Established Marvel : a Monk by Abbreviation

225. ESTHER AMARKAT AND THE MARKET OF SLEAZE:

"There's no distinction between hot water and trouble and if you're in one you're in the other and I've been so long in both that it don't matter none to me" Esther said that to me one day at Kurt's Mellow-Mat as the house of pleasure was being called that month and I was in such a bad mood that I couldn't really care what she was saying nor even talking about all I wanted was the money in an envelope I was supposed to be picking up - which she did eventually give to me - and all she wanted was it seemed to delay that moment for as long as possible (and I was later told a lot of that was the same way about sex with her but I never really cared) and I turned once and said "I don't know what you're talking about but go on if you have to" and she smiled and lit a cigarette - which she smoked essentially in one drag from a long red cigarette holder which she held between jewel encrusted fingers with really bad nails - and said "my mother was a washwoman to the Reilly Appomattox family - if that means anything to you - and she learned a lot from them including how to steal and how to cover her tracks but nothing more ever came to me that was as important as learning that getting AWAY is more important than arriving - if you follow" and of course again I didn't but said nothing "and you take this envelope back to Max and tell him to shove the whole wad up his ever-loving white ass" and although I delivered the goods I never spoke those words to him and never saw her again either but no matter because within two years Maxie was dead and his whole syndicate it would appear was over and finished - so I figured somewhere along the line it was HE who had never learned from Esther how to 'get away' but then maybe she didn't either learn from herself or anyone else and by then just the same I too was gone and moved on to other things but these many little night-lessons learned while working here and there for twenty thirty fifty or a hundred bucks a week was a great experience for me and I never ever crossed anyone and so stayed out of trouble and learned of things I could talk about for ever and ever if I had too and such 'service' in the pursuit of crime was nothing more than schooling in the pursuit of the same crap anyone else in regular schooling would have been after and once a long while later I ran into one of the girls I'd seen at Esther's and she recognized me too and started talking to me and she said that Esther was a really kind woman but tough as grime and had been shut down so many times that she knew the entire racket by heart but no one was sure anymore where she was or what had happened to her but they'd heard that Atlanta was her next big market and maybe she was there or no one really knew but just said that and she said too that she herself worked most everywhere she could but that "nowadays it was a lot easier because everybody was on the make and looking for girls and even regular businessmen now had turned scales and gone crazy-hip and ready for action and nobody cared anymore about anything and money and men were both a lot easier to make these days and anyway see ya' around sometime maybe."