Lucky Luciano by Hickman Powell

Author:Hickman Powell [Powell, Hickman]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780934878203
Publisher: Barricade Books
Published: 0101-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

LONELY HEARTS

It was Thelma Jordan, I think, who said that a girl keeps a pimp because, when she wakes up with a hangover on a cold, dark, gray morning, she likes to be able to look at some one lower than herself. But Thelma had a sharp tongue, and the remark had all the usual pitfalls of the epigram. The facts go deeper than that.

The universality of the pimp is one of those apparently inexplicable laws of nature. Practically every prostitute has one, whom she supports or whom she helps other girls to support. One fellow, who has had a certain amount of personal experience along that line, tells me that the only reason he can see for this is that the girls are dumb and haven’t any sense.

Doubtless the phenomenon goes deep into the recesses of the human heart. There is no one in the world, I suppose, who leads a more lonely life than a prostitute. The men she meets are mere passing phantoms; her girl friends are in-substantial moths, here today and gone tomorrow. She is cut off from her family, from all the normal contacts of life. But her pimp is hers. He is interested in her, for a mercenary reason, perhaps, but still interested.

There are certain practical reasons for having a pimp. If a girl is pinched and taken to the police station, the pimp is the only one she can really count on to make a holler and see that she is bailed out. Then too, the girl is usually young and inexperienced when she arrives in New York, and her man makes contacts for her, sees that she gets a break. But the emotional reason is the more compelling. A girl has her man. He may be nothing to brag about, but he is hers.

Thelma Jordan had been in New York several months, and she still had her pimp, Bill Cook, who merely loafed, took her money, and fooled around with other girls when she was working. Thelma did not like him any more, she even hated him. They quarreled, for he took it as a personal affront every time she sent home her $25 a week. She thought about shaking him, but could not quite bring herself to it. He was the only person of her own in all New York, and he had got to be a habit, like brandy. It would have been easier to ditch him, if he had been a husband.

In the spring of 1934, Thelma started booking with Pete Harris now and then. Working the hotels was a very speculative business, but you could be sure of good money if you worked in a joint. One of the first places where Thelma worked was May Spiller’s joint in West Fifty-fourth Street. Spiller wasn’t really her name, but she used that because she was running the place for Bennie Spiller, who really owned it. All Thelma knew about Bennie was that he was a shylock who hung out

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