EXTRACT FOR
Black Mike and Ghetto Toy
(Author Unknown)

BLACK MIKE



    My name is Luke Miles and this is the story of my life...so far.

    I was faithful to my studies and managed to get a degree from a nice college. I was lucky enough to land a great job with a huge company and a big paycheck. I leased a great apartment near midtown and I had some great stuff. I had a fine automobile, some nice clothing, a blasting stereo, a big screen TV, computers, and games.  Yeah, I had it made in the shade.

    Then one day, while I wasn't looking, my company moved the whole shooting match overseas to some third world country I never heard of. My sweet world came crashing down on my head.

    Just about the time I thought things couldn't get any worse they got worse. I came home to my nice apartment to find my girlfriend fucking my former supervisor.  He was bitch fucking her on my living room floor.  I whirled around and left the apartment and spent the last twenty dollars I had getting knee-walking drunk.

    When I finally managed to drag myself home I saw that she had gathered her shit and left.  The rotten bitch didn't even leave a good-bye note.

    Since I had managed to not save a single dime it didn't take long for my stuff to be pawned or sold. I had to give up my apartment and find cheaper accommodations. The rotten bastards repossessed my car while I was inside applying for unemployment.

    I managed to find a job as part-time day bartender in a third rate hotel and that kept the crummy roof over my head. I ate a lot of food left over from the hotel's restaurant so I wasn't in immediate danger of starving to death.

    I supplemented my tiny income by driving a car for assholes who could afford a car and driver and too fucking rich to take a taxi and on two nights a week I taught adult education at City College.

    Of all the things I had to give up, I missed my TV most.  Not that there was all that much worth watching but I missed just having it on and hearing the friendly noise. Even with three jobs I was just barely keeping my head above water.  It was damned depressing. I couldn't believe just how far I had sunk.

    I enjoyed teaching because the people who came to adult classes really wanted to be there and to learn.  Well, all but the few who were there by court order. That was how I met Mike Robinson.

    Black Mike, as he preferred to be called, had gotten in trouble with the law and part of his sentence was to get his GED.  He was enrolled in my basic English class. I had never met anyone who was so proud of being black that they made it a part of their name.

    "I don't need this shit," he told me on the first night of class.

    "No, probably not," I agreed. "But since you live here so you might as well know how to speak the language."

    Black Mike seemed to think that was funny.  In fact he seemed to think I was a funny guy. Actually he paid attention to my lectures and course plan while pretending not to. He did the work.

    Mike was one of five black people in the class. Two men and three women. The rest were a diverse mixture. Some whites, a variety of Hispanics, and a few Asians.

    One evening before class begun I overheard some of the students talking about a TV program. Black Mike asked me if I had watched and I told him I didn't have a TV.

    "What, you don't like the idiot tube?" one of them asked. I told them that I had sold my TV in the interest of eating. They all seem to think that was amusing.

    A couple nights later Black Mike asked if I was driving. I did sometimes take the car company's short limo to school so I would have it right after class. Juggling three jobs took a lot of planning. I told Mike I was with wheels that evening and he asked me where it was parked and for me to give him the keys. Of course I asked why and he told me he had something for me.

    I gave him the keys with a lot of uncertainty and to my relief he returned the keys a short while later. After class I saw there was a new portable TV in the backseat.  It was still in the carton so I knew it was new.  I wasn't sure I should accept it but my longing for the joyful and mostly idiotic sounds won over caution.  The next night we had class, I asked him about it.

    "Hey, don't worry 'bout it," he said. "I did you a solid and now you can do me one."

    "Mike, you are passing the class and it's pass-fail so what can I do for you that you haven't done for yourself?"

    "We'll think of something," he said and laughed. "You got cable?" I told him I didn't have cable and a few days later a man knocked on my apartment door while I was dressing for my bartending gig. Twenty minutes later I had cable.

    Of course I knew that the TV was more than likely stolen and I was certain the cable was. I was a little troubled that Mike knew where I lived but I got over it. Other than the TV, I had nothing worth stealing.

    "Hey, Teach," Mike said one night after class. "That company you drive for.  Do they keep up with the mileage?"

    "Sure," I said. "It's checked before I take it out and again when I bring it back. Why?"

    "I was thinking I might get a job driving for them," he said with a grin. I knew that was a lie.  I suspected he planned on using the car as a get-away vehicle or something just as sinister. "What do you charge to haul people around?"

    "It's a mileage and time thing," I said. "Minimum is twenty dollars and it goes up from that. It costs fifty dollars an hour for wait time. It's a lot more than a taxi costs."

    "So if you took somebody ten blocks and waited an hour if would cost seventy bucks?" he inquired. I told him it would be something like that.

    I told him that actually I didn't exactly wait for someone to shop or go to a movie. I usually dropped them off and went to another fare and returned at the appointed time.

    "But for say a hundred dollars you would park and wait?" he asked. I said I certainly would. He wanted to know what nights I worked and I told him every night. 

    "Okay, so if somebody asked for you, they would send you?" Mike asked me. I told him yes.  I had a few customers who asked for me by name. I wondered why he was so curious.

    "Luke, you have an eight o'clock pick-up," the car dispatcher said when I checked in the next night. "They asked for you," he added handing me the slip with the address on it. "They got a two hour exclusive use and paid for with a credit card." That wasn't unusual because we had several company accounts but most of the time I collected the money and hopefully a nice tip. 

    I picked up the fare that turned out to be a pretty young blonde woman and took her uptown to an apartment building and dropped her off.  I found a parking place and settled down to wait. I listened to the radio for a while then dozed. I was awakened about an hour later by the young woman opening the back door. 

    "Home, James," she said and laughed at her wit. I took her back to where I picked her up and she handed me a hundred dollar bill before she got out. That was a very nice tip. The whole thing took less than the two hours that were paid for.

    The next night I picked up another young white woman and did the exact same thing but at a different addresses. That got me another hundred dollar tip. A few nights later I did it again.

    Since I'm not stupid I knew I was delivering whores but I've always had a live and let live attitude toward the ladies of the evening.  It was a little odd because I didn't realize prostitutes used hired cars. I also was sure Black Mike had something to do with my windfall.  Over the next few weeks I noticed him looking at me with what I would call a smirk but with him a smirk would be hard to distinguish from his normal look.

    The car company rewarded the new and rather steady business by giving me a better and newer car. I didn't pay all that much attention to the women I drove around but one, a petit red-head I picked up and delivered several times.  Red, as I thought of her, was friendly and chatty and she apparently liked limericks.  Every time I picked her up she had a new one.

    

    There once was a man from Bel Air

    Who was doing his wife on the stair

    But the banister broke

    So he doubled his stroke

    And finished her off in mid-air 

    

    That was the latest one.  I found myself anticipating her riding with me because I also enjoy a raunchy limerick.

    So far I had picked up five different women all from the same address and delivered them to mostly different addresses.  High-priced hotels mostly. All the women were white and all were good looking. In my opinion Red was the prettiest of them.  Maybe that was because she didn't treat me the same as the car. She seemed to realize there was human driving.

    After the first three weeks business picked-up so that I was picking up the women almost every night. My commission from the car company was much better but the tips were outstanding. 

    Even a math dummy such as me could figure that if they were paying three hundred a night, including the big tip, for a ride they must be very expensive hookers.  I wondered what Black Mike had to do with any of it.  I found out about a month into the deal.

    It was the end of term for the adult education program. Since I was getting such good tips I didn't sign up to teach the summer session as I had in the past. I was even thinking about giving up the bartending job since I was pocketing an average of five hundred bucks a week just in tips from driving the hookers.

    "Hey, Teach," Black Mike said getting in the back with the girl. "How you doing?"

    "I'm fine, Mike," I told him. "Are you going with us tonight?"

    "Yeah, I'm riding shotgun tonight," he said and handed me a slip of paper with an address on it. Our destination wasn't in the normal high rent district as it had been. I drove us out of the city to the suburbs.  I found the address using the GPS the company furnished.

    I parked in front of the house and the girl got out. Mike got out with her and they spoke for a few moments.  She went on to the house, rang the bell, and was admitted. Mike got back in the car with me.

    "The television working good?" he asked. I told him it was. "Cable working okay?" Again I told him it was. "That's good," he said.

    "So what's the deal with the hookers?" I asked him. He didn't seem surprised that I had figured it out.

    "My buddy and I run a few whores," he said. "Kind of exclusive types, you know. Premium white girls for wealthy black men. The kind of men who don't mind paying a lot of money for some good white pussy."

    "Yeah, that's what I figured," I said. "They must pay a lot for you to pay for a hired car."

    "Yeah, but it's cheaper in the long run to hire you," he said. "Figuring the cost of a car, maintenance, insurance, and paying a driver, it's cheaper by far. Besides we pass the cost on to the fuckers."

    "How much does one of the girls cost?" I asked.

    "Fifteen hundred smackers a pop," he said. "We only hire the best whores."

    "For one hour?" I asked astonished. I like pussy as well as the next guy but that sounded high to me.

    "Yeah, and some of them don't even take that long," he said laughing.

    "What the fuck will they do for that much money?" I asked.

    "Anything the client wants," he said. "If you wanted some they would give you the friends and family discount.  Maybe Tess would throw you some free pussy. She seems to like you."

    "Who is Tess?" I asked. "I don't know any of them by name."

    "Tess is the tiny red-head," he said. "The one you swap dirty poems with."

    'So Red's name was Tess,' I thought. 'Good to know.'

    "How many ladies do you have working for you?" I asked.

    "Ten right now," he said. "No, nine. I forgot that Brenda quit yesterday. We try to keep ten or twelve on hand. Most of them are just part time."

    "Part-time hookers?  How does that work?"

    "Simple," he said. "They tell us when they will be available and we set something up for them.  That was Mattie who went in that house. She is some fools wife and when he's out of town she hooks. Some of the girls are students, housewives, some have a crap paying job and need more money," He laughed.  "And some just want some black cock. Takes all kinds."

    "All white?" I asked.

    "Yeah, all but one," he said.  "She's from Hawaii. Part islander, part Jap. Mattie may go into overtime but don't worry, I'll make it up if she does. Mattie is doing a doubleheader tonight."

    "What is a doubleheader?" I asked.

    "She fucking two men," Mike said. "That costs a lot more but Mattie likes the threesome scene."

    "I understand," I said. "So why are you here tonight?"

    "This is a new client," he said. "We are always careful with the new ones. Mattie has a locket and if she squeezes it the right way I get a signal. If I go in you be ready to haul ass out of here." I was ready right then but I didn't say so.

    "So do you live there where I pick up and deliver them?" I asked him.

    "Naw, I have a place," he said. "That's what we call the launching pad. The girls get ready to go out there. Some hang out there while they wait for an assignment."

    Since I already knew more about the prostitution business than was good for me we talked about sports. Mostly about basketball. He had just finished telling me how Michael Jordon was the best player ever to hit the hardwood court when Mattie emerged from the house.

    "How did it go?" he asked her when she was in the car.

    "Fine," she said. "No trouble."

    "Good," Mike said. "Did you get a good fucking?"

    "It was damned good," she said and laughed. "One had a short stubby dick but the other one was hung like a fucking pony so it balanced out nicely."

    I delivered them back to the starting place and called it in with minutes to spare so no overtime. Mattie handed me a hundred dollar bill and they got out. Mike patted the car top and told me he would see me as I drove away.

    I finished out the night by hauling some party people from club to club until nearly four in the morning then I called it a night.

    Because I was making so much money I decided to take off a few nights. I needed some down time and I deserved it. I took off Saturday and Sunday night and Monday morning I was awaken by some rude asshole beating on my door. It was Black Mike.

    "Why didn't you tell me you were not going to work over the weekend?' he demanded.

    "Mike," I said. "This may come as a surprise to you, but I don't work for you and I have no reason to tell you my schedule. It's nobody's fucking business if I take a few days off. What do you want?"

    "We needed a driver on Saturday night and we couldn't find you," he said. "You don't have a phone?"

    "No, can't afford it," I said. "Go away." I slammed the door in his face and went back to bed.

    About noon he was back. He had a new cellular phone with him. He handed the box to me and told me to charge it and keep it with me at all times.

    "Mike, if I had this phone Saturday night it would have made no difference at all. I don't have a car of my own," I said handing him the box back.

    "Keep it," he said. "What if you had your own car?" he asked. "Would you have come?"

    "Sure," I said. Since I wasn't doing anything but watching cable TV in my underwear I would have gone just for the tip.

    "Okay, I'll work something out," he said and left. I worked the afternoon shift bartending then went to the garage to get a car. There I got a surprise.

    "Miles, you got number fifteen," the dispatcher told me. "I understand you are going to keep it with you.  Who do you know?"

    "I know a lot of people," I said. Number fifteen was the newest of the short limousines. A short limo is your basic sedan with a little more room in the backseat. I had only been assigned to it once. "What exactly do you mean keep it?"

    "What the hell is tripping you up, Miles?" he said. "Keep it as in bring it back for gas and service. Break it and your ass is grass. Any more questions, go ask the boss."

    I had only seen the owner a few times from a distance. I only knew his name, Able Hobby, and that he was black.  I was beginning to think that Black Mike had some reach...long reach at that.  Much later I learned that Able Hobby was a silent partner in Mike and Mike's prostitution racket.