by Iceberg Slim
She said, “No, not my father, my husband. He’s no bum. He had on his work clothes. People are not good to eat. It’s not nice to eat people. Thanks for the tip. Come back soon.”
The buyer hurled his beak toward the ceiling and laughed. Flakes of grayish white dust clung to the hairs in his nostrils. He had snorted and loaded his skull with H.
Her mouth was still smiling. Her big black eyes had slitted in Latin fury. She turned away toward the register. She punched it. She came back. She stood staring at the buyer. She had a fin and three slats in her hand. She was crushing them into a missile. In the mirror I saw the seller shaking his head as he walked out the door.
The buyer was looking at her like the eight slats had made her his indentured slave. The four-carat stone on his left hand flashed like neon as he caressed his fly.
He said, “If that tramp was your man I’m stealing you. Shit, I should kidnap you right now. You ain’t got no business juggling suds. Bitch, you got a mint between your big hairy legs. I’m gonna show you how to make a grand a week. I ain’t never wanted nothing and didn’t get it. Bitch, I’m gonna get you. I’ll be back at four to pick you up.”
A massive black bulk with a face like a rabid bulldog had come on the scene. It had to be the joint bouncer. He was standing several feet behind the buyer, grinning like a starved croc. He was hunching his shoulders. The Mexican broad was shaking. She fired the missile. It struck the buyer on the tip of his beak. He threw his hands across his face.
She shouted, “You stupid ugly filth. You insane Nigger bastard. Do you think I’d let you touch me? I wouldn’t shit in your mouth to save your slimy life. If you ever look at me again I’ll cut your heart out!”
The bouncer streaked toward the buyer like a howitzer shell. His feet clickety-clacked like the wheels of an express train against the parquet floor. He vised the buyer’s rear end through the tail split in his topcoat.
He seized the scrawny neck with his other giant paw. The buyer was almost airborne. The tips of his shoes did a tap dance against the floor on his way to the door. The joint was silent. The buyer swiveled his head back toward the angry tamale.
Just before he skidded toward the sidewalk he screamed, “You square-ass greasy chili-gut bitch. I’m gonna triple-cross you.”
The joint got back on jump time. The combo started to riff “Mood Indigo.”
I thought about the runt. The Mexican broad had her hands on her hips. She was looking at me. She wanted me to say the buyer was a nogood bastard. She didn’t know I was up as a pledge in his club.
I put a deuce on the log and walked out. It was two-thirty in the A.M. I walked to the corner. Preston had been right. Poison’s black whore was standing in front of the liquor store. She hit on me. That terrible beating she had taken sure hadn’t cured her bad habit.
She said, “Hi Slim, give me ten and sock it in. I won’t put the rush on you handsome. Cop a jug and let’s go freak off.”
I jerked my head away from the sight of her like she was Medusa. I put my dogs in high gear and crossed the street. I had a quick vision of Poison’s thirteens giving me a butt ache.
I got into the Ford and made a U-turn. I was going to the runt and some doss. I caught Preston in my headlights on the turn. He was still out there trying to make the Greek richer. He waved. I honked.
The mercury had fallen. The icy streets were like a ski run.
Less than a mile from the Roost, I saw a clean front of a hotel. The blue neon sparkled out “Blue Haven Hotel.” I went into the blue-and-red lobby. A broad was on the desk. She had a razor slash on her tan cheek. She had the build and rapper of a heavyweight wrestler.
She said, “You want something permanent or just for the night?”
I said, “How much are the permanent pads? I want the best you got. Whatever it is, it’s got to be on the front with a view.”
She said, “The best single rooms are thirty-two-fifty a week. The best three-room apartments are a hundred a week.”
She got up and went to a red board behind her. She took several keys off and gave them to me.
The elevator operator was an old stud reading a wild Maggie and Jiggs comic book. He was whistling “When the Saints go Marching In.” His peepers were glued to it like maybe he had found the map to the “Lost Dutchman.” I got off on the third floor.
I looked at two single rooms. The carpets in them were stained and the furniture was battered. This was an underworld hotel all right. I could smell the odor of gangster grass in the hallways.
I took the stairs to the fourth floor. I looked into two apartments. I went for the second one. It was freshly decorated in gold and black paint. The furniture was blond and new.
It was spotless and flashy. The gold-draped front window gave a wide view of the stem. The pad was perfect for now. It would do until I hit the big time with a big stable.
I went to the elevator and pressed the down button. The floor indicator dial was stuck between floor number two and three.
I took the stairs down. I figured the antics of Maggie and Jiggs had put a lot of pressure on the old joker. Some whore in the hotel was probably down there with the old coot. They were maybe using the comic book as a guide.
I went to the desk. I registered and paid a week’s rent in advance. I put the key in my pocket and went to the Ford. I drove toward the runt. I saw a black whore leading a white man into the front door of the Martin Hotel, a hundred yards from the Haven. The runt could take her good tricks there.
It was four A.M. when I got there. I parked and went up the hotel stairs. An elevated train shook the stairway as it passed. Its shadow leaped through the second floor window and plunged like a rattling, speeding ghost across the wall.
I turned left to number twenty. I twisted my key in the lock and stepped inside. The runt was wide-eyed. She leaped from the bed. She had on red baby-doll pajamas. She squeezed herself hard against me. She acted like I had been gone a year.
She said, “Oh Daddy, I am so glad you’re back. I was worried like hell. Where have you been? Do you love me as much as I love you? Did you miss me? I’d die if anything ever happens to you.”
A heart-aching montage tornadoed through my skull. I gritted my teeth. I felt my fingernails ice-picking into my palms. The runt’s love con had resurrected sad old scenes.
I saw poor black Henry. He was on his knees blubbering his love for Mama. I saw his pitiful eyes begging Mama not to break his heart. I saw Mama kicking herself free of his clutching arms. I saw that terrible look of scorn and triumph on Mama’s face. I thought about the worms that had devoured his flesh, in his lonely grave.
I shuddered and punched the runt with all my might against the left temple. On impact, needles of pain threaded to my elbow. She moaned and shot backward onto the bed. She bounced like she was on a trampoline. There was a crunching, pulpy thud on the second bounce. She’d crashed face first on the steel edge at the foot of the bed.
She just lay there breathing hard. I moved to the foot of the bed. I grabbed a fist full of hair. I turned her face toward me. Her eyes were closed and there was a bloody gash just above her right eyebrow.
I went to the face bowl and drew a pitcher of cold water. I doused her full in the face. Her eyes flickered open. She just lay looking up at me. A scarlet trickle ran down her cheek across her chin.
She stroked the side of her face. She saw the blood. Her eyes fullmooned. Her mouth was open. I stood looking down at her. The guts in my scrotum were twisting. I could feel hot currents firing up that generator at the base of my weapon.
Then she said, “Why Daddy? What did I say to get my ass whipped? Are you high or what?”
I said, “Bitch, if I have you a hundred years don’t ever ask me where I been. Don’t ever try to play that bullshit love con on me. We’re not squares. I’m a pimp and you’re a whore. Now get up and keep a cold towel on that eyebrow.”
She got up and stood at the washbowl washing the blood off. Her big eyes were staring at me th
rough the mirror. I didn’t know she had started to keep a revenge score in her skull. Seven years later she would tally up and happily cross me into prison.
She sat on the side of the bed pressing a towel against the wound. I got in the sack in the raw. In fifteen minutes the leak had stopped. It was now only a small puckered slash.
She crawled in beside me. She nibbled at my ear. That lizard did cross-country laps and then took the boss trek around the world. I lay there silently. I was trying to figure the real reason why I had slugged her. I couldn’t find the answer. My thoughts were ham strung by the razor-edge of conscience.
She whispered, “Daddy, do you feel like tying me down? Please. I want you to.”
I said, “Bitch, you got a one track mind. I’m gonna tie you down like a sow in a slaughter house. After you get 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 t
o 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 Roost.
It was ten-thirty. The sky was a fresh, bright bitch. This first April night had gone sucker and gifted her with a shimmering bracelet of diamond stars. The fat moon lurked like an evil yellow eye staring down at the pimps, hustlers, and whores hawk-eyeing for a mark, a cop.
I felt the raw tenderness of first April winds lashing at the hem of my white alligator. I felt the birth stirrings of that poisonous pimp’s rapture. I felt powerful and beautiful.
I thought, “I was still black in the white man’s world. My hope to be important and admired could be realized even behind this black stockade. It was simple, just pimp my ass off and get a ton of scratch. Everybody in both worlds kissed your ass black and blue if you had flash and front.”
