J.T.’s advice seemed vague and a bit too philosophical. Ms. Bailey’s warning-that I would get beat up if I betrayed confidences- made more sense. But maybe J.T. was saying the same thing, in his own way.
I decided to focus my study of the underground economy on the three high-rise buildings that formed the core of J.T.’s territory. I already knew quite a bit-that squatters fixed cars in the alleys, people sold meals out of their homes, and prostitutes took clients to vacant apartments-but I had never asked people how much money they made, what kind of expenses they incurred, and so on.
J.T. was far more enthusiastic about my project than I’d imagined he would be, although I couldn’t figure out why.
“I have a great idea,” he told me one day. “I think you should talk to all the pimps. Then you can go to all the whores. Then I’ll let you talk to all the people stealing cars. Oh, yeah! And you also have folks selling stolen stuff. I mean, there’s a whole bunch of people you can talk to about selling shoes or shirts! And I’ll make sure they cooperate with you. Don’t worry, they won’t say no.”
“Well, we don’t want to force anyone to talk to me,” I said, even though I was excited about meeting all these people. “I can’t make anyone talk to me.”
“I know,” J.T. said, breaking into a smile. “But I can.”
I laughed. “No, you can’t do that. That’s what I’m saying. That wouldn’t be good for my research.”
“Fine, fine,” he said. “I’ll do it, but I won’t tell you.”
J.T. arranged for me to start interviewing the pimps. He explained that he taxed all the pimps working in or around his buildings: some paid a flat fee, others paid a percentage of their take, and all paid in kind by providing women to J.T.’s members at no cost. The pimps had to pay extra, of course, if they used a vacant apartment as a brothel; they even paid a fee to use the stairwells or a parking lot.
As I began interviewing the pimps, I also befriended some of the freelance prostitutes like Clarisse who lived and worked in the building. “Oh, my ladies will love the attention,” Clarisse said when I asked for help in talking to these women. Within two weeks I had interviewed more than twenty of them.
Between these conversations and my interviews with the pimps, some distinctions began to emerge. The prostitutes who were managed by pimps (these women were known as “affiliates”) had some clear advantages over the “independents” who worked for themselves.The typical affiliate was beaten up far less frequently-about once a year, as against roughly four times a year for the independents. The affiliates also earned about twenty dollars per week more than the independents, even though their pimps took a 33 percent cut. (Twenty dollars wasn’t a small sum, considering that the average Robert Taylor prostitute earned only about one hundred dollars per week.) And I never heard of an affiliate being killed in the line of work, whereas in one recent two-year stretch three independents were killed.
But the two types of prostitutes had much in common. Both groups had high rates of heroin and crack use, and they were bound to the projects, where the demand for sex came mostly from low-income customers. At the truck stops on the other side of the Dan Ryan Expressway-barely a mile away from Robert Taylor but a different ecosystem entirely-a different set of pimps catered to a clientele of white truckers who paid more than the typical black customer in a housing project. Around Robert Taylor a prostitute usually earned ten to twenty dollars for oral sex, sometimes as little as twenty-five dollars for intercourse, and at least fifty dollars for anal sex. But if she was in need of drugs, she would drop her price significantly or accept a few bags of drugs in lieu of any cash.
Once my prostitute research was under way, I asked Ms. Bailey if she would help me meet female hustlers who sold something other than sex. I had casual knowledge of any number of off-the-books businesses: women who sold food out of their apartments or catered parties; women who made clothing, offered marital counseling or baby-sitting; women who read horoscopes, styled hair, prepared taxes, drove gypsy cabs, and sold anything from candy to used appliances to stolen goods. But since most of these activities were conducted out of public view, I needed Ms. Bailey to open some doors.
She was cautious. For the first week, she selectively introduced me to a few women but refused to let me meet others. I’d suggest a name, and she’d mull it over. “Well,” she’d say, “let me think about whether I want you to meet with her.” Or, just as often, “No, she’s not good. But I got someone else for you.” Once, after Ms. Bailey introduced me to a psychic, I asked if many other psychics worked in the building. “Maybe, maybe,” she said, then changed the subject and left the room.
I eventually figured out why she was reluctant to let me explore the underground economy. As it turned out, tenant leaders like Ms. Bailey always got their cut from such activities. If you sold food out of your kitchen or took in other people’s children to baby-sit, you’d better give Ms. Bailey a few dollars, or you might find a CHA manager knocking on your door. If you occasionally cut hair in your apartment, it was probably a good idea to give Ms. Bailey a free styling once in a while. In these parts Ms. Bailey was like the local IRS-and probably a whole lot more successful at collecting her due.
So the people she let me talk to were the ones she probably trusted most not to speak out of line. But I didn’t have much choice: Without Ms. Bailey’s say-so, no one was going to speak with me about any illegal activities.
Truth be told, nearly everyone Ms. Bailey introduced me to had a fascinating story to tell. One of the most fascinating women I met was Cordella Levy, a close friend of Ms. Bailey. She was sixty-three years old and had lived in public housing her entire life, the past thirty years in Robert Taylor. (She had a Jewish surname, she said, because her grandmother had married a Jewish man; someone else in her family, however, told me that they were descended from black Hebrew Israelites.) Cordella had raised seven children, all but one of whom had moved out of Robert Taylor. Although she used a walkingcrutch to get around, Cordella had the fight of a bulldog inside her.
She now ran a small candy store inside her apartment. All day long she sat on a stool by the door and waited for children to stop by. Her living room was barren except for the candy: boxes and boxes of lollipops, gum, and candy bars stacked invitingly on a few tables. If you peeked around the corner, you could see into the back bedroom, where Cordella had a TV, couches, and so on. But she liked to keep her candy room sparse, she told me, because if customers saw her furniture, they might decide to come back and rob her.
“You know,” she told me, “I didn’t always sell candy.”
“You mean you didn’t go to school for this?” I joked.
“Sweetheart, I never made it past the fourth grade. Black folks weren’t really allowed to go to school in the South. What I meant was that I used to be somebody different. Ms. Bailey didn’t tell you?” I shook my head. “She told me you wanted to know how I used to hustle.”
“I’d love to hear,” I said. Cordella seemed itching to tell her story.
“Sweetheart, I’ve made money around here every which way you can. You know, I started out working for Ms. Bailey’s mother, Ella Bailey. Ella was a madam, used to have parties in the building. Oh, Lord! She could throw a party!”
“Ms. Bailey’s mother was a madam?” I laughed. “That explains a lot!”
“Yes, sir, and when she passed, I took over from her. Three apartments on the fourteenth floor. Cordella’s Place, they used to call it. Come in for a drink, play some cards, make a friend, have a nice time.”
“Make a friend? Is that what they used to call it?”
“Ain’t nothing wrong with friendship. And then I started making clothes, and then I sold some food, drove people around for a while to the store. My mother taught me how to sew wedding dresses, so I was doing a lot of-”
“Wait!” I said. “Slow down, please. Let’s get back to helping people make friends. I’m curious why you stopped running the parties. What happened? I ask because all the people doing that today are men: J.T. and the pimps. I haven’t heard about any women.”
“That’s because they took over. The men ruined everything for us. The first one was J.T.’s mama’s cousin, Miss Mae’s cousin. He just decided to start harassing all the women who were making money. I think it was around 1981. He would beat us up if we didn’t pay him money to work out of the building. I had to pay him a few dollars each week to manage my women and throw my parties. He nearly killed my friend because she wouldn’t give him money for doing hairstyling in her apartment. He was real awful. On heroin, used to carry around a big gun, like he was in the movies. And he was a very violent man.”
“So what happened, he took over your parties?”
“Well, all of a sudden, he told me I had to give him fifty percent of what I was making, and he’d protect me-
