Prologue
Now, to get to Split's place is not really difficult even though for some reason the police never seem to manage it. First you go right down Humphrey Street past Max's Pawn Shop, the one with the stuffed peacock in the window, and it might be a good idea to keep one hand on your wallet in this part of the city because the folks are friendly enough hereabouts even though they look a little mean; but life has gotten pretty tough in the last few years and some of the old-timers have become real experts at the five-fingered, share-the-wealth technique, meaning their fingers and your wealth.
Okay, now at the pawn shop you turn right and it might be a good idea to cross over to the other side of the street at this point because there is a real mean drunk named Hector who usually sleeps in the alley-way running between Sleepy Joe's Bar and Grill and the slaughter house. Incidentally, Sleepy Joe is out of jail now and back behind the bar, but it's not a good place to stop for a drink late in the evening because sometimes things happen in there they don't talk about in the morning papers. From here on it's easy going so long as you don't get side-tracked and wander into the whorehouse at the end of the street, which would not be a good idea either even if you 're in the mood because some of those girls may look all right, but a few days after you've been with one of them, you might notice a nasty itching sensation in your pants and then you've got to spend a lot of money on penicillin. When the folks in this part of town need a girl, they usually call up Split and he arranges things.
In fact. Split arranges almost everything on this side of the tracks, and he's really not a bad guy once you get to know him, although naturally he can play a little rough if somebody tries to shortchange him which nobody who knows him would ever dare to do. But a girl Split sends around isn't going to give you what those dudes from the hospital call "a social disease," and he won't cheat you, either, even though he naturally takes his percentage off the top: guess that's why everybody calls him Split. If you'll split the profits, Split will set up almost anything for you except for the real rough stuff, for which you have to see Tony. Tony can be hard to find because the police are also interested in talking to him, but Split can locate him if you need something taken care of in a hurry.
All right, if you're following my directions so far, you'll find a photo shop just behind the whorehouse where Split usually hangs around with Jack Lynch, the photographer. Jack's got a big studio just behind his shop which used to be a warehouse, but he and Split have fixed the place up; and, if you and your friends are in the mood for a real wild party I mean an exceptionally wild party you can arrange to be invited to one there, providing the price is right and you aren't wearing one of those blue uniforms with a badge on your chest.
Now, when you get into the shop, the first person you see is usually Liza who is a sensational looking chick with long brown hair and a body which might make you think about going back to the whorehouse, itch or no itch. Liza works for Split, and if you 're really interested she can be had, but you've got to be gentlemanly about it and speak to Split first, because Liza likes to think of herself as a "model" and she's a couple of social classes above those girls who work the streets. None of the guys in this neighborhood can afford her, but once in a while she goes on "dates" with well-heeled businessmen from the other side of town, and from the stories we hear around here she's worth every penny of it, although naturally Split takes his cut.
Anyway, Liza looks you over, and if you don't look like the fuzz or a narc or some other kind of undesirable type, she'll send you back to see Split; and you'll know him when you see him. He's real tall, about six-five, and not bad looking except for a nose he got broken in a fight a couple of years back. He's thin, but not what you'd call skinny played a couple of seasons of semi-pro basketball when he was a kid, and he stays in trim. In his business, it pays.
The other guy is Jack Lynch, who takes pictures at weddings and Bar-Mitzvahs as a side-line, but most of his work is girly pictures and folks say he does a little blackmail photography on the side. Jack is lazy and they say he got into photography because he couldn't get up the energy for anything more complicated than pushing and releasing the shutter on a camera, but he's also supposed to be the biggest cocksman west of the Central Train Station, so maybe he's just saving his strength for things that count.
Still interested in paying the old neighborhood a visit? Well, so was Joan Caruthers. Maybe you'd better hear what happened to her first.. .