No Beast So Fierce by Edward Bunker Page B

shit was over, did you?” Five minutes later his teeth were stubs, his jaw fractured, his ribs broken. He didn’t walk away.
    Leaving him alive was my mistake. Because I lived by the criminal code, I’d assumed that he did, too. He told the police what had happened and who I was. It surprised me at that time, though with more experience I would have expected it.
    It took forty-eight hours to post bail, so the story preceded my return to the vice scene. The pimp was in the hospital, but the eyes of others were averted.
    A week later he testified at the preliminary hearing, claiming he didn’t know why I’d attacked him. Afterward, I couldn’t find him. I wanted to persuade him to keep quiet. If persuasion failed, I’d be faced with the choice of fleeing California or murdering him.
    Fate relieved me of the choice. He was killed by a hit and run driver. I expected to be arrested forthwith, punched around a substation for several hours until my lawyer got a writ. Nothing happened. Nobody came to see me. On the day of trial the charges were dropped because the prosecution’s main witness was “missing”. Incredible as it seemed, the police investigating the assault somehow didn’t know about the accident, and those investigating the accident didn’t know the deceased was a crucial witness in an assault trial.
    The Sunset Strip underworld assumed that I’d killed him. Nobody knew the source of our quarrel, but rumors spread—the most generally accepted story was that he’d owed money to the Syndicate (or Vegas) and I was a “hit” man.
    Fear had been indelibly printed in the Strip’s underworld. Pimps turned their eyes away when I stared too hard. Bartenders became oily sycophants; seldom did I pay for a drink. It was funny to me, but I played it seriously.
    The reason I never went through with the organization plan (besides still lacking henchmen) was that I got my own high-priced call girl, giving me nearly a thousand dollars a week, tax free. Twenty years old, from Texas, turned out in a New Orleans brothel, she called herself “Sandy Storm”. It pays to advertise in whoredom like everywhere else.
    Eight months later Sandy grabbed the brass ring, departed for Australia as wife of a man who owned a sheep ranch half the size of Texas. Her departure left me with twenty-two grand in a safety deposit box, a new Cadillac, and a good wardrobe. Instead of getting another whore to support me, I began using my leisure and money (criminals will listen to a man with a “front”) to prepare scores, casing and planning and financing, for others to rip off. Most criminals live on desperation’s brink, willing to act but lacking the wherewithal. They are quite willing to take the risk and give up a percentage if everything is arranged for them. One of my more lucrative operations was forgery. Twice a month I went to Tijuana and bought false identification and a book of checks printed on huge aerospace companies, Douglas, Boeing, Lockheed, or other giants such as Southern Pacific. Nobody questioned those kind of checks. Checks and three sets of identification costs $125, and finding thieves to hang such blue chip paper was easier than buying it. I took 30 percent. But this operation proved my downfall. A passer was caught, and in the police station had an attack of mouth diarrhea. Careless with success, I had checks, protector, and typewriter in the apartment when the door crashed in. The carelessness had cost me eight years.
    By underworld standards (thief underworld), which consider how long the run of victories rather than the eventual fall, which is considered inevitable, I was a ringing success. Two years of silk suits, Cadillacs, and weekends in Palm Springs was the epitome of success, especially in the eyes of those with whom I’d been raised.
    During the eight years in jail I realized that I hadn’t been happy, and felt that what I’d