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Observations of An Ex-Cop in La La Land |
 ANDY MURCIA |
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The Pimping Field |
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at right, you see the standard pimp turned Hollywood producer. |
 That's not Sonny Bono in his "I Got You, Babe" days; it's our Andy Murcia as an undercover Chicago vice cop in the 1970s, working the prostitution unit. Cool! But could he sing? |
Andy's Hookerland duties
were hard on the pimps
By ANDY MURCIA
of TheColumnists.com
Back in the early 1970s, when I was working as a Chicago vice cop in the prostitution unit, pimping was almost an art form.
The pimps weren't just surviving, they were thriving. It was “Super Fly” time! They tooled around in big Cadillac convertibles with those big moon headlights and custom installed Rolls Royce grills. They dressed in the most conspicuous loud colors and goofy styles. They wore “big apple" caps, oversized sunglasses like “Sly” of “The Family Stone” fame, and sometimes more phony gold than Mister T in his prime. These pimps were the first real “super salesmen”--way better than the ones we see pitching junk we don’t need on TV infomercials today.
As a vice cop, I made it a practice never to let a pimp talk to me at length because I knew of his ability to make people do things that didn’t make sense. For instance, a prostitute turning car tricks has sex for money with some horny toad in an alley. She then gives the pimp the money. The pimp takes thousands of dollars from the prostitute. In return, he buys her a pair of red boots so she can attract more customers. This makes no sense to me.
So, when I made a street stop of a known pimp with his ladies in the car, soon as he starts to lay his long rap on me, I’d take his hat off and lightly brush it on his face all during our conversation. Not hard enough to qualify as a battery beef, just enough to keep him off balance and show my lack of respect for him.
This may sound abrasive to those uninformed about such sub-cultural pimp matters, but when dealing with the pimp’s version of “respect,” there is good reason behind this action: The pimp would be reduced to zero respect in front of his ladies, which was important if we ever hoped to have one of them testify against him in court.
Pimping back then was a
seemingly safe way to go for criminals too cowardly to try a
stick up or a burglary. Pimps mostly get charged with a petty
misdemeanor. Pandering on the other hand was the felony charge
that could send a pimp to the big house for over a year or more.
The most common way to arrest a pimp on a pandering charge was
to get a prostitute to testify against him in court. But by the
time the court date rolled around for her to testify, her memory
of how he pimped her got as lost as Jimmy Hoffa’s body.
The pimp knew when to kiss up. Judges hammering “case dismissed”
for lack of evidence rang in my ears all too often as the pimp
sauntered out of court. I knew I had to figure out a way to make
the felony pandering charge stick.
I had an idea that hadn't been tried much in Chicago. I went to my boss, Lt. Bicek, and detailed how I would like to go to the police academy, hand pick a female cop or two, and teach them how to be prostitutes, at least enough to fool a street-wise pimp looking to make her one of his “traps.”
I guess you need a pimp language lesson about now: Pimps referred to prostitutes as “traps.” There were two kinds: (1) "Kinky Tops" or Afro-American prostitutes and (2) “Snow,” the white prostitutes.
A veteran black pimp once told me, “Snow will get you where you want to go, but kinky tops will keep you there.” Translation: Though white girls could obtain more money for their services, it was the Afro-American girls who worked harder and longer for their “man. And they were more streetwise than white girls.
A pimp fancied himself a “hunter” who would collect money from his “traps.” As a vice cop, I thought of myself as a hunter, too, but the kind who put "no-good bums" in cages for living off someone’s daughter.
I suggested to my lieutenant that we could wire our policewomen for sound and school them on how to avoid the entrapment defense, so often put forth by pimps' lawyers. With the policewomen as the complainant, there would be no way the pimp could walk on a felony pandering charge.
My boss was very concerned for the safety of the policewomen. I assured him that women could be just as brave as male cops--and we’d provide tight backup for them. The Boss let me try it, but cautioned, “Nobody better get hurt.”
Soon I was walking the halls of the old police academy, so I could see as many of the police trainees as possible when they had lunch breaks. Both the men and women trainees were dressed in khaki uniforms, I felt like the casting director for "Top Gun.” The trainees were mostly suspicious of me because I wasn't in uniform, wore a goatee and looked more like someone they were being trained to arrest. So, we just sort of eyeballed each other.
I soon spotted my first policewoman choice. She was sort of blond, wore thin wire eyeglasses, maybe 5-6, 130 lbs, no make up, had a clean cut American farm girl look, and no way did she look more than 18, even though I later learned she was in her mid- 20’s. My second choice was a young, dark-haired beauty, pleasingly plump in the booty department, who looked like a clean cut version of a 17-year-old runaway. I reported their names to my boss, who promptly got them assigned to my team.
Each night the policewomen, my partner and I would meet at a coffee shop and talk for hours. We’d then drive them around to see how the real prostitutes worked a stroll. In about a week they managed to get a handle on the oldest occupation. We had them equipped with audio transmitting devices and they knew their “exit lines” if a case became too dangerous. That would signal their backup to respond immediately.
The policewomen were good, very good. In their first few weeks of duty, they netted us more pimps with felony pandering charges than we had made for the entire year before. The pimps were pleading guilty in court once they learned they didn’t have a real “Ho” testifying against them, but a real policewoman instead. Our conviction rate was 17 out of 18 cases. Our boss was indeed happy with the results, and the decoy program, I’m proud to say, became S.O.P. for pimp enforcement throughout the department.
While it’s true that a bad economy makes for fewer customers of prostitutes, make no mistake about it, it’s business as usual when it comes to man's quest for “Vooo-man,” as one Polish customer I pinched put it. We found him drunk during a raid of a call girls' flat. He had money in his hand and kept saying he wanted “Voo-man.” He had no idea I was a cop. He thought I was butting the line, and he wanted to be first.
But I'm here to tell you that the pimping trade doesn't seem to be what it used to be these days. I have a few theories about why that's true.
For one thing, pimps have succumbed to crack cocaine in great numbers. For those who don’t know, crack cocaine makes a person act as close to being embalmed as you can be while still alive. A crackhead soon loses everything, and in the case of a pimp, he loses his “traps.” A pimp on crack does not care how much money his “Ho” has brought in. All he cares about is did she make enough for his next crack buy.
Now this next part might
be hard for many readers to understand, but to a prostitute,
I assure you, it makes perfect sense. With her pimp on crack,
the prostitute soon feels he is no longer exciting. He doesn't
dress up in those “stylin” flashy clothes anymore.
He doesn't take her around to all the night spots like he used
to do. All the pimp wants now is crack. The prostitute feels
her pimp does not care about her anymore and soon leaves him
for a pimp who is more on his game. She “respects”
a pimp who will punish her if she fails to meet her “quota”
of money for a night's work. If a pimp works her over for letting
him down, in her warped mind she thinks he “cares”
about her. Go figure!
Pimps who use the pimping game as a means to an end sometimes
invest the money into a lawful type business, but pimps who live
by the pimping life will, as they say, “die by the pimping
life.” If a bad economy, vice cops and women’s liberation
don't put them out of business, crack cocaine will.
Like the aging Hollywood actor who thinks he’s only one picture away from making a comeback, the pimp on crack thinks he’s only one good “Ho” away from a “comeback," too. While crack lets him dream it, crack also prevents it. On crack, he’s as near dead as can be, but just doesn’t know it yet.
Now I'm going to tell you
an incredible "pimp success story." This is one for
the book.
Back in my vice cop days, I heard about this character that I'll
call Robert Dribbleoff, which is kind of a variation of his real
name. He was operating a quasi-legal investment business in Chicago
from a high-rise building. I had received a tip from an informant
about his activities. He liked to play like he was a “Mafia”
guy who would set up girls with his “big player” accounts,
hoping to induce them to invest in his schemes.
One cold winter day, my informant, a white hooker who looked very Swedish, took our two decoy policewomen to Robert's skyscraper office and introduced them as her “associates.” She said they wanted to work for him, too. My partner and I were listening in on the wire, attached to one of the policewomen’s bra straps. Robert got very excited about the possibilities in having not one, but three prostitutes in his private office. He got up, locked the door, quickly dropped his trousers, sat back on his desk and demanded a "freebie" as a gesture of their “good faith.”
My partner and I were in the office across the hall, along with the building manager, who also wanted evidence so he could evict this “bum.” But I was worried about our policewomen. We couldn't make the bust until Robert spelled out the financial details.
I could hear one policewoman trying to verbally dance away from having to do a "good faith" job on him.
“Robert, honey," she told him, "I never have sex before five.”
"But, honey," he said, "My clients are international. It must be five in Madrid by now, so come over here and..."
At that point, Robert grabbed at her breast and her bra strap snapped hard, making a loud noise into her transmitter that nearly blew out my eardrums as I listened with headphones. It sounded like a gunshot, and because the woman yelled, “ouch,” I was ready to charge across the hall. I had my gun in my hand and was a step towards the door when I heard the other policewoman talking and knew it was not a shot I'd heard.
The other policewoman tried to save the day, telling Robert, “Listen, Babe, why don’t we go get a hotel room where I can do everything you want?”
Robert thought her idea was great, but he still wanted “a little something just to hold me until we get to the hotel.”
That's when the real hooker--our informant, “Miss Sweden”--came to the rescue of her local police department and “blew the horn,” so to speak. Being as Robert had not as yet fully stated the financial details necessary to sustain a pandering felony charge, the two policewoman tried to think of some way to get us to that point. That's when one of them put her arms around the other one and said, “I can’t wait for you to see this lady and me together.”
That idea really turned Robert on, so he excused himself from the ministrations of Miss Sweden, pulled his trousers up and ushered all three women to his vintage Bentley for the ride to the hotel.
Later in the hotel room, Robert pushed one of the policewomen against the wall and said in his best Bogart tone of voice; “You better do as I say or you’ll find yourself with cement shoes in the Chicago River, you dig?”
Robert finally incriminated himself enough to sustain a pandering charge, and with a key entry, my partner and I came through the door like Elliott Ness crimestoppers. I’ll never forget the whipped look on Robert’s face as the policewoman took her hat off and slowly brush slapped his face as she admonished him for pulling at her bra strap! She had learned her lessons well.
Of course we gave Miss Sweden a pass out for going “above and below” the call of duty on behalf of the policewomen. The pimp pleaded guilty and was sentenced to a one to three year term.
So, why is this a "pimp success story"? Well, that part came later, after I had retired from the Chicago police and moved to Sherman Oaks. California, with my wife, actress Ann Jillian. I was shopping at the market just a couple of blocks from our house when a brand new Rolls Royce Cornish convertible pulled up next to me in the parking lot. The driver, who was wearing a Chicago Bulls cap, looked familiar. Then I clicked on him: It was Robert the Pimp.
"Murcia, I'm on the square now," he told me. "I'm a movie producer now--and I'm doing fantastic."
Then he started his rap on me, saying, "Maybe I'll put your wife in one of my films."
That's when I reached up, took off his cap and started brush-slapping his face with it. I kept smiling and kept brush-slapping his face until he finally got annoyed enough to drive off, so I could finish my grocery shopping.
I guess the moral of this story is: If the pimping business starts to go sour on you, you can always follow Robert's example and go to Hollywood. I suppose there's always something an ex-pimp can do out here and make a pretty good living.
© 2002 by Andy Murcia.
The Andy Murcia photos are from the author's personal files.
All rights reserved. The pimp cartoons are from IMSI's Master
Clips Collection, 1895 Francisco Blvd. E., San Rafael, CA, 94901-5506,
USA.
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