Monday, January 30, 2012

It's a tough life for a pimp, the saga of 255

For those of you who may not know, I am back at my original hotel here in Las Vegas. I tried out Caesars Palace for about a month, but it was not quite what I had expected it to be. Though I made some really cool friends there, learned a lot, and had fun, it just didn't work out. So I was able to return back to my previous hotel since they hadn't replaced me yet.

Upon my return I met a guy that had been staying here for a few weeks. From the beginning, his whole appearance and demeanor made me laugh. For the longest time I couldn't think of who he looked like, but it totally reminded me of someone and it made me laugh. The guy had a silver and diamond grill that he popped in and out whenever the mood suited him. He had long hair, straightened (he was black) that went past his shoulders, he wore sunglasses all the time, even at night, and had bling hanging from every extremity of his body. I swear, if I could have taken a picture of this guy without being completely obvious, I would have. The first time I met the guy he started trying to flash his ridiculous smile at me, he must have thought it would impress me that he wasted his money on his dental accessories instead of on the 1 year old little boy he had in tow. Then finally it hit me! I figured out who the guy reminded me of!!!!! Do you remember the movie from the 90's that Eddy Murphy was in where he played a vampire? Vampire in Brooklyn? Ring any bells? Okay, does this help at all?


Just imagine this picture of Eddie Murphy from the movie, with a shade lighter skin, straightened hair, a silver set of teeth, and a whole lot of "ice" hanging from the neck. ears, and wrists. No joke, this was the guy! So to humor myself, in my head I kept calling him "Eddie" even though everyone here called him "255" because that was the room he was in with his "girl" and his brother. Eddie wasn't shy about telling us all about how he paid to fly his brother out here to go to school, and paid for all of his school, and had all of this money. And yes, he had money, but it wasn't his.

Now when I say "girl" I mean the chick he referred to as his girlfriend, but we all new she was a ho, and he was her pimp. Seen it a million times since working here. I can pick them out of a group in a second, sadly enough. They would typically pay for a week at a time, and everything was fine. But then there was trouble in paradise. They started not paying on time, and they were days late on paying. We gave them a chance to catch up, and get back on track, but Eddie kept dodging us and wouldn't come pay. Finally it got to a point where my boss and I felt that enough was enough and we were being taken advantage of, so I sent my front desk girls to lock them out of the room. Lock out meaning we basically wont allow you any further access to your room and belongings until we receive payment. The girls came back down (there were two because we had a girl in training), and I asked them if there were still belongings in the room or not. It's happened before that people will owe us money, and will pick up and leave in the middle of the night or first thing in the morning, and leave us hanging. So I needed to know if they had skipped out on us, or if they were actually still in the room. The girls weren't sure and said they heard the tv was on, but they didn't actually look around the room. No one had answered the door when they knocked, so they just locked the room. I went upstairs to look for myself. Knocked on the door, "FRONT DESK!" no answer. Knocked again, "FRONT DESK!" again no answer. So I opened up the door, saw some food in the kitchenette, and pampers on the counter, and a baby sitting upright on the couch watching tv by himself. Wait, WHAT?! THERE'S A 1 YEAR OLD SITTING ALONE ON THE COUCH IN THE LIVING ROOM!!!! I looked around and there was no adult in sight, the bedroom doors were closed (255 is a 2 bedroom unit, almost like a small 2 bedroom apartment), and no one was answering me when I called out! I hesitantly closed the door and litterally flew back downstairs. My stomach was turning at this point, and I seriously felt sick. I was worried for this poor child's safety. He could easliy roll off the couch and hit his head on the table, or the floor, he could roll onto one of the pillows and suffocate, he could choke on something and die! WHAT IS WRONG WITH THESE PEOPLE?! The three of us were so upset I called LVMPD (Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department) and had them come out to investigate and hopefully take the child into protective custody until an adult shows up.


One by one the officers show up, three female, and one male officer. The first female and the male officer were the first to arrive, and after filling them in on the situation we went to the room. After a few knocks that would have woken a hibernating bear, we could hear the baby crying in the room, and a few minutes later the door finally opened, and it was the girl. First words out of the officer's mouth, "Oh, I'm sorry. Did we wake you?" I litterally had to turn around and giggle to myself. The more cops I come into contact with while at work, the more I am realizing how INCREDIBLY sarcastic they all are. They made their way into the room, and I left them to do what they do. then the other two cops show up, and about 45 minutes later, they all come down and tell me that they will be forwarding this to CPS, and they will be following up on the welfare of the child because this is not an appropriate place for a child to be living. Okay, well I felt better knowing that the child wasn't completely alone, but still bothered by the fact that she was sleeping with the door closed in the bedroom and left the child all by himself.

The next day Eddie pulled me aside and talked to me about their bill. Saying he had the money the other day, but went to the casino to "double it" but ended up losing it all. Said he had $3,000 in his pocket last week, and lost it all at the casino. Said that his girl went "to work" and got paid the day before, but he only had enough to pay part of the bill because he still needed to go get food and diapers for the baby. Can anyone say GAMBLING PROBLEM? Tell me why I had to lecture a grown ass man on taking care of his responsibilities? Then he started complaining because the cops were called on them, and I told him that I called because I was concerned for the safety of the child, not to get anyone in trouble. And he was upset because I called the cops instead of going through the bedrooms to see if someone else was there. Umm, hello?! I'm also concerned for my own safety! I'm not going to go wondering through someone's room and fling open doors that I have no idea what's going on on the other side of. Who knows what I might walk into and I was not in any mood to have a knife or gun or who knows what pulled on me. Sorry, I'm a little smarter than that, and obviously he is not. So eventually he pays a portion of the outstanding balance, and life goes on like normal, or so we thought.

The saga continues.

Not even a week passes by and the drama resumes. The phone rang at the front desk, and my clerk answered it. It was Eddie. He was kind of in a panic, and told her that if anyone came looking for him, or asking what room he was in, that we were supposed to tell them that he had changed rooms. So Kiki put him as a "Non-Registered Guest" essentially making him non-existant to the public. Just as she was hanging up with him, his "girl" came to the desk and was asking for a key to the room. Now most anyone who has stayed in a hotel knows that the hotel wont just give a key to anyone. You need to be registered to the room in order to have any acess to keys. She was not on the reservation. The room was registered to Eddie, and his brother. So, as per hotel policy, Kiki refused her access. The girl was really upset and said that she knew he was in the room, and that we knew she was with him and that she had been staying here for over a month with him. Again Kiki refused and explained the policy to her. She stormed off and came back a few minutes later with two other bimbos, and guy and they set up camp in the lobby. They said that they were waiting for the cops to show up because the girl wanted to get her son and her things and Eddie wouldn't give it to her. I was on my way back down the hall when the two bimbos started getting crazy with Kiki and Kiki had to call the cops on them because they were getting out of control. The second the cops were mentiond, the guy that was sitting with them got up and said "I ain't with these bitches" and hauled ass out the door. They started cussing up a storm and getting exceptionally loud. They would have given the worst of sailors or truckers a run for their money. I tried to step in and diffuse the situation until the officers arrived, but they continued to act like idiots (maybe they weren't acting, who knows). Eventually the officer came in, both sides of the story were told, and the bimbos were forced to wait outside in the cold while the officer when up to the room with the girl to retrieve her child and belongings. Not long after going upstairs, they were on their way out with her suitcase and baby and she was on her marry little way. The cop came back and started asking questions, and just as we suspected, he also suspected it was a pimp-n-ho opperation. About 15 minutes after all of the action had settled down, Eddie came down to the lobby with his brother and sunglasses in place, and kept pacing back and forth. He asked if my General Manager was here, and Kiki said that I was the manager that was there. He of course didn't want to talk to me so he went back to his room.

A few days later, he called down repeatedly all day long trying to get a hold of my General Manager, to get her to go talk to him in his room. Why he didn't want to come down and talk to her, we wouldn't find out until later. Finally she decided to go because she wanted to find out what the story was. Well, Eddie proceeds to tell my boss that the night she came to get her baby, the guy she was with was her new pimp that she had been working for for months and all of the money that she had been giving Eddie to pay for everything was coming from the new pimp! (jaw drops!) She and the baby had aparantly ran off with Mr. New Pimp to Texas and she was now calling and texting Eddie telling him how sorry she was, and how badly she wanted to come home because she was so unhappy with Mr. NP. Through texts and calls, Eddie ended up talking with the new pimp, and he told Eddie how he wasn't going to let go of his girl, how she was his property now. How she was going to do what he says and when, and he took away her cell so she couldn't call or text Eddie anymore (picking jaw up off of the floor).



So basically, Eddie and his brother were up a creek without a paddle. They were broke, with no income, no girls, no job, and they owed us over $500. We knew they were going to bail on us. The next day, they had all of their stuff packed up and were on their way out. We stood at the camera monitor and watched Eddie selling some stuff (most likely his Rolex, or other extravagant bling in the stairwells) just to get some cash. His brother had already said that he was going to stay at a homeless shelter because he was already enrolled in his classes and couldn't leave. So we watched as he made his cash, and left his brother in the bottom of the stairs by himself to keep an eye on their bags. Eventually, they gathered up what they had, and left the building.

In a way I felt bad for Eddie, but then I stopped feeling bad. He made choices in his life that put him in this position. Most people think that being a pimp is awesome. Lots of girls, lots of money, nice cars, lots of bling, and all of the finer things in life. But after encountering this particular pimp, it made me realize that it's a tough life for a pimp. It's not all "bitches n bling". No one has it easy in life, apparantly even pimps.