“Jim is quite advanced when it comes to equal opportunity employment,” Red said.
“He’s got some old niggers work for him too,” Wilber said. “He’ll hire an old nigger fast as a young nigger. ’Course, just for certain jobs.”
“Frankly,” I said, “Jim’s work relations don’t interest us all that much.”
Red nodded. We were all close friends now. “Big Jim does have his problems, however. Gambles too much.”
“He’ll gamble on anything,” Wilber said. “I’ve seen him bet on how long a guy’s dick would be. And that fella had to get it out too, and Big Jim, he could guess a thing like that.”
“But he isn’t homosexual, or anything like that,” Red said. “He just likes to gamble, and the wilder the gamble, the more he likes it. Always pays up when he loses too. ’Course, he don’t lose much. Big Jim’s a character. All in all, you couldn’t ask for a nicer more honest employer in this type of business.”
“Tell us about Tillie,” Brett said.
“Well, Tillie worked for Maude. She was one of Maude’s girls, you see. When we did Maude in, we put the old reprobate in a piano crate with about three hundred pounds of rocks to keep her company, drove her all the way to Arkansas and dropped her hefty self in a lake. We made it a kind of holiday, stopping to see scenic markers and points of interest along the way, though we drove over there faster than we drove back. She started to acquire an aroma about the time we got to the Arkansas line. When we completed the chore, we returned to Tulsa to see Jim. Jim was so pleased, he put me in charge of Oklahoma City and sent Wilber with me as a kind of enforcer.
“Let me say that the two of us merchandised more tail than Maude had sold in her lifetime. She had been holding out on Jim, but she hadn’t been doing anywhere the business she could have. We set up little safaris, had girls hauled across state lines, doubled our truck stop business, and set up new houses in Texas, Louisiana, and Arkansas. We even had a traveling trailer we drove about Oklahoma, hitting the high spots. You wouldn’t believe how easy it is to slip a girl into a rest home to help some old codger enjoy his last days. They’ll blow six months’ snack allotment for one good night with a woman. Some who hadn’t had an erection in years were astonished to discover they could manage quite nicely with the right stimuli.
“I’m sure our girls hastened a few deaths that way, but considering the alternatives, I doubt the old fellas really minded. Besides, when you’re seventy-five or so, after a full-course dinner and a slice of young tail, what else you got to look forward to?
“ ’Course, you got to bribe lots of interns and nurses and stuff, so it’s not quite as profitable as it should be.”
“About Tillie,” Brett said.
Red nodded. “The traveling trailer was, in many ways, our busiest little sideline. Your daughter was part of that recreational tour from time to time, Ms. Brett.”
“Then you were Till’s pimp these last few years?” Brett said.
“I suppose you could say that,” Red said, “though it doesn’t have quite the professional ring I prefer. I like to think of myself simply as a businessman, and Wilber here as the pimp.”
“Yeah,” Wilber said. “I’m the pimp. I keep the girls in line. I take care of the johns don’t want to pay, and if shit goes on some place I ain’t, we got … had … fellas took care of things for us.”
“We were doing quite well selling women,” Red said. “So we were able to give Jim almost double what Maude had been giving him, and still there was money, and, well, I hate to admit it, but greed got the better of us. We thought since Jim was making double what he was making before, he’d be happy, and not realize we were making almost as much as he was.”
“But he found out,” I said.
“I’m afraid so,” Red said.
“Man,” said Wilber, “we fucked up a sweet business.”
“Yes, we did,” Red said. “It became necessary that we depart. Some of Jim’s men paid us a visit, and but for the grace of the devil they would have killed us, but Wilber here fought dynamically, disposing of a couple of the hoodlums with his bare hands. I shot two of them to death, but not before I was roughed about quite a bit. My suit shows the activity. And you can see the damage to Wilber’s face. A rumble tumble on the same par as that with the colored woman. Perhaps brisker.
“Preparing to depart, we discovered we were financially embarrassed. We made a lot of money, but we spent a lot of money. This suit alone, designed to my specifications, cost six hundred dollars. Can you imagine that? There’s not enough actual material here for a good-sized throw rug. But, we had no money, so we had to ask the girls for money.”
“You asked?” Brett said.
“Well, we actually persuaded them it was good idea. Guess what? They had very little. Considering Jim and ourselves took a nice chunk of their earnings, and allowed them to spend the bulk of the remainder through us for supplies, well, whores are not very rich. Your daughter, however, had managed to save some money and she offered it to us without any persuasion. It was only five hundred dollars, but with the rest we had from the other girls we acquired just short of a thousand. Not a lot for men who normally spent that in a day, but beggars couldn’t be choosers.
“Your daughter gave us the money and said if we would come here and tell you that she wants out, and that she needs help to get out, you would give me another five hundred dollars.”
“You did this for five hundred dollars?” I asked.
“McDonald’s pays considerably less a week for tossing burgers, sir,” Red said, “and at the moment, every little drop helps. If we can scam out on this motel bill before they realize our credit cards belong to a colored man we mugged in Amarillo out back of a barbecue joint, we can start rolling promptly, steal a car closer to the Mexican border. We might just manage to elude anyone Jim sends after us. Once in Mexico, five hundred dollars becomes two or three thousand, you use it right. Then we can have some breathing room. Perhaps run some whores down there. There’s always some sort of enterprise going on in Mexico, though much of it seems to involve the use of knives and guns.”
“You ought to be used to that,” I said.
“The degree of excitement is higher down there,” Red said. “I’ve lived there before. Shortly after I departed the circus. Unlike Americans, Mexicans—though short-tempered and fond of sharp weapons—seem to appreciate a midget.”
“Where is Tillie?” Brett said.
“I’ve written the location down,” Red said. “May I reach in my pocket?”
“Carefully,” I said.
Red brought out a piece of paper and handed it to me. I took it and opened it and looked at it. “You could just be picking up five hundred dollars,” I said. “This could be a Laundromat.”
“Could be,” Red said. “But it isn’t.”
“It isn’t even Oklahoma City. What the hell is Hootie Hoot?”
“I know how it sounds,” Red said. “But it’s a real town. It’s a little burg outside of Oklahoma City. We actually found it to be quite a refuge, and it provides easy access to the city, and frankly, most men who wanted to purchase sex didn’t want to pay for it in a place they thought there might be law. This burg, cops were paid off. They liked a little regular tail themselves, see. We get the five hundred dollars or what?”
I looked at Brett. Brett stood up and tossed me Wilber’s gun. I caught it and dropped it on the bed between my legs. Brett lifted her dress and took five hundred dollars out of the end of the thigh holster. We all checked out the thigh holster and what it was strapped to. In the light I could see little freckles on Brett’s thigh, like the blush on a strawberry.
Brett put the revolver in the holster. The five hundred was folded. She unfolded it. She stood next to the table lamp where Wilber sat and counted it out aloud, dropping each bill on the table.