The Handsome Helper

Chapter 7

Entering the hotel room was hard enough since I had to walk so close to Le Patron but once I got in I inhaled a cloud of smoke which made me cough up a lung.

"Die silently" someone shouts from the games table. I look and see five men sitting around a dinner table playing cards. Their girls are sat near their feet on their legs. They're fully clothed and look like their about to die, the pins and needles must be excruciating. Le patron leads me to the table where he stands and watches while someone gets him a chair. A boy around my age seats my uncle and walks quickly away as if he's too scared to stay. I take a seat like the rest of the girls here.

I look at the men at the table and notice Donny in between the two eldest pimps in the ring. The next thing I notice is the girl at his feet. I know her. She's on Donny's dad's pay roll, how did he convince her to come here? And dressed like that? She sees me and produces a small smile. I sit with an unchanging face and she looks away. Donny hasn't spotted me yet so I offer a little cough to grab his attention but my endeavours go unnoticed. I give out another cough: nothing. Le patron takes his opportunity to hit me on the back. Hard. And tells me to go and get a drink.

While at the table I throw a shot down my neck. Ugh, cheap vodka.

"Slow down" Donny presses his hand to the small of my back while his breath warms up my left ear

"You're having fun" I say as I hand him a shot

"I've been to the year 3000"

"Have things changed?"

"Not much has changed but they live underwater" and with a wink I knew Donny was still mine.

When I first met Donny it was because his father forced him to be a customer. He thought Donny was batting for his own team so to "straighten" him out he sent his eldest son to the dark side of the city centre. Instead of paying for me to have sex with him, Donny payed for a fun night of a drunken karaoke: McBusted style. We danced, we kissed and we had fun.

From that first day, every month on the 5th, Donny picks me up and we relive that first night we met. I thought it was nice and special but I'm a girl; a sexy smirk can make my year.

We return to the circle to find the patrons getting ready to start playing strip poker. Of course none of the patrons would be actually stripping, no, they had us for that. It also entertained the other men, more than if the players were actually stripping. I didn't care for the game so I zoned out. I was nudged occasionally when it was my turn to take something off, it hardly occurred so I was safe.

But as I take my tights off I glance at Donny's girl. She's clutching her bare chest and her knees are supporting her chin. Hiding her parts. Either Donny really wasn't good at poker or he was playing his skills down. The men appear to be tossing around what appears to be a thong so I zone out again.

While the men talk business I follow the girls to the bathroom to freshen up. The bathroom looks like one you can find in a club, not a hotel. There's a row of toilet cubicles and a line of sinks underneath a long wall mirror.

"Hey" Donny's girl, Elisa greets me. I grab the powder out of my bag and lean against the sink to make the light get me in the right place before I apply more powder.

"Oh hi, you look lovely" I tell her. She's shaking uncontrollably, her tights still in her hand as she waits for a toilet to be empty

"Thanks, he's not paying me enough for this" she giggles confidently. That's probably why he picked her, she can fake a smile pretty well.

"Well" a toilet becomes free and before I can finish a goodbye she launches herself into it and locks the door.

I enter the main room again to find the men getting lap dances. I linger close to the refreshments table. If I become invisible maybe they won't remember I was supposed to be here. Maybe I can just sit in the bathroom all night, or maybe under the table. But after further inspection I deem the table a hazard since it only appeared to have 3 legs and the toilet unfit because of it basically being an obvious place to hide.

As the lap dancers climbed off their victims we rejoined the men.

"Who died and made you pimp?" My uncle's eyes fall onto Donny. Donny straightens up in his seat fixing his suit jacket

"My uncle Peters"

"Peters' nephew? Didn't know he had a sister" my uncle may be the head pimp in this ring but that doesn't change the fact he didn't go to high school

"He had a brother" Donny looks down at his hands when my uncle doesn't reply. My hands are sweating like mad and to make things worse my face is getting hot

"Your Uncle's date of birth and middle name?" Donny looks up and offers a confused look. Shit, he doesn't know. He doesn't know. Donny coughs into a fist

"The twenty-first of July nineteen-fifty-three and he didn't have a middle name" my uncle nods and clears his throat

"I want to talk business, so tell me donerello, which streets did you inherit?" I want nothing more in this moment than to punch my uncle in the face. How hard is it to say Donatello?

"Well, I inherited most of the streets in Longsight" he pauses to look to the right of him "except obviously the streets Jonny has"

"Mmm, fair play, that's a lot of turf"

"Yes, and I want to give you some of it" Donny explains. Everything falls silent, Donny opens his mouth to elaborate but stops. The clock ticks: tick, tock.

Trading streets wasn't exactly out of the ordinary but Donny's new. He isn't supposed to even talk in his first year.

"I am not a charity" Le patron says angrily. I feel the tensions, everyone does. And everyone reacts, none at all, squirming, fidgeting, sweating etc. But Donny sits composed while everyone else, including me, freaks out. Well, they're all freaking out about Donny getting killed right here and right now but I'm scared he'll get made, but it would lead to the same thing.

"Did I say that? Hear me out" Donny takes control of the situation by being sincerely offended. He's good.

"Yeah, hear him out Vinny" someone chimes in, they're quickly silenced with a quick head turn and glare. But Le patron leans back in his chair and signals for Donny to continue

"A little dead birdy told me a while ago" Donny looks down, pretending to reminisce about his dead uncle. It works as the patron sitting to his right pats him on the ack reassuringly and he smiles to thank him "that, you have a problem"

"Is that so" he's been made. They know. Le patron knows. He can see it, he can see Donny's a fake. He's gonna kill Donny, he's gonna kill me.

"Heard about someone trying to get you locked up" silence. It's the kind of silence you get at a funeral, you feel obliged to say something but when you open your mouth to do so, you're scolded by your mum. In this case I am the awkward kid and Le patron is my mum.

"Get to the point"

"Well, I'm offering you, Ferrance street and Hampy road" Donny explains

"Why?"

"They're right near the station"

"why would I make it easier for one of my girls to go to the station. They could easily go on their shift" the atmosphere becomes more tense and everyone is watching the two. Even the staff filling up the food bowls

"But won't there be someone watching? And if your girls are on those streets and they happen to catch the rat they'd tell you. All you have to do is accept my offer and put up a reward for whoever catches the rat in the act"

"Deal" Le patron leans over the table and put out his hand and Donny takes it. Le patrons eyes never stop watching Donny all through the night. Even when he's doings deals with other pimps, he's always watching him.

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