.. not a hundred yards away!.. You couldn’t want any better!
.. fine location for a boardinghouse. The six floors all continuous!. Leicester Street. Leicester Square, W.l..You could see the people on the sixth floor going up from the door. big spacious premises!. for treating friends right!.. hygiene on every floor.. French bidets.. gallantry everywhere! toil and honor!.. the motto! The whole basement all a well-stocked kitchen, a dream! Nothing petty at Cascade’s.. Open and generous house! hot dishes at all hours.. day and night! No woman can deny it! London’s the proving ground for hustling… the delicate ones are always coughing! Murderous sidewalk in winter!. Tuberculous fog!. Have to eat things that stick to your ribs.. Not titbits and noodles.. Boy, oh boy! everything! solid stuff! choice quality!.. When it came to grub, Cascade wouldn’t trust anyone! He did the marketing himself three times a week. He’d bring back the tastiest things he could find, the plumpest poultry, turkeys just right! perfect fowls! the kind of leg of lamb you don’t see any more!..So that the platters’d sizzle in the oven! superfine mutton. when he found woodcocks we’d have a dozen!.. Baskets so loaded that the maids dragged along the stores.. and special butter!.. and in blocks!.. Never a question of economy. The Table first!.. That was the boss’s other motto!. nothing cheap on the table!. Fine fruit!. The best peaches in all seasons! That accounted for his success!., The Leicester Boardinghouse had lots of other advantages.. Centrally located for appointments, near the Regent, two minutes from the Royal, the Exchange of the business, the pimps’ favorite spot, but no fakes, no small stuff!.. Get it straight! the ones who know how to handle things! Class! the laws of the trade! The real established procurers who go back ten, fifteen, twenty years! The big shots of the profession!..
Shame on the small-timers!. on the little guys!. they’d get the cockiness knocked out of them fast! eliminated one two three!.. Should’ve seen them when the gambling started, the big poker games!.. the stiff betting!. laid out at the first call!.. washed up!.. wrung out!.. curtains!.. You never saw them again!.. Where things were treated seriously at the Royal from 4 to 6.. Buying, selling, discussing, all the refunds… In the promenade of the Empire, which was the gold mine of the trade, a woman cost three pounds, just for the doorman’s percentage.. and the same amount for the cops.. That gives you an idea right away.. Cascade had five working for him alone, often more, Lea, Ursule, Ginette, Mireille and little Toinon who went out only with her mother.. They were all just resting when we arrived.. They were waiting for the theatre hour to start the grind. the 8:30 standees. And we dropped in just at the right time! in the midst of the teasing and cuddling!.. Especially around the gossip being peddled.. those who’d just lost their husbands… who’d been widows since morning. the nervous guys who’d joined up!. They were planning little kitchy-kitchy teams.. They were consoling themselves as best they could.. The cognac was helping things along fine!.. they were all hitting it off together!.. It put new heart into Cascade to see them all getting along…
He was looking forward to some quiet. Cascade adapted himself quickly, not Angele! naturally! She was tight-lipped and suspicious! and not keen about vagabonds. Cascade was offhand, impromptu. even on the afterbeat. he’d suddenly get playful, just like that. That’s why he’d quickly forget about raw deals.. you could disarm him by laughing.. women as well as pimps.. Some bitches, of course, as everywhere, told awful stories about him and his girls! and about his woman!
A number of these vicious slanders dragged at his ass, but they weren’t his headaches!.. He’d box their ears for them every now and then. Jealousies, treachery, but didn’t dare grumble about it when he was around. From the Royal to Soho, from the Elephant to Charing Cross, he claimed respect. He’d get into a jam from time to time, the cops would come down on him for form’s sake, like that fairy Matthew, but just to show that it was normal, that the Law was for everyone, that every big shot had to take it and that even Cascade took his turn. It was a sacrifice, that was all!. They weren’t tough with him. They seldom pestered his girls, at the Yard they thought he was regular, they knew that he was a square shooter, handling his affairs right, his women going home at reasonable hours, never abusing their patience, never strutting around the clubs, never using bad language. The English cop is mainly a loafer, down on everything, as I’ve said, war or no war.. Mustn’t complicate his life.. Otherwise you’re in for one hell of a time. Cascade really had an experience of things English that was rather special! Knew all the angles! Never away a single day in his twenty-five years in London, since his leave in fact, his three years in Africa, in Blida, except for his two trips to Rio, always on the job.. actually a sedentary man.. and just a little broken English.. maybe twenty or thirty words… at most… no facility of speech… He admitted it himself..
All the ass-work at Cascade’s came from France, except the Portuguese!.. and Jeanne Jambe, the blonde, who was born in Luxembourg..
As for his health, he was graying around the temples, he had his albumin, but he was still pope at the table and the bottle and elsewhere, too! he wasn’t much of a shot any more at the rifle ranges, but he was always a man with real class! in everything and for everything! He’d still pick up girls, and slick ones, show girls!. real cookies! He hung around stage doors.. Just so, for the hell of it! Innocent-looking!.. and more than his share. And no worrying about conversation.. just wild laughing and pantomime!.. giddy and gallant!.. He used to waltz like a prince in Angele’s heyday!..He didn’t dance any more because of his varicose veins!.. But all the same, two or three dances while he was on the make!. It’s true he liked skirts, his little weakness, his venial sin. Couldn’t stand drips, the grocer-pinochle type.. though they were pretty frisky when it came to tail.
And I’d like you to know he was always ticklish about respect, not familiar, even when he was high, even at the "Whoremarket” with the men… a pretty low dive where they gulped down vitriol by the pitcherful and tableful. Ah! better not lack any with him!.. The young ones would snicker a little. they’d make little digs. They’d learn what’s what right away!.. He didn’t tolerate impropriety, he was a chief and that was that!.. Cordial, pleasant, but touchy… A smudge on his honor!. Never women’s gossip. His word was all!. And never aggressive! even drunk!. even staggering!. never held grudges!. only, and get it straight, if there was any impudence, a tiger! lightning!.. let it be the Strong Man of the Market, the Cannon Man of the Ternes, the Terror of the Corsican Heath, the Swallower of Flaming Pythons, the big Dinosaur in a cap, he let him have it straight in the kisser, and clean, and then and there!.. and in front of everybody! and no arguing, no nonsense!.. let them see what law and order mean! good manners, politeness! It often started when they made cracks about his rings, about his "Brazilian six-carat” and his "knight’s sapphire,” two magnificent stones. They made some people jealous. The little hoodlums thought they were too showy, they asked him whether they were heavy? Whether they didn’t twist his wrists? He didn’t tolerate wisecracks, when they repeated it two or three times, the smacks started flying… As for his lock of hair, that was something else.. then he was the one who was aggressive.. he’d start things. he wanted exclusive rights. He didn’t want to see another like it, a spit curl smooth as himself, in any pub in the neighborhood. He’d fly right off the handle, had to get his competitor out, he’d have ripped up the joint and the spit curl with it!