June 6th, 2.30 a.m.
CARRIE O’SHEA ran the only high−class brothel in East St. Louis. There were plenty of other such joints in the town, but none of them came anywhere near Carrie’s for class.
For one thing, it stood opposite the District Attorney’s office. That alone gave it class. Then Carrie, who ran the house, saw to it that she got a fresh batch of girls each month. That wanted some doing, but Carrie knew variety is the spice of life and her clients never knew from one visit to the next who they were going to find there.
She organized the change by shuffling the girls round from the various other houses, ruthlessly selecting only the young fresh ones and refusing anything that the bookers thought they could hoist on to her.
It was only when Mendetta began his Slaving racket that Carrie really ceased to worry. Now, through a careful system, she was getting new girls pretty steadily. Of course, a lot of them made trouble, but that didn’t worry Carrie a great deal. She knew how to handle girls who refused to fall in line.
The system worked this way. Trained thugs carefully combed the town for suitable girls. The qualifications that they considered suitable chiefly consisted of having no relations, being down on their luck, or to have committed some petty crime that the bookers could use as a form of blackmail.
There wasn’t a great deal of material to fit these qualifications, and after a while the supply dried up. The bookers got a little more daring. They’d go after girls who wanted jobs as models. They persuaded them to pose in the nude, take photos secretly, and then threaten to show the photos, which had mysteriously become exceedingly obscene by clever faking, to narrow−minded parents. This succeeded for a time.
Although Carrie had ceased to worry about the supply of girls, the bookers were continually having headaches. They got well paid for new material, but they were constantly having to think up new ideas to ensnare unsuspecting girls into the racket.
Finally they got so bold that they’d kidnap girls and hand them over to Carrie to break in. This meant a lot more work for Carrie to do, but she realized their difficulties and she entered into her new task with philosophical fortitude.
Some of the girls were so popular that she kept them in the house as permanent workers. They had been well broken in, they got good money, and they showed no inclination to leave. Such were Andree, Lulu, Julie and Fan.
They were sitting in the big reception−room waiting patiently for Carrie to tell them to go to bed. The last client had gone over half an hour ago. Carrie made a habit of having a word with her girls before turning in for the night: to hear any complaints and to hand out punishment to any of them who hadn’t given satisfaction.
The girls were all dressed in flimsy knickers, black silk stockings and high−heel shoes, with big showy garters to keep their stockings in place. They had all thrown wraps round their bare shoulders as soon as the front door closed behind the last client.
Carrie thought it was all very well to sit around half naked when the guys were in the house, but when they had gone she liked to see her girls look decent.
Lulu reached for a cigarette, yawning. “Gee!” she said. “Am I tired? I’ve gotta get my hair fixed tomorrow morning and I don’t know how I’ll make it.”
Fan, a red−headed girl with a superb figure, but a hard, almost brutish face, gave a short metallic laugh.
“You don’t want to bother about that,” she said. “Get a guy to fix it for you. Do it on the exchange system.”
Lulu frowned at her. “You’ve got a dirty mind,” she said. “If I had a mind like yours I know what I’d do with it.”
Julie, a little silver blonde, broke in: “Save it, you two. Let’s have a little peace once in a while.”
Lulu shrugged. “I’m not startin’ anythin’,” she said. “I’m just tellin’ her she’s got a dirty mindso she has.”
Julie went on, “I had the nicest and queerest guy tonight. Gee! The dough he had! When he got upstairs he was terribly shy”
Fan groaned, “We’ll now listen to a leaf out of Julie’s life story.”
Lulu said, “Go on, Ju, don’t mind about her. Maybe she’s got the crabs.”
Julie pouted. “Well, I guess I won’t tell you if you don’t want to hear,” she said. “Only he was such a nice guy−”
Fan sneered. “I know those nice guys,” she said. “I’ve had one or two. What did he tell you? The one about his wife being an invalid?”
“Can’t you leave her alone?” Lulu demanded fiercely. “What’s the matter with you tonight?”
Andree, a tall brunette with long tapering limbs, gave a little giggle. “My Gawd! I saw that guy Julie’s talkin’ about. He looked as if his Ma was waitin’ outside for him.”
Julie nodded. “That’s the one. He gave me ten bucks as soon as he got in the room”she put her hand over her mouth and spluttered with laughter“in an envelope. Can you tie that? He was so genteel he gave it to me in an envelope.”
Even Fan smiled.
“Well, go on,” Lulu said. “What was he like?”
Julie shook her head. “He didn’t do anythin’. When I started to undress he nearly had a fit. What he thought he’d come up there for I can’t guess. He said, all embarrassed, that he just wanted to talk to me. And would I put on a wrap as he thought it was tough for a girl like me to sit around as I was. Believe me, you could have knocked me over with a mangle.”
“Yeah?” Fan said bitterly. “I guess I’d sooner sleep with a guy than listen to him talk. A guy who likes talkin’ about it can go on for ever.”
“Oh, he talked about all kinds of things. He was ever so interestin’,” Julie said stoutly. “I liked the guy. He didn’t once ask me why I lived here, or if I liked it, or any of the other crap guys always ask.”
Fan got bored. “Gee! I thought you were goin’ to tell us somethin’ worth listenin’ to,” she said.
“Didn’t I tell you she’d got a dirty mind?” Lulu chimed in triumphantly.
Just then the door opened and Carrie came in. Carrie was a tall, thin, muscular mulatto. Her face was cut in hard, etched lines. Glittering black eyes, like glass beads, gave her a look of cold, calculated suspicion and cruelty. Her broad flat nose disfigured what would have been an otherwise strikingly handsome face.
“Time you girls were in bed,” she said sharply. “Break it up. Go on, get off to bed.”
Obediently, all of them except Fan got up and murmured respectful good nights and went out of the door.
Fan continued to sprawl in the chair.
Carrie eyed her with reluctant admiration. She had never been able to tame Fan entirely. She was wise enough to realize that Fan with a broken spirit would be a poor proposition, and she took more from her than any of the other girls put together.
She knew that Fan liked the racket. She knew also that Fan would never have admitted it, but Carrie had long ago come to realize that Fan was physically built for the game.
Carrie said, “You smoke too much. It ain’t going to help you when you get older.”
Fan looked at her. “Listen, nigger, I like smokin’. To hell with that stuff about getting old.”
“You’ll see. I’m tellin’ you when you start slippin’ I’ll turn you out. Make no mistake, sister, I’ve got no time for worn−outs.”
Fan got up and gathered her wrap around her. “I’ll be gone long before that time,” she said. “One of these days I’m goin’ to start out on my own.”
Carrie had heard all this before. She knew Fan was too lazy to hunt up her own clients. “Sure,” she said“one of these days.”
Fan stubbed her cigarette out and then crossed to the big mirror on the wall. She stood looking at herself carefully.
Carrie grinned. She knew that Fan was secretly worried about getting old and useless. She didn’t want her to be discouraged. “You’re all right,” she said; “one of my best girls.”
Fan looked at her and sneered. “You bet, nigger,” she said; “you an’ I ain’t the only two who know it.”
She went out of the room, leaving the door wide open.
Carrie went into the little office that led from the reception−room and sat down behind a small desk. With a neat hand she entered some figures in a ledger, and then locked the ledger in a wall safe. She was quite contented the way the business was paying. Tonight had been a good one.
She looked disapprovingly at the clock on the wall. Time was always her enemy. She was a tireless worker and begrudged herself the hours wasted in sleep. But she looked after herself very carefully. She wasn’t taking any chances of falling ill. Mendetta was the kind of guy who liked you a lot when you were bringing in the dough, but cast you off once you lost ground. She always gave herself six hours’ sleep.
As she was getting up from behind the desk the telephone rang shrilly. She picked up the receiver. “Who is it?”
Grantham’s voice floated over the line. “Carrie? Listen, I’ve got a girl I want you to look after.”
Carrie’s mouth twisted. “That’s fine,” she said. “Must you ring up at an hour like this to tell me a little thing like findin’ me a girl? I’ve got plenty.”
“Lu’s bringing her round right away,” Grantham went on. “This is important. She’s not to talk to anyone.
Do you understand? Hell’s been poppin’ tonight and she knows all about it.”
“What’s happened?”
“Tootsie’s been bumped. Raven’s taken over. And this dame knows a hell of a lot more than she should do.”
“Mendetta’s dead?” Carrie repeated.
“Yeah. About a couple of hours ago. They haven’t found his body yet. You’re not to know anythin’ about it.
The news mightn’t break for a couple of days.”
“What’s this about Raven?”
“He’s moved in. You’ve got a new boss now, Carrie.”
Carrie’s fist tightened on the phone. “Why the hell did you let him move in? I tell you, Grantham, that guy’s goin’ to cause a lot of trouble.”
“Never mind about him. You look after the girl.”
Grantham hung up before she could reply.
Carrie put the phone down slowly. She stood looking at the opposite wall with blank eyes. So Raven had got there at last. She had watched him closely ever since Mendetta had turned him down. She knew that Raven would be a very different boss from Mendetta. Maybe he wouldn’t be so mean, but he was going to be a lot more ruthless. Carrie suddenly found herself anxious for her girls. She didn’t mind how she treated them herself, but it made her feel dismayed to think that Raven was going to control them all in the future.
She went back into the reception−room and sat down to wait for Lu.