Mr. Blue: Memoirs of a Renegade (13 page)

It seemed like only a few minutes had gone by, but
when I looked at the window the sky was dark and the city's lights glowed.

The hotel's top floor was a whorehouse. Manes had an
arrangement with the night manager and with cab drivers and bartenders. Pimps
brought their whores there. One wanted a tiny piece of sponge, her period was
nearly over and the sponge absorbed the last traces of blood so she could work.
Next came a black pimp who wanted to know if Manes had any heroin. His old lady
was sick from withdrawal and couldn't work. Manes turned to Flip, who was at a
mirror trying on earrings. "You've got the connection," he said.

"You want
me
to go to Temple Street?"
She said it in a challenging tone; the message was obvious: Temple Street was
somewhere she should avoid. It was notorious at the time, a pool hall and
Traveler's Cafe on Temple Street were where drug dealers and thieves connected.
Once on an escape from Whittier, I had slept for a week in the abandoned hulk
of a '37 Cord parked on Beaudry Street which intersected Temple half a block
from the pool hall.

"I'll go with you,
baby," the black pimp said.

"You're gonna throw us out
a fix, right?" Manes asked.

"Sure, man. Damn . . . you
know that."

Flip looked at me on the bed
while putting on her coat. My head and shoulders were braced against the
headboard so I could survey the comings and goings. "How do you
feel?" she asked.

"Shit! I feel great!"
My voice, too, had an added rasp, and I did feel great. The only problem was
that if I moved around, it jiggled my stomach and the nausea returned. What the
hell, I didn't have anywhere I had to go. This was great. I was seeing all
kinds of things and people.

Everyone departed, Flip and the
pimp on the errand, Manes to pay "the Patch." The "patch"
was a kind of bag man. The street hustlers, pimps, confidence men, whores,
gamblers and boosters who paid off the vice and bunco details all gave their
payoff to a "patch," and he dealt with the police bag man. The
"patch" right now was a bartender in a cocktail lounge on West 8
^th
Street.

It didn't matter that I'd been
left alone. In the argot of the junkie, I was
coasting
on the nod. The door opened.
Brandi came in with a
cafe au lait
black girl. "Hey, baby," Brandi said.
"Where's Flip?"

"She went to score."

"Oh shit! Say, we've got a
hundred-dollar trick and we need a room."

"So?"

"This is the only one.
We'll give you twenty."

I swung my feet to the floor.
"Forget it. Where do you want me to go?"

"Go right there. The
closet."

"The closet? What kinda
shit is that?"

"Shhhh. He's out in the hallway."

I went in to the closet. It was large, had an overhead
light and was empty except for some lingerie on a hook. Before I could say
anything, Brandi turned off the light and closed the door.

Instantly I saw the light coming through the wall. It
was a peephole. They had done this before. Voices came through the door. I
accepted the invitation to play the voyeur and peeked through the hole. The
hotel room was now bathed in green light, a catalyst I guess to erotic fantasy.
It does smooth the wrinkles and make flab look firm. Brandi stood in the middle
of the room in a garter belt, mesh stockings and high heels. The black girl was
in thigh-high rubber boots with long metal heels, and an open-faced brassiere
made of hard rubber. She had a twelve-inch ruler in one hand and was slapping
it into the palm of her other hand. The sound was sharper than one might have
imagined. Whooaaa . . . this I had to see . . .

The whores played with the trick as if they were cats
and he was a trapped mouse. It was a game the trapped mouse seemed to enjoy. He
took off his expensive suit coat, unsnapped gold cufflinks and removed his
shirt. As he stood there in his baggy shorts, flabby white legs and knobby
knees, with garters holding up his socks, he went from captain of industry to
trick with the speed of an erection. I expected to be aroused by the show, but
instead I found myself biting my fist to keep from laughing, especially when he
was on his knees cleaning the floor. The black girl stood over him, her pussy
inches from his face, and gave him orders. He sneaked a look at her pussy. For
punishment she swatted him on the butt with the ruler. "Ouch! Ohhhh . . .
that feels soooo good."

I'd heard a lot of jailhouse tales of whores, pimps
and tricks, but this was something else entirely. Later when I became friends
with call girls I was told that many men who buy sex do so because they are
both a little kinky and a little priggish, so they pay for fantasies with a hooker
that they would be ashamed to ask of their wives.

Brandi turned on the
light and laughed at me. "How was that?"

"Weird."

The
cafe au lait
hooker obviously felt bad. She sagged as she sat and sniffled. "Where the
fuck is she?"

As if that was a signal, the door opened. Flip, Manes
and the black pimp came in.

"We be first, man," the black pimp said.
"She gotta get to work."

"Sure. You paid for it."

I stayed in the background, watching the scene. No
wonder they were called "dope fiends." There was a glazed-eye fever
as they waited for their turn. It was as if it was some kind of sacrament.
Carefully they counted drops and divided them between spoons. The black pimp
tapped in the needle and the eyedropper turned red with his blood. He squeezed
off some and stopped. "Shit! It's plugged." He pulled it out, took
the needle from the eyedropper and put the remaining fluid back in the spoon.
"Oh God! I forgot. I had hep—"

"You did!" Manes said. "Whaddya think,
Flip. This guy had hepatitis and he put some of his blood back in the
spoon."

"That's okay," she said. "I love
hepatitus. Don't you?"

"Oh yeah." Manes fitted the needle back on
the eyedropper, drew up water and squirted it through. It wasn't plugged. He
drew up the fluid in the spoon and handed it to Flip. As I watched, I thought
they were all crazy. In Preston I'd known a boy who came down with acute
hepatitis. When his skin turned yellow, so did the whites of his eyes, and his
urine was like black coffee. He died a few days later.

Then I realized that they were sure the claim of
hepatitis was a sham. The pimp virtually confessed when he shrugged. He'd hoped
they would be afraid and he could have the rest.

"Gimme that hepatitis," Flip said. "It
makes the flash better."

All
the action slowed after 2 a.m. when the bars closed and the cabbies brought the
last of the tricks. At 3.20, the Park Wilshire released five whores, three
pimps and a white boy delinquent. It had all been an adventure for me. For
everyone else it was just .mother night of work. Now they were ready to eat. We
piled into a taxi and Manes's car. I rode between Manes and Flip and the car
motion jostled me against her. We headed downtown to the Pantry, a rough and
ready steakhouse that stayed open twenty-four hours a day, 365 days a year. The
door was without a lock. It couldn't close.

When we flamboyant whores and flashy pimps entered,
heads turned, including those of two uniformed policemen at the counter. I felt
immediate fear, for technically I was still under the curfew law. Had I not
been in the forefront of the group, I would have turned and walked out. That,
however, would have invited suspicion, so I kept walking behind the waiter. He
took us to two big tables they had pulled together at the rear. I was just
sitting down in the corner when a voice called: "Lookit Sambo with the
white ho!"

One of the black pimps turned and called out:
"The dog that said that's got a mama that sucks donkey dicks - and he gets
fucked in the ass by big black dicks."

"Ohh, shit," Manes muttered, reaching for
the pimp's sleeve. The pimp shook off the hand as a big redneck got up.

The policemen at the counter were also quick. The
redneck's back was to them; he had not been aware of them until one of them
grabbed his arm. "Get outta here," the cop said.

"I'm not finished with my coffee."

"Yes you are . . . unless you wanna take it to
Lincoln Heights with you."

"Yeah, okay." The redneck sneered at the
black pimp over the cop's shoulder. The black pimp started forward. The other
cop blocked him with his nightstick. "Easy, boy!"

"Boy! I ain' your boy, man."

"Okay. I'm not your man either. Just take it
easy."

Beside me, Flip muttered, "Stupid fuck."

"Are you goin'?" the cop asked the redneck.

"Yeah." He threw some change on the table
and went out, muttering something about "nigger-loving
motherfuckers."

Both cops faced the black pimp. "C'mon now, don't
bite off more'n you can chew."

The
cafi au lait
whore stood up and tugged her man's arm. "C'mon, baby sit on down. Don't
be parlayin' nothin' into somethin'."

Grudgingly, the black pimp sat down, muttering
"fuck it" as he did so.

The two policemen returned to the counter. The waiter
came to take our order. A New York steak was 70 cents, although nearly everyone
ordered bacon and eggs. It took a few minutes for the tension to recede.
Finally the pimp said, "That fool was lucky I didn't kick his ass."
Everyone laughed.

We were eating when the front door opened. In came two
more uniformed officers and two detectives. They went over to the officers at
the counter; then looked toward our table at the rear.

I was next to the wall. "Here," Flip said.
"Ditch this." From the purse on her lap she extracted a snub-nosed
.38 wrapped in a handkerchief.

I took it, let my arm hang down and curled my leg so
when I dropped it, my ankle broke its fall and eased the noise, plus I coughed
loudly. Using my foot, I pushed it behind the table leg. By then the detectives
and uniformed cops were filing down the aisle.

"On your feet . . . everybody."

"What for?" asked a whore.

"'Cause I say so, Miss Coupe de Ville."

Coupe de Ville!
What a nickname.

"Outside . . . outside," said a cop.

Quickly I headed for the door, as far from the pistol
as possible. One cop noticed me trying to slip behind the others using their
bodies as shields. He crooked a finger. "How old are you?" he asked.

"Twenty-two."

"You got any identification? A driver's
license?"

"No driver's license. All I got is this." I
handed him two business cards stapled together: one from my probation officer
with an appointment day and time written in; the other from Al Matthews.

"Matthews is your lawyer, huh?"

"Yessir."

"Get outta here."

"What?"

"Start walking. Put it on the road."

Over his shoulder through the window, I saw a
uniformed cop at our table. He was bending over. I didn't wait to see what he
had picked up. "Thanks," I said, pivoted and walked away. About fifty
feet from the door was an alley. As soon as I reached it and turned, my walk
became an all-out sprint. At the next street I turned. What is now the Harbor
Freeway was then a row of several old frame houses. I went part way down a
driveway and ducked into the bushes. If the pistol had them looking for me, I
would stand out walking around downtown at 4 a.m.

It
was late spring and dawn came early. When the street lamps went out, cars began
to appear and the first light of day peeked over LA's low skyline of the time.
I came out of the bushes and began to walk east and north. It was about a mile
and a half to Al Matthews's office. As I walked, I wondered if the police were
looking for me. I doubted it. They had no way to prove the pistol belonged to
me. The handkerchief had kept my fingerprints off it. While I walked and
watched the stars fade, I wondered if something was wrong with my mind. Social
scientists of the era thought crime was
prima facie
evidence of mental disorder. But wasn't that just demon possession by another
name? I sure as shit did things that might seem crazy. On the other hand, I'd
never heard voices, or seen anything that wasn't there. Dr Frym thought I had
some paranoid traits. Why wouldn't I have paranoid traits, living as I had
lived? As my life went on, my mini-paranoia would save my life more than once.

When Al and Emily Matthews arrived at the office, I
was waiting in the downstairs lobby. From their eyes more than their words, I
could tell that my appearance worried them. I wasn't quite as neat as the day
before. I wondered if my pupils were still pinpoints. I told them that I'd
spent the night in the YMCA, which rented rooms. Emily called Al aside. When
she came back she asked if I wanted a job for the day, painting a fence at
their house. My reply was an enthused affirmative. I wanted the money enough to
ignore my exhaustion.

My youth carried me through the morning while I
splashed whitewash on a picket fence, but after lunch I sat down in the sun
room. I could hear music from the radio in the kitchen. I closed my eyes while
listening to Billie Holiday singing "Crazy He Calls Me," and at once
fell asleep. My next recollection is of Emily shaking me awake. It was twilight
and we had to go back downtown to pick up Al at the office.

When we reached the office, Al wanted to see me alone.
As soon as the door closed, he turned on me. "Why'd you he?"

"About what?"

"About where you were last night?"

"I didn't lie."

"About four this morning you were with some pimps
and whores. Sergeant O'Grady called me. There was a gun."

"I didn't have anything to do with a gun."

"If Judge Ambrose heard about what happened, gun
or not, you'd be in jail on a probation violation."

I shrugged. My resentment of authority, and especially
of any threat, was quickly ignited. Had the accusatory tone been from anyone
else, I would have told them to kiss my ass ... and fuck the judge in his ass.
With Al, however, I checked myself, although he could see my attitude. He
changed his. "Please stay out of trouble." He opened the door and
beckoned Emily. "Mrs Wallis called," he said. "She's interested
in meeting Eddie."

"That's great," she said; then turned to me.
"Eddie, we know a woman. She was in silent movies and her husband is one
of the biggest movie moguls in town. She wants to meet you tomorrow
morning."

"She's got some work for you," Al said.
"Emily, Geffy can take him after he drops us off." Geffy was Al's
driver, investigator and bodyguard. In the '30s Geffy had been a top ranked
welterweight.

Emily told me: "Be here tomorrow about
nine."

"I'll be here."

"What are you going to do tonight?"

"I'm going to see an old girlfriend."

Al grinned. "You can't have any
old
girlfriends. Emily, did you pay him for his
work today?"

"Not yet."

"Here." He extracted a $20 bill from his
wallet and gave it to me. At that time the minimum wage was 50 cents an hour. I
was very happy with it.

As I
went out, I thought about Mrs Wallis. I was no reader of movie credits, but I did
recognize the name of Hal Wallis. I'd seen it too many times not to recognize
it, and especially so because it was on the movies I liked best,
black-and-whites from Warner Brothers about gangsters and hard times, mainly
starring Bogart, Cagney, Edward G. Robinson and George Raft. They were not just
actors to me; their characters were my role models.