Pimp (14 page)

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 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.”

I was six storefronts away from the Roost. He stood in the center of the sidewalk. I looked down at him. He was a foot shorter than the runt. He looked like a black baby who had taken ugly pills. His head
was the size of a giant pumpkin. His voice was a squeal like a clappy joker makes when the croaker rams a sound down his dingus.

He squealed, “Shine ’em up, Hot Shot. If I had your ‘hand’ I’d throw mine away. Get on bigtime. Shines ain’t but a dime. Shine ’em up.”

I looked down at my Stomps. They could stand a gloss all right. I followed the pointing, gnarled finger to the dwarf’s open-air stand. It sat at the mouth of a gangway between two buildings. The red fringes of its tattered canvas top rippled in the breeze.

I climbed into the chair. The dwarf was slapping polish on my Stetsons. A thin stud with at least a half a grand in threads on his back took the other chair. He was wearing silver nail polish. He was reeking with perfume.

A gleaming black custom Duesenberg eased into the curb in front of me. The top was down. My peepers did a triple take.

A huge stud was sitting in the back seat. He had an ocelot in his lap dozing against his chest. The cat was wearing a stone-studded collar. A gold chain was strung to it.

He was sitting between two spectacular high-yellow whores. His diamonds were blazing under the streetlight. Three gorgeous white whores were in the front seat. He looked exactly like Boris Karloff in black-face.

He was rapping something. All five of those whores were turned toward him. They were listening and paying attention like he was God giving them a pass to Heaven. He could have been running down a safe place to hide because the world was coming to an end.

I said, “Who is that?”

The dwarf said, “You gotta be from outta town. That Sweet Jones. He’s the greatest Nigger pimp in the world.”

The thin joker said, “That spotted cat, Miss Peaches, is the only bitch he cares lives or croaks. Shit, them whores you pinning ain’t but half the stable. If they got Nigger pimps in outer space, he’s the best of them, too. He’s gonna take them whores into the Roost and pop
some. He’s lugging twenty G’s in his raise. Ain’t no heist man crazy enough to stick him up though. He croaks Niggers for his recreation.”

I couldn’t believe what I saw. This was only nineteen-thirty-eight. Those Duesenbergs cost a fortune. He must have been the only black pimp in the country who owned one. My peepers jacked off just watching him and those high-powered whores. It was as exciting as maybe Christ making his encore.

The dwarf had shined my Stomps. I gave him a buck. I sat there and watched Sweet Jones and those whores get out of the Duesenberg and walk toward the Roost. The black-spotted cat slinked beside him.

I thought, “Tonight I got to cut into him. I got to be careful so I don’t blow him. The cut in has to be in the Roost. I’ll go in and cook up something in there.”

I got off the stand. I passed Poison’s problem whore. She was sitting beside a joker in a red Hog. She had a bottle of gin in her jib turned straight up. As I neared the Roost I saw old Preston trying to shoo two marks into the Greek’s joint. Just as I turned into the Roost he bucked his eyes and jerked his thumb at me. He was tipping me Sweet was in the Roost. I nodded my head and went in.

It was an off night for the combo. The jukebox was grinding out “Pennies From Heaven.” The joint hadn’t crowded yet. There were maybe a half dozen couples in the booths. Sweet Jones and his whores were the only people at the log. They were in the center. The cat was licking her paws beneath Sweet’s stool. I sat at the log near the front door facing him and the stable. The pretty Mexican broad was standing in front of him.

Sweet was buying the house a drink. She served his party. She glanced at me. She remembered my drink. She brought me a Planter’s Punch on Sweet. The floor waitress loaded a tray from the log and served the couples in the booths all on Sweet.

I sat there studying Sweet. He had to be six feet six. His face was like a black steel mask. Not a flicker of emotion played over it. He
kept smashing the heels of his brute-sized hands together like he was crushing an invisible throat.

Even at a distance it made me edgy. I guess it kept his whores on the brink of peeing on themselves. If he had smiled maybe they would have dropped dead from shock. He sure proved pimping wasn’t a charm contest.

Those whores lit his cigarette. They took turns feeding him sips of his Coke. They fought to ram their noses up his ass.

I froze; one of the white broads was whispering in his ear. Those unearthly gray eyes of his in the ebony sockets were staring at me. I could hear the thud of those meat sledges.

I thought, “Christ Almighty! Mama darling, I hope my double hasn’t put the muscle on this broad for some snatch or scratch. Please don’t let this broad bum-finger me!”

He slid his terrible pearl-gray peepers off me. I saw him pound the bottom of his glass against the log. The Mexican broad expressed to him. He was rapping to her. She was nodding her head and looking down the log at me.

My Stetsons on the stool rung were slamming together like the heels of a Flamenco Dancer. The jukebox was sobbing Lady Day’s beef about her mean but sweet man. I wondered if I’d see the runt again, and if not, how soon she’d get another ass kicker.

The couples in the booths were bug-eying the arena. It was maybe like the Circus Maximus. The doomed Christian, me, pitted against the king of beasts, him, plus the ocelot.

The Mexican broad came slowly toward me. Her face was tight and serious as she stood before me. She had pity in her peepers. She hated capital punishment.

She said, “Mr. Jones wants you to come to him pronto.”

She turned and walked away. I staggered to my feet. I started hoofing that thousand miles to Mr. Jones. On the way I dusted off the hundred-and-seventy-five I. Q. in my skull.

I got to him. The cat snarled under the stool. It pasted its yellow
eyes on me. I jerked my eyes from the cat and kept them riveted to the floor. I was afraid to look into Sweet’s glowing peepers up close. I knew I’d crap in my pants.

He whirled around on his stool, his back to the log. I glued my peepers to the tapping tips of his needle-toed patent leather stomps. I flinched at each crash of his huge hooks.

He whispered, “Nigger, you know who I am? Look at me when I’m spieling to you.”

That teletype in my skull hammered out the escape hatch.

It read, “For this maniac you gotta be just like a Mississippi Nigger. You gotta pretend he’s a white lynch-mob leader. You gotta con him, but be careful, don’t get cute. Keep your nose square in his ass. Jeff it out all the way.”

I said, “Sure I know who you are Mr. Jones. You’re the black God of the sporting world. Ain’t a Nigger alive, unless he’s stupid and deaf, that ain’t heard your fame and name ring. The reason I don’t look at you is because I remember what happened to that sucker in the Bible that snitched a peep.”

His whores broke out into gales of laughter. Miss Peaches wasn’t a lady. She broke wind and grinned. Those patent-leather toes stopped tapping. Could I be selling it?

He reached out and grabbed my chin. He held my head up and cupped it in his giant hook. I flexed my belly to take up the slack in my bowels. Those deadly gray slits almost slugged me into a dead faint. When he opened his Jib I saw spidery webs of spit for an instant bridge his fat lips.

He said, “Little Nigger, who are you and where you from? You kinda look like me. Maybe I layed your Mammy, huh?”

I neatly side-stepped his booby trap.

I said, “Mr. Jones, I’m nobody trying in your world to be somebody. I was born right here in your town. Could be my Mammy went for you. What bitch wouldn’t? If I was a bitch I’d give you some scratch to get some.”

He said, “Nigger, you like fine white pussy? This dog of mine wants you to lay her. I give my whores what they want. You going to lay her for a double saw?

My skull raced out the warning, “Fool! Watch your ass!”

I said, “Mr. Jones, I don’t want no kind of a pussy unless it hangs on my own whore. Mr. Jones, I’m a pimp, like you. I don’t want nothing but some pimp scratch. My principles won’t let me turn no reverse trick.

“Mr. Jones, I ain’t no party freak. I want to be great like you. I ain’t never going to amount to anything if I screw up the rules of the pimp game. You the greatest pimp on Earth. You got great pimping by the rules. Would you want a poor dumb pimp like me to chump out at the start?”

His freak white woman pouted at his side. She begged Nero to flip his thumbs down.

She said, “Mr. Jones, make this pretty punk freak off with your baby. You don’t let nobody say no to you. Since he’s dreaming he’s a pimp it will be wild kicks for me. Force him, Daddy, force him. Show him who’s boss. Sic Miss Peaches on him.”

He shoved her aside. The boa constrictor uncoiled from around my chest. I saw contempt paint over the skull and crossed bones in his peepers. I drew a deep breath.

He roared, “You little pissy, green-ass Nigger. You a pimp? You can’t spell pimp. You couldn’t make a pimple on a pimp’s ass. Nigger, I’ll blow your head off through that ceiling. Don’t let the word pimp come outta your jib in my presence. Now get outta my face, Pussy. I oughta stick my swipe in your jib.”

The cat slithered from under the stool. She crouched on her belly and stared up at me.

I wasn’t David. Good thing I wasn’t. I was sure mad at the kooky bastard. I grinned and fished a fin out. I tossed it on the log and dragged tail out the door to the street. I was glad I hadn’t stacked that sling-shot switch blade in my pocket against that thirty-eight magnum stuck beneath Goliath’s belt.

The door smacked Preston a hard shot in the forehead. He had been peeping through a slat in the door blind. He rubbed his head. He looked scared.

He said, “Kid, I told you he’s nuts. You keep it up, a ground hog will be your mailman. To play it safe you better give me your Mama’s address. I gotta know where to ship your corpse. Where you going now?”

I said, “Look Preston, I didn’t cut into him. He cut into me. Hell, I ain’t no head-shrinker. I couldn’t handle the maniac. I’m splitting to the Ford to think.”

He was clucking his jib when I walked away from him. I collapsed onto the Ford’s seat. I was stinking from the fear-sweat in the bar. My pants were soggy.

I saw the white broad that was burning to freak off with me. She was holding the Roost door open. Sweet filed out. His whores strutted out behind him. They walked behind him to the Duesenberg.

A tall brown-skin joker with a gleaming head of processed hair got out of a red Hog. He was the gutty stud I saw pouring that gin down Poison’s girl.

Sweet’s stable had gotten into the Duesenberg. The shiny-topped joker and Sweet were rapping on the sidewalk. They pounded each other on the back. They looked like boon buddies. Miss Peaches stood lashing her tail at Sweet’s side.