Babytrick

Chapter 1

Camie’s new word for the week of October 7, 1990, was emporium. As usual she had written it down on her calendar and used it in a sentence: At the D-Vegas my favorite emporium is the Golden Globe.

Why her favorite? First off, the name itself was a reminder of her mom always saying it was her glorious GGs that got them their beauteous abode and their super-comfi life. Camie never had the heart to tell her that it wasn’t mom’s magic mammaries that made Swine Dad so generous, since he sure loved to play with Camie’s own tiny 12-year-old tits back then.

Of course, the Golden Globe was also known as the Boom Room, or as Lucky Lou’s, or Lucky Lose—she guessed the spelling depended on how you were doing in here, at the tables, on the wheel, tossing craps, or feeding her play of choice, the slots. But then every shop in the D-Vegas had multiple names, depending on who might be talking. The dope depot they called the Sweet Spot was also known as the Honey Pot. And her employer, the Pussy Place, was aka the PP, or the Rocks Off.

Even the D-Vegas itself went by different names, like the Disney, or Disney World. Like in that stupid commercial that ran every year: Hey, Joe Football, you just won the Super Bowl! What are you going to do next?

I’m going to Disney World!

But then other than the old name, Rushmore, carved into the stone panel over what used to be the front entrance, there were no signs at all inside or outside the crumbly old building. You just said what you wanted, and one of the old-timers who worked the halls like the greeters at K-Mart would point the way.

Actually, everyone in the whole place—managers, muscle guys, staffers and clientele—probably used more than one name for themselves, with none of them being real. For instance, here in the Globe, fat and farty old Buckman, whose arm she was on, called her Camie, but to everyone else she was BT. They all knew that BT stood for something she was not supposed to be—a babytrick—since anything under 16 was officially not allowed in the PP. But nobody here really seemed to give a shit, and the younger you looked, the more of a dick magnet you seemed to be.

She had started on Motown’s dirty streets when she was 13, turned 14 the week she moved into the D-Vegas, and her next B-day was still a long way off. But while her mom’s GG genes were kicking in, as she confirmed again now in one of the Globe’s gilt-edged mirrors, by doing that soft, wide thing with her light brown eyes and letting her hair go to the little gold ringlets Buckman liked, she probably looked almost as young as she was. Some of the older hoes called her Cunti instead of Camie, but she knew they were just jealous. And anyway Camie wasn’t her real name either. It had been a long time since anyone had called her by the one her mom had given her.

Hold tight, Camie girl, called Buckman, as he stacked his chips on the red. We take this pot, and we’ll go hit the slots. He took a slug of his Beam and gave her a quick, red-eyed grin. Knowing just what he wanted, she pressed his flabby old bicep, as if it thrilled her to pieces. The pudgy old whitey was probably close to 80, one of the wiggle-worm boys who loved to have it played with, though they both knew it was a weasel that was never gonna pop.

Name is Bucky Walters, he had said that first night in her room. Like the old ball player, guy played both pitcher and third for Boston and the Reds. No one like that around anymore.

She had no idea what he was talking about but figured the name was fake, and so she had countered with Well, Buckman, like I said I’m Camie, and I am pretty dang certain we’re gonna have us a rippin’ good time.

He had showed her his brownish teeth and nodded like a 20-year-old stud, but the only thing that had ripped that night was his usual string of farts.

On the wheel, the bouncing little ball nestled on the black. Buckman groaned and drained the Beam. Camie knew there’d be nothing extra from the slots tonight, no cash that Buckman would let her keep, even though he had already bought her for the evening. Somehow a few weeks back he had decided that, latched to his arm, she’d bring him luck. And so she had been the adoring escort for his entire stay-and-play round at the D-Vegas for the past three Friday nights.

Unlike some of the more serious shooters who knew not to be too fuzzy or too jumpy while gaming at the Globe, Buckman liked to mellow out first on the Sweet Spot’s weed. Camie thought the shabby, smelly Spot was a drag, with its soiled walls, littered carpet and the ratty old furniture in the room that served the smack addicts as a shooting gallery. But smoking with him there that first Friday night, she had quickly become stoned. And after the four Whiskey Sours he bought her at the Globe, she had passed out face first in the craps box.

After that she was cut off. No more smoking in the Spot (though Buckman would still sneak her an occasional drag), and no more than one glass of wine at the Globe. She had already downed her Chardonnay before they had ever hit the wheel and lost any chance at the slots, so it was time now to split the cool-temped, lightly scented and glittering Globe.

Back downstairs the raunchy, over-heated Pussy Place had a set of sweet and sour smells all its own, but at least down here she could use an air freshening spritzer in her room.

She ushered old Buckman through the entry hall and into the large meet-and-greet space where several horny-eyed guys, the usual mix of black and white, were sitting around scoping the meat, the gals either naked or in their flimsy little duds.

Moving behind him she glanced down at the blue crepe dress with red velvet sash he had bought her last week, then looked up just in time to catch a glance from little Melody, who, despite her teased-out afro, looked even younger than Camie. Into the hallway that accessed the bedrooms Chocolate Mel was leading a tall, light-haired guy by the hand, a forty-something fellow who suddenly looked way too familiar.

Dipping her head behind Buckman’s fat back, Camie froze, hoping hard that Mel’s blond john had not turned back in time to see her.

The cry in her throat she stifled and swallowed whole.

Chapter 2

So, Cremini. Italian, right?

Head tilted down to start on his minestrone, Frank DeFauw looked up at him from under that familiar furrowed brow. Talk about charisma, the guy could flatter with a single glance.

Right, said Mark. Like the mushrooms.

Cremini mushrooms?

Yeah, they’re big in Italian cooking.

Frank gestured with his spoon. Well, I guess we came to the right place. Mario’s here is one of the oldest and best in town.

That’s what I hear. Mark thought the warmth and interest in the news anchor’s look could be genuine, but when most of your working life was spent with a camera trained on your face to capture every nuance, you learned how to move from flatter to maybe something like intimidate with the flick of an eyelash.

So where’d you grow up, Mark?

San Francisco. Italian father, Irish mom.

"Ah, a good Catholic youngster. Altar boy or choir boy?

‘Both."

Jesus. College?

UCLA. I thought I wanted film until I started writing for the Bruin and got locked into print.

Nodding, Frank wiped his mouth with a large white napkin. Yeah, like I mentioned on the phone, I’ve read you in Rolling Stone.

Well, they’ve been good to me. It’s why I’m here.

To do a take out on Coleman. Frank grinned.

I wouldn’t call it a take out. But anyway I can’t seem to get to first base with the mayor.

Nobody can right now. Hizzoner feels like he’s been burned too many times.

You like him?

Like Coleman Young? Christ, yes, I like him. The stuff that comes out of his mouth is way more juicy than anything I’ve gotten from anybody in this town for more than two decades. So whose idea was this? Yours or Wenner’s?

I pitched, he bought. The L.A. Times is running a bunch of stories on Young and the cops and this deputy chief doing that Ponzi scheme. And I just thought, with this probably being the mayor’s last term, the time was right to do a major piece that I might even turn into a book. A friend of mine teaching at Wayne State got herself a year’s sabbatical in Budapest and thought she owed me a favor. Her flat’s close to campus and rent free, and I jumped at it.

Nice. But if you can’t get next to Coleman, what are you doing?

Research, spending a lot of time scrolling through micro-film at the library. But the way I work, when I’m new in town, I like to start both at the top and at the bottom. So with the top tight right now, I’ve been working the bottom. There’s a little park not far from here, at Second and Selden, where Motown’s under-belly is on full display. You can buy all kinds of shit there, from crack and smack to ladies of the night, and it’s all out in the open.

Frank sliced his veal Marsalla and said, There’s lots of those places all over this city.

I know, but I’ve been getting these dope-selling kids to talk to me there. And lately, I’m seeing two or three young girls, I mean really young, maybe 13, 14, it’s hard to tell for sure, but they’re definitely young, and they’re out there morning till night, switching their little minis, dancing out into the street, and almost forcing guys to stop.

Babytricks, said Frank.

Babytricks?

Yeah, that’s what they’re called on the street here. I’m trying to get the news director at my place to do something on them.

Could be a good story if you really got them to open up.

Yeah, but, Marco, let me try to help you with Coleman. You’ve talked with Berg, his PR guy?

Only on the phone.

Well, this Friday afternoon there’s a shindig at the Manoogian, the mayor’s mansion on the river. Be my guest, and I’ll introduce you to Bob, who’s a very good guy, and maybe hizzoner himself.

Frank, I’d be in your debt.

Of course you would. So when you chat up one of those girls in the park, maybe you can fix her up with me. And a camera, to shoot her in silhouette.

Chapter 3

The third time the guy with the dark hair and rimless glasses cruised by in his dusty black Buick, Camie didn’t even bother cocking her hip. Obviously he was just a window shopper, one of those timid types with enough curiosity only to look. A professor of something maybe at Wayne State, although she’d had one of those earlier in the week, and he had been just like most of the others, wanting it to happen quicker than quick and looking around the whole time.

The strange thing was she had seen this Buick guy maybe three days ago, curbed on the other side of the park with the fat boy, Willie Wee, in the passenger window, and later sitting in the car with the two of them just talking away. Willie, of course, got in trouble for that with his crew chief, Alvin Dickerson, better known as Dickhead. Camie had heard Dickhead all the way across the park, screaming up in Willie’s face, You never sit in some asshole’s fuckin’ car. How you gonna push product by sittin’ in some fuckin’ car?

But now to her surprise the Buick was slowing way down and curbing just a ways up the block. Camie glanced around but there was nobody else around he might be stopping for. Noting again the California plate, she moved toward the car, slowly, taking her time, giving him her sex walk and knowing he’d be watching in the side view mirror. When she got there the window was down, and the guy was fine, good-looking in his early 30s maybe. His brown eyes were smiling.

She smiled back. Hi there, handsome. Looking for a party?

Hi there, yourself. I like your look. The voice was low and calm.

She knew what he meant but glanced down at the little black skirt and the short black, high-heeled boots. She tugged at the purple scarf at the opening of the royal blue fake-fur jacket and figured he was wondering if the short curly black hair was hers. Well, you look pretty fine yourself.

So how much for 20 minutes?

Depends on what you want.

Talk.

Talk?

Yes, I’m a writer, and I’m working on a piece for Rolling Stone on the streets of Detroit. Do you read the Stone?

She screwed up her face and shook her head. No, but I think I saw it once in the drugstore. So are you from Hollywood? I noticed the plate.

Well, L.A. Why?

I thought maybe you could put me in a movie.

No, I told you I’m a journalist, not a film maker, but if I write about you, you never know what might happen.

She stared at him and said nothing.

So how about it? How about 20 bucks for 20 minutes?

Camie thought about it, then asked, Do I have to tell the truth?

Well, I’ll ask you some questions and if you don’t want to answer, you don’t have to.

She nodded. Okay, 20 for 20.

Good, but there is one question I hope you’ll answer honestly. It’s how old are you.

How old do you think?

I’d guess around 14.

Good guess.

Fourteen, really?

Yep.

Okay, great. Hop in.

Camie moved around the Buick and got in the passenger side. As she turned to him he offered his hand, she took it and they shook, all business.

I’m Mark, he said. When she said nothing, he asked, How about yours?

After a pause, she said, I’m Blue.

Really? That’s funny. Well, not really funny, but I’ve been watching you for the past few days, and that’s what I’ve been calling you in my mind. First, ‘the Blue Girl’ and then just ‘Blue.’ Mostly, I guess, because of the jacket.

Yeah, she said, brushing a hand down a small bare spot on the front. This old thing. I’ve had it forever.

So she was lying already.

Chapter 4

Pulling away from the curb, he asked, Where to? Where would you take a john?

For an outside job, a quickie?

Yes.

Take the second left coming up, then a right into the alley.

As they drove in silence, she thought about how much life had changed in the past week, since that last night at the D-Vegas. With old Buckman in the toilet, she had already started thinking about her need to flee. Fishing out his wallet, she had found his license, learned his real name was Samuel Anton and memorized his address in Farmington Hills. She’d thought about grabbing a few extra 20s from his wad but figured he might know he’d been looted when he went to tip her, which he usually did.

After the old fart finally decided they had played enough and left her with an extra 20 and one last stubbly kiss, she had shoved most of her things in that big black trash bag. Then Mel did her secret knock thing on the door.

Inside she was all excited, sitting on the bed with her thin black legs crossed, saying, Yeah, girl, I saw you scopin’ my date. Well, guess who he be.

Who? Camie was already wary.

The owner!

The owner of what?

Of the whole dang thang. The D-Vegas, girl!

What?

"Yeah, Rosie the Witch slipped me the word, saying behind her hand, ‘You be extra special nice with this one. He own the place.’ And later on I ask him straight out, ‘So Rosie say you own this here place.’ And he say, ‘Who Rosie?’ And I tell ‘em Rosie the one who run this here PP. And he say Rosie need to mind her own damn business. So I say, ‘So you is the owner?’ And he just look at me with them big blue eyes and say, ‘One of them.’ And then he ask me did I like it here, and I say, ‘Hell, yes.’ And he say, ‘So Rosie treats you good?’ And I’m not gonna give him nothin’ nasty about the Witch, so I say, ‘She just like my mama.’ Not sayin’ like my mama be the biggest skank hoe pipe sucker they is."

Camie had asked Mel what the guy’s name was, and Mel said, Robert, but he say, ‘Call me Bob.’ And I say, ‘Well, Bob, if you the owner, how come you never be comin’ round here? And he say, ‘Oh, I come round, but now I know you here, I be comin’ all the time.’ I mean, he like me, he really like me. When I tell him they call me Chocolate, he say, ‘So you gonna be my sweet little piece of fudge. And so ‘Fudge’ be what he call me.

When Mel was finally back in her room, Camie had finished filling the plastic bag, and when her watch said 3 a.m., she had slipped out the back way, through the old deliveries door that opened on the alley. From there she knew it was 10 minutes, maybe 15, hauling that heavy bag, to the 24-hour laundromat that she and Mel had used back when they were still on the street.

It was where they had first met Glide the Gimp, the skinny-assed black man with one leg shorter than the other, who decided then and there he should be their pimp. And that was how it was until last February when it got so bitter cold on the street that she and Mel finally got up the gumption to try the place called the Disney, or the D-Vegas. At which point Glide the Gimp became nothing but a scary nuisance, always trying to frighten them into coming back.

So that was when the Steels did their thing. The Steels were brothers, Marv and Eddie, and the lead muscle guys at the D-Vegas. They kept things quiet in the building, dealing with anybody foolish enough to get out of line, any guy who got too physical, maybe, with the gals at the PP. The story was they had ties with the cops and generally kept everybody at the D-Vegas feeling safe and sound, as Camie’s mom used to say.

Marv seemed to like it when Camie called him ‘Marvelous,’ and when she complained abut the Gimp being a pain, Marv said not to worry, that the problem would soon disappear. The very next day Eddie had announced that Glide would not bother them again, saying only that they had dropped his skinny nigger’s ass out of town.

Still, as she had approached the laundromat, Camie wondered if she might find Glide there with his usual slouch in the far back corner. Instead the brightly lit aisles lined with washers and dryers were empty except for one thin, bald, black woman, who looked maybe 50. She was sitting in the middle of the place staring at one of the dryers turning. Looking up she greeted Camie like they were long-lost friends.

Hi there, honey, how you doin’ this morning?

Setting down her big black bag, Camie glanced at a basketful of faded, thread-bare clothes on the chair beside the woman and said, I’m fine. How are you?

The woman suddenly grimaced, grabbed a small purse on a strap and got to her feet. Oh, shit, I got the runs. Just won’t leave me be. Moving quickly toward a door near the back that said, Women, she called over her shoulder, Honey, just make sure nobody come and takes my things.

Camie said, Okay, and then wondered what anyone would want with the items in view. In addition to the old washed-out clothes, there was a dingy white shag jacket over the back of a chair and a second basket occupied by a styrofoam head covered with a ratty black wig.

So, actually, there was something someone here wanted. She glanced back at the bathroom door as it closed, then grabbed the jacket and the wig and quickly hauled her bag out of the laundromat’s harsh neon and into the night.

Yes, she had felt bad about taking the woman’s things, but at that moment it had been super clear who needed them more. Given her history with Bob and knowing now that he was one of the owners of the place that completely controlled her life, she damn well couldn’t stay at the D-Vegas, not even one more risky night. And yet she had known with a clench in her gut that within hours the Steel brothers would be out scouring the streets for her, grimly intent on either bringing her back to where she belonged, or making certain that she, like Glide the Gimp, and probably many others, would permanently disappear.

And there was another scary possibility as well. The Steels had always been an avid topic of tales and rumor