Madam by Cari Lynn Page B

the doors with splintery boards.
    At the sight of their cribs being boarded up, several pimps who’d been watching from the windows of nearby saloons came racing over. The pimps hadn’t bothered to dash over as their whores were being dragged out, but the moment their property was being threatened, well, that was an entirely different story.
    “This crib is mine!” a pimp yelled, and the two policemen nailing the boards turned to him and smiled. Before the pimp knew what was happening, he was handcuffed and shoved into a paddy wagon. This sight stopped all other pimps in their tracks, and they skidded and flailed as they reversed their direction. The not-so-dumb ones kept running, but the really dumb ones ducked back into a saloon, or took shelter in an outhouse, or dove into a ditch—only to be quickly forced out by police batons.
    Beulah was one of the unfortunate whores dragged from her crib. Her husky voice boomed up and down the Alley as two officers wrestled her to the ground.
    “The hell if I know where Lobrano’s bony ass be!” she shouted in response to the officers’ questioning. “He better pray to Jesus y’all find him ’fore I do!”
    “Should we take her in?” one officer asked the other. He grimaced at Beulah.
    “The ugly stick sure likes you,” he said to her, and for once she had the sense to keep her mouth shut. “Let her go,” he instructed his partner. “Don’t want to be lookin’ at that all night.”
    “Ya heard him, get on now!” the first officer ordered, kicking dust at Beulah. She stumbled away as fast as she could.
    From a safe distance, another watchful eye took in the chaos: Kermit McCracken, senior reporter for the Mascot . On his head an ever-present bowler hat, and in his hand an ever-present notebook. It was his personal mission to expose corruption in this city, especially on Venus Alley; given his high calling, he barely ever slept. And now he was practically licking his lips—this was the type of story he lived for. Writing furiously, he recorded how many people had been rounded up and how many cribs had been boarded. After only ten minutes, he’d tallied a dozen cribs barricaded and two paddy wagons packed full, filthy fingers clasping the bar windows as pimps’ bruised and confused faces peered through.
    After the screaming and commotion died down, the Alley seemed oddly still but for the whimpering of a few wandering, snotty-nosed children, their mothers having run off to save themselves. A sweaty Inspector O’Connor stood in the middle of the Alley, surveying the destruction with a series of prideful nods. “This constitutes a public service to the city of New Orleans,” he announced, even though the only Alley inhabitants left were tightly packed in the paddy wagons. “Today,” he continued, “we’re throwing out the trash.” With that, he motioned to his men to head onward.
    McCracken scrawled a headline in his notebook: “ DISGUSTING DEPRAVITY SILENCED ON VENUS ALLEY! BUT FOR HOW LONG? DOZENS OF DEVIL WORKERS IMPRISONED! ” before hurrying after them. He couldn’t wait to meet them at the police station and begin his onslaught of questions—this was going to be the story of the year!
    Snitch, however, waited until the last officer had disappeared before gingerly emerging from his hiding place. He surveyed the damage. The Alley looked like a battle site with broken glass and debris strewn everywhere; even the rats had taken cover. But Snitch wasn’t sidelined for long—oh no, he had his own agenda to pursue. He dutifully ran off, straight to Anderson’s Saloon.

    Snitch found Tom Anderson alone at the bar, calmly sipping a glass of orange juice, reading the front page news of the Picayune . Snitch couldn’t believe his fate—could it be that Tom Anderson himself, lord of the Underworld, hadn’t heard about the raid, and that he, little Snitch of the Alley, was going to have the privilege of telling him? Nearly giddy, Snitch’s chest heaved