Prologue
LUST THREAT!
"The Oldest Diversion, gentlemen, is the same as the oldest Profession. But it's odds on that gambling came next, perhaps even immediately afterward." The quote, from Esquire's Book of Gambling, is applied in this case to Pete Trask, a man used to taking any gamble ... trained to live with risk as a daily habit from living precariously in streets as tough and brawling as he was. The only things more questionable than Trask's background were the depraved characters he lived and fought with. He accepted his lusts and desires casually, satisfying them at his convenience, but these extravagances of human emotion could only be easily accepted by Trask and the denizens of the slums that were bigger than life, but not bigger than Trask. The men who got in the way of his degradation were physically crushed-the wantons totally dominated. In this background of ruthlessness, Trask found that he had to live by a peculiar code-a blessing for some, but destruction for others....