other bitch but you I would say she couldn’t go out there and get me some scratch. Baby, I got a lot of confidence in you.
“I know no stud or con bitch can sell you a pig in a poke. In fact I would stand in the Halls of Congress and swear that you would be too busy getting scratch to even listen to bullshit. Am I right so far about you, or have I overrated you?”
She said, “Daddy, I’m a big girl now. No nickel-slick bastard can steal me from you. I ‘you-know-what’ you, and always will. Honey, I just want to be your little dog and make you a million dollars.
“When we get rich maybe you won’t mind if Gay, my daughter, lives with us. She’s only two. She’s so cute and friendly. You’d be crazy about her. My aunt in Saint Louis takes care of her.”
I thought, “I was sure a sap making like a pimp. Here I’d had her a week and I was flat-footed. I hadn’t heard about a crumb crusher. Worse, I hadn’t given her a deep quiz. I really knew nothing about her. It had been the one rundown from the joint I’d goofed. I had been satisfied with the shallow rundown from that sissy barkeep.”
The pimp’s in the joint had said, “There ain’t nothing more important than what makes a new bitch tick and why. You gotta scrape her brain. Find out whether the first joker who layed her was her father or who. Make her tell you her life story.
“If she can remember back in her mammy’s ass, good! Fit all the pieces together. Maybe then you’ll know if she’s a two-day package or a two-year package. Don’t try to play ’em in the dark. Quiz ’em into a crack up if you have to. Wake ’em up from a dead sleep. Check the answers you got with what you get.”
I said, “Girl, your rap is right on the scratch. It’s you and me against the world. I’m gonna make a star out of you. We are going to get rich as cream. You gotta hump your ass off in those streets, Baby. As soon as we get a big bundle you go cop the kid. Now forget about her until we get in shape. I don’t want anything in your skull but those tricks out there.
“Now listen carefully. I want you to work nothing but the street. Stay out of the bars. Don’t drink, smoke gangster, or use anything while you’re working. Your skull has got to be sharp and clear out there. Otherwise you could lose your life, and almost as bad, my scratch.
“Believe me, I am not yeasting it. I want you to memorize everything that happens while you’re working. I want a rundown every night after you knock off. Maybe some stuff player will set you up like tonight and take you off tomorrow night.
“Keep those crack-wise Niggers out of your face. If I see you rapping to a jasper broad I’m gonna put my foot in your ass. Play for cruising white tricks. Spade tricks are trouble. They all want to make a home.
“You’re black and beautiful. They can’t resist you. They are the freaks and they got the scratch. Ask them for a hundred and take ten. You can go down on a price. You can’t go up. Don’t go to nobody’s pad. For a double saw or over take ’em to the Martin down the street from where we are gonna move. Flip out of wheels as much as possible. Flip ’em fast and crack more scratch for over time.
“Your name is Mary Jones. I got enough B.R. to raise you fast. You’re not a thief. I don’t need a bondsman or a lip now. You don’t have a sheet. You see a young girl out there, square or whore, pull her. Be friendly to her. Build me up. You know, tell her how smart and sweet I am. Don’t let no bitch pull you. This family needs some whores. Don’t bring no junkie bitch to me. Now is there anything you don’t understand?”
She said, “No Daddy, I dig everything. You can wire me if something turns up I don’t dig. Daddy, I am so proud of you. You are so clever and strong. I feel so safe being your girl. I’m gonna be a star for you.”
I had told her all I knew. It was just pimp garbage. What the ninety percent know to tell a whore. What she really needed to protect herself in those terrible streets were daily rundowns for as long as she was my woman. How could I rundown the thousand crosses she’d face?
All I knew I’d gotten from the pimps in the joint. They were only fair pimps from small towns. None of them had the guts or savvy for this rapid track. The runt and me were a pure case of the blind leading the blind. I was bone tired. I had to be fresh for our debut.
I said, “Sugar, let’s cop some doss. We got a hectic night coming up. Oh! I forgot, some louse put the heist on your slum. Don’t worry, with what you got to offer, I’ll have enough scratch soon to score for the real thing. This is our last day in this flophouse. I copped us a jazzy little pad uptown. Sleep tight baby puppy.”
She said, “All right, Daddy. I’m going to sleep. I wonder how Gay is doing?”
When I woke up I thought the runt had scalded me with hot grease. I was in a flaming sweat. My ticker was smashing inside my chest like a wrecker’s demolition ball. That cunning joker playing God had conned me again. I had whipped my poor mama again. The runt’s frightened big eyes almost touched mine. That puckered gash looked like she had grown an extra cat.
She was saying, “Daddy, Daddy, you all right? It’s your baby, Phyllis. Damn, you had a bitch-kitty nightmare. Was the heat chasing you or something?”
I said, “No Baby, as a matter of fact, you were in trouble. You had done a stupid thing in the street. You let a Nigger pimp con you into his Hog. It turned out he was a crazy gorilla. He was trying to cut your throat. I saved you before he croaked you. Dreams often carry warnings. So Bitch, stay out of those pimp’s Hogs.”
She said, “Daddy, I’m looking for white tricks in Hogs. That’s where the long scratch is. Ain’t no Nigger pimp going to put my ass in a sling. I’m too slick for that okee doke. You not going to get salty with me about a dream I hope. Daddy, I ain’t going to bullshit out there.”
It was five-twenty. By seven o’clock we had moved to the Blue Haven. The runt went for the pad. First thing, she lifted the phone off the hook to see if it worked.
I said, “Tell your tricks to call you here.”
She laid the bearskin and freaked the joint off with her lights and other crap. Except for the fake stars, it was a fair mock-up of her pad where I had copped her. She went to the street to get down at eight.
I had told her to work just the block where we padded for a week or so. I went to the front window. Ten minutes after she got down she broke luck. A white trick in a thirty-seven Buick picked her up. I timed her. She had racehorse speed. She was back on the track in nine and a half minutes.
A black pretty broad could sure scratch a white man’s itch fast. I watched her scratch three. I showered and got as pretty as I could. I made an urgent skull note to cop a hot vine connection. I also needed a gangster and cocaine contact. I got the elevator. I left the key at the desk. I had told the runt to check her scratch past forty slats into the toe of my tan Stetsons.
I got into the Ford. I waved to the runt on my way to the Roost. It sure was a thrill to have a young fine bitch humping for me.
I parked across the street from the Roost. I dabbed a sponge into the box of Sun Glow face powder in the glove compartment. I made my face up into an even, glowing tan. I got out and crossed the street toward the
