Brothel (6 page)

As of early 2000, there were twenty-six brothels in Nevada, scattered throughout ten of the state’s seventeen counties. (Sixteen counties plus Carson City, considered the Capital District, which enjoys all the benefits of a county, such as having its own courthouse and police and fire departments.) Three of the ten—Elko, Humboldt, and White Pine—prohibit brothel prostitution in unincorporated areas, but do allow it by municipal option in the cities of Elko, Wells, Carlin, Ely, and Winnemucca. Each county has devised its own brothel ordinance, from Lyon County’s exhaustive forty-eight-page document to Esmeralda County’s more terse seven-page code. Brothel licensing fees vary, with Storey County’s being the highest ($25,000 per quarter) and Lander County’s the lowest ($50 per quarter). Brothel regulations differ on details such as
the size, content, and placement of exterior signs, and the wattage of red exterior lighting permitted on brothel premises. Only five counties have opted to outlaw brothels, including those that contain Reno, Lake Tahoe, and Carson City. (Two counties—Eureka and Pershing—have yet to address the matter formally.)

But times and county demographics are changing. A recent editorial in the
Reno Gazette-Journal
declared that the legal brothels “stamp Nevada as a hick state mired in an outmoded and unsavory past.” Nevada is currently undergoing one of the fastest rates of growth in the nation, with a population increase of 44 percent between 1990 and 1997. Brothel owners and county officials contend that the recent influx of transplants who don’t understand or appreciate Nevada’s peculiar history and libertarian ideals threaten the survival of this century-old state institution. Consequently, they argue, regulation of the industry is ever more important to keep brothel prostitution tolerable to Nevada’s expanding population.

New prostitutes got a taste of these regulations as soon as they applied to a brothel for employment. When a woman named Eva arrived at Mustang Ranch looking for a job, I saw firsthand just how formalized, not to say bureaucratized, was the process of becoming a licensed brothel prostitute.

Eva pulled up in front of Mustang #2 in her ’84 Chevy one afternoon around two o’clock. She had followed the instructions she had been given on the telephone: to ring the doorbell on the electric fence twice, not once, so the working girls
would know it wasn’t a customer. They didn’t want to line up for nothing. When Irene, the manager, greeted her at the front door, Eva explained that she had called about a position as a working girl. Irene chuckled warmheartedly and said she got calls all day long from women looking for jobs as prostitutes. By noon on this particular day, six women had already called. Mustang Ranch received nearly a dozen telephone inquiries a day. It didn’t seem to matter much that the brothels weren’t permitted by law to advertise for prostitutes.

With fifty-four bedrooms in #1 and thirty-eight in #2, Mustang could hire a maximum of ninety-two women but usually chose to cap the number of prostitutes at seventy-five. The brothel usually approached capacity over the weekend and then thinned out at the start of the week. (Mustang’s scheduling practices have evolved over the years and the brothel no longer requires women to work three weeks on, one week off; some women, especially those who live nearby, work a four- to five-day week, leaving Sunday or Monday and returning on Wednesday or Thursday.) In a year’s time, about 515 prostitutes came through Mustang Ranch. Since hiring over the telephone was a potential violation of both interstate commerce and pimping and pandering laws (under the Mann Act of 1910), brothels required in-person interviews.

A woman in her early twenties, Eva physically reminded me of the model Kate Moss, with her serene, creamy face, delicate, waiflike facial features, and petite, nubile body. She parted her fine, dishwater-blond hair in the middle and let it fall naturally below her shoulders. Eva was beautiful in the most natural of ways, with a preference for patchouli oil over
department store fragrances and no interest in makeup. She was a sure hire, I thought, and I expected Irene to offer her a position immediately. I was surprised to hear her explain that Eva would need to spend the next two days meeting a number of requirements before she could be hired as a licensed prostitute.

Irene led Eva back to her office and invited her to sit down on one of the red folding chairs cluttering the room. How had Eva heard about Mustang Ranch? Irene asked. Eva took a deep breath before explaining that she’d been working as a cashier in a gentleman’s club in Sacramento, struggling to pay off a credit card debt of over $30,000. Some of the dancers had suggested she try prostitution, but Eva had been too scared. She was afraid of getting arrested or being killed by a deranged customer. One of the women told her about Nevada’s legal brothels. Irene quizzed Eva some more about her background, asking about her previous work experience and home life. Somewhat defensive, Eva made a point of telling Irene that she came from a stable middle-class home with a functional family and married parents.

After a few minutes, Irene shifted gears and began describing the conditions under which Eva would be working. Specifically, all working girls were restricted to the immediate brothel confines (save for outdates, or paid excursions with clients) for the duration of their stay, which ranged from days to weeks depending upon their financial goals. Even though Eva had just rented an apartment in nearby Reno, she couldn’t go home after her shift. The rationale was simple: owners worried about the women “freelancing,” turning tricks on the outside.

I would later discover that police and brothel owners had worked in collusion for many years to enforce unofficial codes of conduct that segregated prostitutes from the communities in which they worked, although no law quarantining brothel prostitutes was actually on the books. For example, on the pretext of protecting public decency, the town of Winnemucca in Humboldt County prohibited brothel prostitutes from frequenting town bars, casinos, or residential areas, associating with local men outside of work, being on the downtown streets after five
P.M.
, or having any family members residing in town. Violation of any one of these rules could result in confiscation of a woman’s brothel work card and her expulsion from town. (Because brothel work cards and licenses were considered “privileged” licenses, they could be revoked for any reason.)

Finally, in 1984, Reno attorney Richard Hager filed a federal lawsuit against Winnemucca, contending the rules violated the constitutional rights of prostitutes who had been fired for breaking them. “Is it acceptable or tolerable for a community to license commercial sex and yet discriminate against the women who provide it?” wrote Ellen Pillard, a professor at the University of Nevada–Reno and occasional brothel critic, in an article entitled “Legal Prostitution: Is It Just?” “That would be like licensing gambling, but prohibiting 21 dealers from living in the community.” Following the filing of the women’s lawsuit, Winnemucca and several other towns that had similar regulations (e.g., Ely, Elko, Wells, Lovelock, and Battle Mountain) discarded their unlawful codes of conduct, although to this day brothel management and law enforcement
still try to limit prostitutes’ contact with local communities. Mustang Ranch, for example, required a runner, or escort, to accompany prostitutes on errands to town at the women’s own expense—$5–$10 per errand or stop.

Women’s activities were strictly controlled within the brothel gates as well. Each bedroom was equipped with a hidden intercom system that cashiers used to eavesdrop on women’s negotiations to assure they didn’t steal money from the house or trade sex for drugs. Women were told to turn off their radios, televisions, and ceiling fans when discussing money with customers so as not to muffle the sound of their negotiations. Despite this deterrent to theft, stealing was ubiquitous. Out of intercom range in the hallways, prostitutes whispered to customers their plans to quote aloud a reduced price if the man would agree to silently hand over an additional sum of money. With multiple prostitutes negotiating simultaneously, women also gambled that the cashier wasn’t listening, and turned in less money than was actually paid. To combat theft and drug use, management conducted unannounced room searches, led by floor maids who had been brothel prostitutes and knew all the places a woman might hide money or drugs: in bars of soap, hair spray cans, mattresses, and air vents.

After Irene spelled out the restrictions on Eva’s movement, she explained that Mustang Ranch hired prostitutes as independent contractors, which meant the brothel wasn’t responsible for withholding taxes from the women’s earnings. It would be Eva’s responsibility to submit a copy of the Form 1099 filed on her behalf by Mustang with her taxes. (In actuality,
however, there has never been close to 100 percent compliance by either prostitutes or owners in filing 1099s.) In return, as an independent contractor, she could set her own work schedule and negotiate her own prices with customers. Eva would be expected to split her gross earnings 50–50 with the brothel. In addition, she would be docked $31 daily: $10 to cover room and board and $21 to tip seven brothel employees $3 apiece: the manager, the cook, the floor maids, a laundry maid, and two cashiers. In exchange, Eva would receive three warm meals a day, with twenty-four-hour access to additional snacks, and be assigned a bedroom in which to work and live for the duration of her stay, with an adjoining bathroom shared with her next-door neighbor.

As I listened to Irene explain the terms to Eva, I reflected on their inequity. Owners got away with not paying employee-related federal and local taxes or social security, and making the women tip brothel staff kept other labor costs down. At the same time, as independent contractors, women lost out on employee benefits ranging from health insurance and sick leave to disability insurance and workers’ compensation. (In all fairness, Nevada state authorities, too, have been reluctant to offer legal prostitutes any form of benefit package for fear of the potential expense.)

I wondered if these women were really afforded the rights due independent contractors. Soon enough, Eva would learn that working girls were obliged to give a share of their earnings to cabdrivers because of a financial arrangement worked out with brothel owners many years ago. Because state law prohibited brothels from advertising, even from publishing
their addresses or telephone numbers, the brothels depended upon cabbies to inform passengers of their whereabouts. In return, the drivers got 20 percent of what their passengers spent at the brothel; 10 percent came out of the prostitute’s cut and 10 percent out of the brothel’s. To guarantee their kickback, most drivers accompanied their passengers into the brothel and waited in the kitchen until their fare negotiated a party, at which point cabbies would be informed of their portion, available for pickup within twenty-four hours.

Prostitutes were also expected to split their tips from customers with the house, even though a tip reflected the quality of service that each woman personally rendered. Moreover, all brothels had house minimums, ranging from $50 to $150. When a woman refused a customer willing to pay the house minimum, management expected a reasonable excuse (e.g., that he refused to wear a condom). While Eva would negotiate her own deals and could raise her prices to deter unappealing customers, management would raise its eyebrows if she did this too often.

The brothel was less concerned with racism, however. Women were always permitted to opt out of servicing black customers. Discrimination against black clients was not new to Nevada’s brothels. For many years, none of the brothels even admitted black men. Then, in 1967, at the suggestion of one of Joe Conforte’s floor maids, a black woman named Alberta (affectionately nicknamed Miss Bertie by the working girls), Conforte constructed a parlor to accommodate black clients, segregated in classic Jim Crow fashion. Inside the front gate, a separate entranceway led to this smaller, adjoining
parlor; jukebox music from the main parlor was piped in. With the arrival of a black patron, willing women went over to the second parlor to line up while their unwilling peers remained in the main parlor. It wasn’t unusual for a group of black men to confront a lineup comprised of one lone woman. Only when Conforte built the current Mustang #1 facility, a permanent structure more upscale than the hodgepodge of double-wide trailers hooked together, would blacks share the main parlor with other races.

Referred to as Parlor Two guests to this day, black customers are still treated differently. Whenever a black man rang Mustang’s doorbell, the cashier or security guard monitoring the front gate sounded a distinct, shrill in-house buzzer twice, summoning only those women willing to party with a black man to line up. Rung once, the buzzer indicated the arrival of a nonblack customer by cab; three rings indicated the arrival of a black man by cab. Women who won’t entertain black customers have to quit the parlor until after the black man views his lineup.

While most of the women at Mustang Ranch lined up for black customers, about one-fourth wouldn’t. Most of these women told me that their men at home had asked them not to accept black clients. Curiously, most of those men were themselves black. Rather than deep-seated hatred of their own race, this prejudice seemed to reflect fear of losing their women to another black man. For women without the excuse of a man at home, racism was the only explanation for rejection. Too willingly, brothel management refused to challenge these prostitutes.
“We get a lot of girls from the South,” said Irene. “You can’t force a girl from Texas or the South to take someone to her bedroom who her parents and grandparents have been racist against for years.” Then, apparently unaware of any irony, she added, “That would be like slavery.”

After Irene finished explaining how prostitutes’ earnings were split with the house, she asked Eva whether she had any questions. Eva said she had none. Irene asked one last question: How did Eva think she would be able to handle screwing men for money if she had never done it before? Irene’s voice was detached, and her face was a blank mask. Later, she told me that she worked hard not to become emotionally invested in any of the girls until they were officially hired. Moreover, she was proud of how discerning she was. “I won’t just hire any girl that walks in the door. Some managers do. An awful lot of managers see each girl as an extra three-dollar tip a day in their pocket. With five extra girls, you’ve almost got your mortgage payment.”