illegal slot machines, backroom gambling, whores, dope, booze

epub or mobi

I peered into a storefront called Honey Hut, the windows boarded with plywood. Orange paint advertised "Lovely Exotics" waiting behind the gates offering "Body Rubs for $10 Complete." "Try Us," pleaded the sorry-looking scrawled letters. I opened the plywood door.

"What the fuck you want?" spat a bitter, leotarded Black girl at the desk.

"Body rub?"

"I'll body rub yo' ass!" she said, reaching for a bat under the table. I meekly backpeddled out.

30 girls on each block stood at their designated posts. They beckoned to me, nodded out, ate pizza, scurried like minnows when the paddy wagon cruised by. Some were sloe-eyed, acned, welted, stoned and sick. Others had bright farm faces, not yet urbanized. Men trolled by in cars, as if it were an Arab trading post, haggling and bargaining. The prettiest white girls stood back in doorways, not having to exert salesmanship.

Seated behind the window at a Howard Johnson's was a bored pimp. He was treating four happy whores to banana splits - their reward for handing in over a thousand a week.