Mr. Blue: Memoirs of a Renegade (12 page)

The Park Wilshire Hotel was across the street from
MacArthur Park. Financed by a Union in the late '20s, the hotel was originally
planned to be a first-class joint. Its architecture was striking and the lobby
had a grand staircase suitable for a Russian palace. Alas, the location was too
far west of downtown Los Angeles to attract business travelers, and too far
east to get business from the movie studios. I was unaware of that as we waited
for the elevator. To me it looked as palatial as the Waldorf-Astoria. Flip
pushed the elevator button several times. Nobody is in a greater hurry than a
junkie going to fix.

The elevator had an operator. As we were going up, he
eyed me in a manner that asked my companions a silent question. "He's
okay," was the answer. "What's up?"

"A friend of mine's got a girl who wants to
work," said the elevator man.

"She ever worked before?"

"No. But she's game."

"Bring her over tomorrow morning."

"Late
tomorrow morning," Flip added. "After
eleven."

"Yeah, late in the morning," Manes agreed.
"But don't be surprised if she changes her mind. A whole lotta young
chicks
think
they wanna turn tricks. They can
get big money for doing what comes naturally — layin' down first and gettin' up
last — but when it gets right down to the reality of it with some potbellied
old man who's drunk and mean, they can't handle it."

"That's why a lot of them turn into junkies. It
covers their torment."

"Yeah, it does take away all pain," Manes
agreed. "Physical and mental."

"What it doesn't take away, it makes not to
matter," Flip finished.

"I get it. I'll bring her by."

As we walked down the hallway, I smelt Flip's perfume.
It was intense after the various odors of jail, sweat, piss and disinfectant.
She sure knew how to walk, long strides with her ass moving from side to side.
She looked like a stripper strutting her stuff with her clothes on. Manes put
his arm possessively around her hip, said something I couldn't hear, and they
both laughed. What did he have that would make her sell her body and give him
the money? It wasn't his looks. He was dissipated, gaunt and a little effete.
I'd seen him naked in the shower at the county farm. He had blotchy skin pitted
with acne scars. How could he have a chick who belonged on a calendar? Was he
some kind of sexual genius? No. Somehow I knew his control had nothing to do
with sex.

Manes was unlocking the room door when another door
opened farther down the hallway. A fat man in undershorts and over-the- calf
stockings came out. His face was red, his body fish white. 1 le kept one foot
in the door so it couldn't close and lock him out. It was both awkward and
comedic. "Where is she? Where'd she go?"

"Where'd who go?" Manes asked.

"That whore . . . Brandi?"

"We didn't see anybody," Flip said.
"Did we?"

I shook my head.

"Bullshit! She just came out. I heard a door out
here." He was glaring at us. "You had to see her."

"Take it easy, mister," Manes said, holding
up his hands in a pacifying gesture. Meanwhile, I stepped clear. If he got too
loud and threatening, I was going to sock him with a left hook to the stomach.
It would quiet him. I was sure of that. Flip saw my move and used her eyes to
tell me not to hit him.

Tears suddenly came to the man's eyes. He knew how
stupid he looked.

"What happened?" Manes asked.

"She took my wallet . . . and my pants. I was in
the john when I saw her go out. It was just—" he snapped his fingers to
indicate how quick things had happened. "What am 1 going to tell my wife?
I'm gonna call the police."

I was half between a laugh and pity for him.

"Take it easy, mister," Manes said. He
walked toward the man and pushed his door all the way open. "Go in and
wait. I'll see if I can help you."

The man's lips trembled; he looked at each of us,
uncertainty on his face.

"Go on," Flip said. "You can't run
around in your skivvies. It's going to be all right."

The trick squinted at us; then did as he was told.
Manes closed the door and came back to where we waited. As he turned the key in
the door he was muttering curses.

Brandi, the missing whore, was waiting inside. She'd
been listening through the door. "Look," she said, holding up a fat
sheaf of currency. "Eight bills and change." She seemed nervous, and
she had reason to be nervous. Manes tried to backhand her. She ducked away and
he kicked at her. She deflected some of it with her hand, and took some of it
on her thigh.

Flip quickly moved between them: "Take it easy.
Don't bruise her. She won't be able to work."

Manes checked himself; then he snatched the money.
"Where's his wallet and his pants?"

"I threw them out."

"Out where?"

"The air shaft."

Flip looked down the air shaft
in the building's center. "I can «r them."

"Get your ass down there
and get 'em," Manes said to Brandi.

"Do I have to?"

"Do I have to?"
he mocked. "Goddamn right
you have to. He still might scream copper and get us closed down."

"You pay the patch, don't
you?"

"What's that got to do
with anything?"

"I thought he covered this
kind of stuff."

"Yeah, he does - but not
if there's a buncha complaints. I told all you silly bitches not to steal from
a trick. Didn't I?"

Brandi's nod was grudging.

I guess that's why you're a
whore . . . you're fuckin' dumb." He turned and handed Flip the money.
"Go back over there and cool him out."

"You want me to give him
the money back?"

"Yeah. And tell him we're
getting him his pants and wallet."

Flip went out. Manes reached
for the telephone and told the front desk that he'd accidentally dropped his
pants down the air shaft. A girl was coming down to search for them. Still on
the phone, he gestured for Brandi to go. As she headed for the door, he hung up
the phone and took one final kick at her rump with the side of his shoe. It
lifted her on tiptoe for a moment. "Dumb bitch," he muttered when the
door closed. He shook his head and chuckled, obviously enjoying the display of
his power, a power that was an enigma to me. Why would beautiful women take
being so demeaned? Flip and Brandi could use their bodies to subjugate many
men. "Sid down. Make yourself comfortable." I sat down said he began
searching through drawers; then in the bathroom. Through the open door, I could
see him feeling around under the sink What was he looking for?

Flip returned. "It's
cool," she said. "Where's Brandi?"

"She went to get his pants
back. Say, where's the outfit?"

"Out in the hallway in the
fire hose. I'll get it." She went out, leaving the door ajar, and returned
within seconds carrying a dirty handkerchief bundled around a bent and
blackened teaspoon
and an
eyedropper with a baby pacifier on the bulb end and a hypodermic needle on the
other. A gasket of thread around the eyedropper end tightly fastened the
needle. It was a junkie outfit,
circa
1950.
Junkies didn't use syringes back then.

She put the unfolded handkerchief and its contents on
top of a dresser. Manes came out of the bathroom with a glass of water.

"We need some cotton," Flip said.

"Got it." Manes sat on the bed, took off his
shoe and pinched a tiny ball of cotton from the bottom of the shoe tongue. He
dropped it in Flip's palm as he put his shoe on. She added it to the
paraphernalia lined up on the dirty handkerchief. "Look out the
window," he said to me, "and see if she got those pants and
wallet."

I raised the window into the air shaft and looked
down. Brandi was carrying the pants back to the window she'd used to reach the
bottom of the air shaft. "She's got 'em and just comin' back in."

"Fuck all that," Flip said. "Let's get
fixed. That's what I want." She extended her hand toward Manes and snapped
her fingers. He produced two number 5 caps of white powder. They looked small
to me. She pulled one of them apart and tapped the contents into the spoon.
Drawing water from the glass into the eyedropper she then let several drops
fall into the spoon so it covered the powder, which immediately began to
dissolve, although not entirely. She lighted several book matches in a cluster
and jiggled them under the spoon until the liquid turned clear. She quickly
cooled the spoon bottom by touching it to the top of the water in the glass,
rolled the tiny bit of cotton between thumb and forefinger and dropped it into
the liquid. She drew the liquid through the cotton and the needle into the
eyedropper and then carefully measured a portion back into the spoon. My
presence was forgotten.

Manes rolled up his sleeve and wrapped an old necktie
around his upper arm and pumped up a big vein.

Flip stood beside him and, bracing the eyedropper
between thumb and index finger, she tapped the needle into the vein.

A tendril of blood shot into the eyedropper. The
needle was in the vein. She squeezed off a portion of the eyedropper's content
and stopped. He waited; then nodded. She squeezed off the rest.

While he cleared his throat and
savored the flash of heroin going through him - no sensation in the world
compares to it - she ran water through the needle and drew up another portion
in the spoon. She sucked the cotton dry; then squirted back three small drops
as she winked at me.

Carefully she put the outfit
down and wrapped the necktie around her biceps, holding one end of the necktie
in her teeth. At the inner aspect of her elbow were bluish scars and tiny
scabs.

 They were covered with makeup
but showed through. The scars traced the veins and were vaguely reminiscent of
a bird's tracks. And no wonder, for it took her several tries to register blood
that meant she was in the vein.

"Chicks always have
trouble," Manes said, "especially when they're hooked real good. It
makes their blood pressure drop, or something."

She pumped in the heroin. Her
distended pupils turned into pinpoints. I'd never seen it before, but once I
learned to recognize it I could tell if someone was high on heroin across a
crowded room if          I could see their eyes.

"Ahhhh
. . . God's medicine," she said, humming. "Or the devil's,"
Manes said.

She squeezed water through the
needle to clean it; then sucked up the last few drops. "This is for
you," she said. Her voice had
the
gravelly slur that comes from opiates, as
I
would learn.

I was scared, but mixed with
fear was hypnotic fascination. It wouldn't kill me. What kind of sucker would I
appear if I refused? And Charlie Parker liked it. What the hell . . .

I rolled up my sleeve and took
the necktie. "You fix me," I said to Flip.

Drowsily she scratched the tip
of her nose and nodded. She came
close and took the outfit. Our bodies brushed together. I could
feel her warm breath and smell its sweetness. I almost missed the prick of the
needle. The blood registered immediately.

"Good pressure," she
said, pausing momentarily to scratch the ti
p
of her nose again. Then she
squeezed the pacifier and the liquid disappeared into my body.

I waited for several heartbeats.
Then came an indescribable
warmth
that spread through my entire being, erasing all pain. Good God! It was . . .
wonderful . . . Then, suddenly, nausea rose from my gullet to my throat.

I ran for the bathroom, hand over my mouth. The
torrent splattered into the toilet. Thank God I hadn't thrown up on the floor.
Then I would have felt the fool.

I stayed bent over the toilet a while until nothing
came as I dry heaved. My shirt was soaked with sweat and it was running from my
forehead into my eyes. I wiped my face with a towel and exited the bathroom.
The paraphernalia was gone. Brandi had returned. She was giving Manes some
money. She looked up as I entered. "What happened?" I asked.

"She tricked him," Flip said, then laughed.
"A man with a hard dick is the biggest fool in the world."

I took a couple of steps. My movement stirred up the
nausea again. Flip saw it on my face.

"Lie down," she said. "Don't move and
you'll be cool."

I followed her suggestion and found that she was
right. As long as I was quiet, so was my stomach. The bliss washed over me, the
absolute euphoria and utter insulation from every torment, mental and physical.
I felt wonderful when I closed my eyes and savored the glow. I hadn't known
what to expect. It was different than the perception-distorting high of
marijuana, or the almost electric energetic charge of amphetamines. It made me
drowsy, yet did not dull my brain like Seconal or Nembutal. I simply felt
good.