Let's Get It On!_ The Making of MMA and Its Ultimate Referee - Big John Mccarthy [29]
A prostitute’s job is to manipulate, not only to get people to accept services but to get more money out of them. That’s how they make a living. Sometimes they’d put up a fight when we’d try to arrest them, because having to get an angry pimp to bail them out or sitting in a jail cell until they got a court date equaled minutes ticking away without pay.
When I confronted prostitutes, my goal was to find a reason to either take them in or let them walk. Prostitutes’ ears were always to the street. If they had some type of information that could help us in bigger cases, such as local murders or robberies, we’d let them go.
The offer of sex in exchange for freedom was always there, but no sane officers would do that. If they did, they’d become the john and could be arrested themselves.
My first partner in Hollywood Vice was Maria Gonzales, a five-feet-two bodybuilder who scared all the female prostitutes to death. They knew if they didn’t listen to her, she’d make their lives miserable. Even though they weren’t afraid of any of the male officers, they feared Maria.
I couldn’t help feeling for some of the women. I thought they were simply trying to get on with their lives, make money, and survive. They weren’t bad people. One girl I met was a crack addict who’d been in a few porn films. Her mom contacted me through the station, and I told her where her daughter was and tried to reunite them to get her off the street. In the end, it didn’t work. Prostitutes were what they were, and the problem was that they were addicted to the lifestyle. It didn’t matter what was right or best for them; they had to fuel that addiction.
My second Vice partner was Danny Molieri. Danny had already worked in Southwest with me. One of the sergeants had been impressed with him and plucked him out to come work in Hollywood Division.
Danny had an unshakable confidence, and I swear he thought he was the best-looking guy in the world. He wasn’t, but he did have the gift of gab, which came in handy when we were out working together. Danny and I gradually became friends. This bothered Elaine because she thought he was a player with the ladies, and she didn’t want that rubbing off on me.
I couldn’t blame Elaine for being worried. Many marriages fail when one or both spouses are in law enforcement. When I was coming home at 8:00 a.m. and had just enough time to kiss my wife on the cheek as she rushed out the door to her day job, it was taxing. And none of the other shifts were any better, especially when I was pulling double duty to make court appearances for my arrest cases when I wasn’t on duty.
We also met a lot of women, and not all of them could resist a man in uniform. Unfortunately, a lot of police officers don’t know how to say no in the face of temptation either. I wasn’t one of those officers, though.
Danny and I worked Vice together, so we spent a lot of time around the Hollywood prostitutes. I have to tell you, I wasn’t tempted in the least. Everybody thinks when you work Vice, you’re in contact with a lot of women, and you are to a certain degree. But in Hollywood, there are about five male prostitutes to every female working the streets.
Sometimes I would work in plainclothes pretending to be a john looking to try something new. In my Mercedes rental car, I’d pull up wearing a suit and my wedding ring and tell a male prostitute I was from out of town and just wanted to experience a different side of me.
They’d climb into the car every time. The ones that groped first and asked questions later got crushed into the floorboard of the car. I have to admit, in those situations, I much preferred the females.
And then there were the transvestites. We called them Dragons, and I didn’t like any of them. Dragons never hit on officers when they were in uniform, but they’d stand around taunting us with “Oh, jou are so good-looking” or “Oh,