I turned my head and looked into the rear seat of the prowl car. Leroy was staring at Chris. His eyes shifted to me. He leaped toward the front seat. The roller backhanded him. I saw Leroy’s head dip out of sight as I pulled away.
I made from that frantic leap of his that he remembered me. The LaSalle moved quickly away from the West Side. Chris was crying. I stayed silent until I hit the fringe of the South Side.
Then I said, “All right, Chris, I got you away from the heat. Tell me where you live and I’ll take you home. Don’t cry. You can bail him out when they book him.”
She sobbed, “All right, you want to take me home? Turn around and take me to Leroy’s jalopy. It’s parked behind the bar where he blew his silly top.
“We got in town broke this afternoon. He didn’t get the settlement. Maybe he’ll never get it. I’m so disgusted. He was to get paid nightly for the gig. He does a blues singing bit now.”
I said, “Bitch, you look like a bum. You conned me you’d keep in touch. You were gonna be my whore, remember? I shoulda left you back there to go to jail with your sucker-man.”
I realized I had a solid chance to cop her now. All I had to do was stay strong and bluff her.
Leroy was a cinch to get a bit. He couldn’t make bail. Chris had no out but me. She sure looked like my third whore.
I coasted into the curb. I left the engine running. We were parked in front of a fleabag hotel. I had maybe a twenty-five-hundred-slat roll in my pocket I flashed for her. I peeled off a saw buck. I held it toward her. She ignored it.
She said, “Blood, it wasn’t that I didn’t think about you. I wanted to call you. I wanted to keep my word. Leroy never let me out of his sight. He would even follow me to the toilet. You don’t know how much I hate him. I hope he gets life. Don’t cut me loose, Blood. I’ll keep my promises. I’m free now. I’m yours, baby. Tell me to jump in the river. I’ll do it.”
I said, “No Chris, I’m afraid of you. I think Leroy has made a tramp jive-bitch outta you. I’m pimping too good to bring a headache into the stable. I’ll always be your friend, Chris. My ticker is bleeding for you, baby. I gotta think of number one.
“My whores are humping sixteen hours a day in the street. They love it. I don’t figure you got the guts and heart for the street track.
“Chris, for the rest of my life I’ll be sad when I think of you. I’ll have a lump in my throat when I think of what might have been. Take this saw buck, baby, and the best of luck always. Goodbye, Chris. Please split before I get weak and let you be my whore.”
I reached across her and opened the car door. My skull was hitting on all hundred-and-seventy-five cylinders. I was cinching her.
I remembered her name, Christine, on those Terre Haute money orders I’d been sending myself. She was the runt’s ghost gadfly come to life.
She pulled the door shut. She hurled herself against me. She held on to me and wailed like maybe I was her dead mama on the way back to the grave after a brief visit.
She blubbered, “Blood, please don’t cut me loose. I’m not a lazy bitch. Give me a chance. I want to amount to something. Please take me with you. I won’t let you down. I can hold my own against any bitch.”
I pulled out. I was headed home. I was a fox with a rare, pretty hen in my jib. I knew the runt and Ophelia were in the street. In the trunk I had six dresses I’d copped for Ophelia. I was sure they’d fit Chris.
I said, “Bitch, I’m gonna gamble on you. I’m taking you to your new pad. You gotta understand one thing. You can’t bring in scratch under a bill a night. You do, I may light my cigarettes with it or use it to wipe my ass.
“You’re gonna meet and work in the street tonight with your sisters. I’m gonna give you a rundown. Flap your horns and remember it. It will bring you into the family with some stardust on your tail.
“Chris, you’re lucky. A whore of mine croaked in Terre Haute just a week ago. Her heart stopped while she was turning a trick. She was a martyr. Her name was Christine. I went up there and blew a coupla grand on her funeral.
“I guess I felt guilty about blowing all that scratch on a broad I’d had for only a coupla months or so. I didn’t tell the stable about her death. Maybe I went all out on her funeral because she had your name.
“I just don’t know. Anyway, the stable never met her. They sure have a lot of respect for that long scratch she sent me every week from the whorehouse.
“Chris, you’re that great humping bitch reborn. A week before she croaked she begged me to turn her loose here in the street. I turned her down because I knew she had a screwy ticker.
“So, Chris, I know you’ll prove to the stable you are just as great in the street as you were in the house in Terre Haute. I’m taking you home to get pretty for the trick people, baby-bitch.”
13. THE ICEBERG
When she saw the pad she flipped. A pink silk dress from the trunk fitted her perfectly. After a bath and a shampoo she was again the gorgeous Chris I’d met at the Haven.
I gave her two “go” pills and took her to the street for the cut into Phyllis and Ophelia. It was midnight when I curbed in the block where they were working. They were walking together across the street. They looked over at the LaSalle.
I blinked my headlights. They crossed the street and came toward me. The runt stuck her head through the window on Chris’s side. Ophelia was stooping down, pinning Chris.
I said, “Both of you get in.”
They got into the back seat. In the rear-view mirror I saw them look at each other, then at the back of Chris’ head.
I said, “Phyllis, Ophelia, meet Christine. She’s gonna work the street with you. She’s tired of giving up fifty percent of her scratch.
“She wants Daddy to have all she makes. I pulled her outta the whorehouse. What the hell, the whole family should be together anyway.
“Phyllis, I’ve told Christine a hundred times how great you are in the street. She’s hip you know all the rollers and all the angles. I want you to take her under your wing out here for a week or so. I know there ain’t a bitch out here that could pull her coat like you can. Now get outta the car and starve these other joker’s whores to death.”
I watched them walk away chattering and laughing. It was like they were real sisters. I looked at my diamond-studded Longines. It was ten-after-twelve. How about it? I was twenty years old. I was living in a six-bill a month pad. I had three young fine mud kickers. I was a pimp at last.
I tilted down the rear-view mirror. I powdered my face. I sat there gazing at myself. Finally I pulled off. I was going to Sweet’s to report my progress. I didn’t get much of a chance to rap to him.
Two rollers from Sweet’s precinct were drinking and horsing around with two of Sweet’s yellow whores. Sweet told them I was his son.
It tickled them witless when Sweet told them what Satan and his Demon had done to me. They told me not to worry. They would remember me and would wire the other precinct rollers not to roust me.
The rollers finally got crocked. The whores took them around the Chinese screen into bedrooms.
Then I said, “Sweet, I copped a beautiful yellow bitch tonight. I got her humping on the track with my girls. Sweet, the bitch is crazy about me. I know I’ll hold her for years.”
He said, “Slim, a pretty Nigger bitch and a white whore are just alike. They both will get in a stable to wreck it. They’ll leave the pimp on his ass with no whore. You gotta make ’em hump hard and fast. Stick ’em for long scratch quick. Slim, pimping ain’t no game of love. 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.
“Slim, I hope you ain’t sexed that pretty bitch yet. Believe me, Slim, a pimp is really a whore who’s reversed the game on whores. Slim, be as sweet as the scratch. Don’t be no sweeter. Always stick a whore for a bundle
