Greta Swenson, Working Girl on Lake Street - The First Day

Greta Swenson was sick with a fever and chills. It wasn’t the everyday sickness she experienced when she felt the deep yearning that caused her skin to crawl and her stomach heave when she was late to receive her daily-fix. Today’s sickness was something else, it was the sickness that came with the end of summer, it was the sickness that came with the rain and the sudden shifts in the weather, but despite being ill she was out on the corner because her pimp didn’t give her a choice.

She had told Franky that she was feeling horrible, and he gave her a little extra something, a pick me up he called it, and it stung as it went up her nose, but it gave her energy even though agitated her something fierce.

“Earn or burn,” Franky told her. That was all the compassion she would see from him. She suspected that he didn’t even know her name.

Greta stood under the rain-soaked awning hoping a man would take her off the streets and bring her somewhere for the whole night. She was on the look-out for one of her regulars, hoping that one of the nice men would find her and get her out of the weather.

There was a lot of business on the street, even with the downpour, but nothing had been coming her way; she didn’t have the hustle in her that night.

Greta took a spot around the corner from Franky’s Bar, a place where he wouldn’t be able to see her from where he sat, not that it mattered because the beat cops were patrolling, and they would keep the girls active as they were paid to do; they would do anything short of beating a girl with a night-stick if she wasn’t on her mark turning tricks…or trying at least.

She had her eye on a young, good-looking fellow standing by the newsstand. He was tall and had a nice face, though his shoes were a tattered and his coat was somewhat threadbare. Whoever he was, he wasn’t paying attention to Greta at all; his eyes were glued to the opposite side of the street, like he was waiting for something to happen.

Greta followed him with her eyes as he walked from the newsstand to the drug store where he bought a bottle of brown liquor, then he stood in the doorway and continued his watch.

He had some money in his pocket, Greta thought. That was a good sign, it encouraged her to approach him, to show that she was making an effort.

She was tired of being ignored. She began walking toward him when suddenly there was a commotion across Lake street in front of the Round-Up Saloon..

A giant of a man had been thrown out onto the curb.

Greta didn’t know who he was but she recognized him; she had seen him once with Franky and she knew that Franky was afraid of him, and if Franky was scared of him then he was someone to be feared by anyone, Greta thought.

The scene in front of the Round-Up had the complete attention of the nice looking man. He was watching closely, and so was Greta as the barback from the Round-up came out with the giant man’s hat in his hand, and something else…a piece of paper, maybe his tab she thought.

Then there was a powerful stroke of lightning, a bright-white flash that hurt her eyes, and the thunder that followed rattled every window on the street.

Greta stumbled, and when she recovered from the crack-and-boom of the lightning bolt everything and everyone around her was in motion.

The giant was running down the strip with her mark in swift pursuit him, and two beat cops were fast on their heels.

“Fuck!” Greta cursed out loud.

She knew enough to know that there was going to be trouble; and she thought about using the confusion as cover to get out of the rain and go back to her room.

 

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Franky Lyons, A Lake Street Pimp - The First Day

Franky Lyons sat a small round table with two of his fellow operators.

They were sitting at his table, in his bar. Together the three of them controlled all the skin trade between Miller field and Chicago Avenue, and he was their chief.

The heavy rain had forced them inside but they kept watch over the action from Franky’s table in the window, monitoring the girls who were out in the weather getting soaked.

The three of them had been sitting together for a few hours, sipping brandy and comparing notes. They were all eager for life to return to normal now that the war between Karl Thorrson and Colonel Forrester had come to an end.

Things were changing on strip; they had been for the better of a year and now all of them were kicking up to giant gangster from Norway, an ominous figure who had suddenly emerged as the biggest-meanest guy in town.

It didn’t matter to Franky who he kicked up to, all that mattered to him was turning the wheel, keeping cash in his safe, clean girls on the street and having the right supply of dope to keep them in line. He was a merchant not a soldier…he was a business man, he enjoyed his work and he was good at it.

The three pimps sat in the window beneath the sign outside that had Franky’s name on it beaming brightly in the dark with the a neon-glow, watching as the beat cops went up and down the strip with their long coats and plastic wrapped hats, swinging their billy-clubs.

They were supposed to keep a watchful eye on the cars pulling up to the side of the street, the girls jumping in and out, the packages of dope getting exchanged for handfuls of cash, and the bag men carrying the loot to the drop spots.

As long as the beat-boys did their job, Franky surmised, there would be no need for any of the three of them to get wet that night.

The storm was fierce, but it was just another night on Lake Street to him and his partners.

When Franky saw Karl Thorrson walk into the tavern across the street however, he felt a sense of dread, like a bowling ball sinking in his stomach; the sight cut against Franky’s sense of good order.

He liked things predictable.

The new crime boss walking the strip by himself during this downpour was anything but predictable.

Neither of his cohorts had noticed the anomaly and Franky didn’t say anything to them. He waited and watched and ordered another round of drinks from his bar maid, Estell.

It wasn’t until the lightning struck and the crowd began to gather outside of the Round-Up that Franky gave any indication that there was something amiss…but of course, by then everyone knew.

When he saw Thorrson running away from the scene as if he were fleeing the site of a murder, with two beat cops and another guy whom he did not recognize in hot pursuit, Franky decided to alert his friends to what was happening, then he sent them out to get the news.

Going out into the rain was not what they wanted to do, but they got their things together and did as they were told; they had work to do.

Franky went to the telephone and dialed his contact, Lieutenant Standish, with the Park Police.

When the Lieutenant got on the phone he was cold as ice, but he said he would send a radio car with a couple of uniformed Rangers down to check things out, than he hung up with no-so-much as a thank you.

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