The Art of the Pimp: One Man's Search for Love, Sex, and Money (10 page)

Before they started selling, however, before they even
thought
about the sales pitch, I told them they needed to find a common denominator with the client. They had to create a
relationship
, even if it was short lived, because the client knew he was being sold and he was going to put up a wall. And I knew from experience: The hard sell is way less effective than the
human connection
.

I would tell my team, “Don’t say a word about the property, not a single word, until you’ve really connected with the client. If you start talking about the views, or about the size of the guest bedroom, you’re going to lose them. If you try to sell someone before they’re ready to hear you, you are wasting your fucking time.”

After you’ve made that connection, go ahead, sell them. But remember: You need to believe in the product. You need to believe with all your heart. If you believe, they will believe. That’s the message I had to drum into my sales team. They were working on commission, of course, so they wanted to believe, and that made my job a little easier. But I had to keep them motivated and I would do it by singling out members of the team as inspiration. “Look at Sally here!
She made two sales in the space of a morning, for a $2,500 commission.” Then I’d ask for a show of hands: “How many people have made two sales in one day?” And I’d count them: “Seven, eight, nine.” Those nine people would be thrilled; everybody likes an
attaboy
from time to time and the other members of the team might get a little jealous. But they’d also get excited, which is key. They’d think,
If those nine idiots can do it, so can I
. It goes back to the old saw:
Whatever you can conceive, you can achieve
. So my job was basically to make every member of the team believe in him or herself.

You know that best-selling book,
The Secret
? It’s all about the way positive thinking can make you richer, healthier, and happier. Well, it’s true. I knew that twenty years before the book was written, and I’ve lived that message. I
am
the secret! I could have written that book myself.

With sales going through the roof and money pouring in, I felt flush enough to buy a big house in Palm Springs. It had a pool and tennis court and I began to enjoy the fruits of my labor. I hired a tennis pro and had tennis and pool parties. I barbecued for friends and neighbors. And at night I’d hit the local discos. Frankly, I hate discos. But all the hot girls were there. And when you pull up in a Ferrari, you’re not just handsome, you’re a fucking movie star. It was the only time in my life that I was single and I got laid every night. And while civilians don’t know how to fuck like working girls, it was fun to teach them a few tricks.

Still, when all was said and done, I was on the lookout for my next girlfriend. I love being in love, and I love making love to a woman I love. I’ll make love to women I
don’t
love, too, because that’s the way I’m wired, but given a choice I prefer to have a regular girl on my arm, a little honey to come home to every night.

Meanwhile, even as I took the Palm Springs Tennis Club to new heights, I got a call from a friend who had gone to work for a time-share project in Carlsbad, California. He was in trouble, and Carlsbad was only a couple of hours from Palm Springs, so I decided to help him out. He made me head of sales and I put together a hundred-person sales team. I had rooms full of people manning phones; I had others going door to door, canvassing the neighborhood; and still others putting together wild events:
The Great Rolls-Royce Giveaway
, for example.

We’d go to an auto show, say, with a bunch of hot girls, and people would sign up to win the Rolls. A week later, they’d get a call: “You’re a finalist! You need to come down to the Carlsbad Inn next Saturday, ten a.m. Don’t be late.” They’d show up in droves and sit through the 90-minute sales pitch, which I ran. I found I was a pretty good speaker, thanks in part to Dale Carnegie, and that I had good people skills, too. If we convinced just five percent of the “winners” to buy shares in the resort, we were ahead of the game. And I always beat those numbers.

We gave away a Rolls, but most people went home with matching Louis Vuitton look-alike luggage that was made in China and worth about twelve bucks.

I know what you’re thinking.
That’s not nice.
And maybe it wasn’t, but salesmanship isn’t about being nice. It’s about selling stuff. Nobody was putting a gun to these people’s heads. We were simply trying to talk them into buying a week or two at the fabulous Carlsbad Inn, every year for the next thirty years, and I am here to tell you that we were selling a great product. Very few buyers complained. It was a quality resort, right on the water. You couldn’t ask for more.

The project was, in fact, a huge hit. I believe it was the first time-
share in the country to break $50 million in sales. I kept my people motivated with hundred-dollar bills and lots of pats on the back, and I learned that both are equally valuable. Everyone likes money, and everyone likes to be acknowledged when they do good work. Even at age forty we’re still kids at heart. We like it when the teacher tells us we done good.

By this time I had made a pretty big name for myself in sales, and I got a call from some people in Orlando. They were putting together a monster resort project with Swiss Air and a bunch of other international conglomerates, including the Maersk Group, a big shipping company, and they asked me to be head of sales.

Back in Palm Springs, meanwhile, through a friend, I met Gayle: blonde, blue-eyed, bow-lipped. I knew immediately she was the one. She worked at a store at the Palm Springs Mall and within three weeks she had quit her job and moved in with me. We began spending winters in Palm Springs and summers in Lake Tahoe, and I don’t think I had ever been happier. My dick, though — that’s another story. I was traveling all the time — one month-long trip took me to Honolulu, Hong Kong, Manila, Singapore, Kuala Lumpur, Jakarta, Bali, and Sydney — and I was always sampling the local merchandise. And even when I was home I couldn’t resist.

During the summer months, for example, every time I flew back to Tahoe to be with Gayle, I would call to tell her that I’d missed the early flight to Reno, and to please not wait up for me. But in fact I always made the early flight: I’d land in Reno, hurry over to long-term parking, then get in my car and drive to the Moonlite. I’d fuck some hot girl for a couple of hours, drive home, then wake Gayle up and fuck her, too. It was crazy. The more I fucked, the hornier I got. Most guys bust a nut and go to sleep. When I come, I immediately start looking for the next party. Clearly there was something wrong with me, and clearly there still is, but I couldn’t help it then, and I can’t
help it now. And frankly, I don’t want to fix it. I love fucking.

Some people would argue that if I was truly happy at home I wouldn’t have wanted other women, and I’m sure that’s true for some men, but it wasn’t true for me. And I
was
happy at home. It was Gayle who wasn’t happy. She didn’t complain, she didn’t get crazy, and she didn’t make any demands, but one morning, as we were getting ready to head down to
Palm Springs for Christmas, she told me it was over. “I can’t do this anymore,” she said. “I hate not being enough for you.” I tried to argue with her — 
those other women mean nothing to me; it’s just sex; I love you and only you
 — but her mind was made up. I asked her to please spend Christmas with me anyway, reminding her that my daughters were expecting her, and she came, but not happily. We limped through the festivities, then I got called back to Orlando, and sadly, Gayle walked out of my life.

To compound matters, I finally heard from my father. He and that little ditz had literally disappeared, and it was only now, years later, that he wanted to reconnect. He was in Phoenix, with the girl nowhere in sight. He had fallen on hard times, and while he didn’t go into much detail, he said he needed a place to live. I still owned a modest house in suburban Phoenix, so I made some calls and arranged for him to move in. He was grateful, but he rebuffed my offer to fly out to see him, and he rebuffed every call I made thereafter, so I stopped calling. I couldn’t believe it, my own father, cold as ice.

As if that wasn’t enough, I woke up one morning to discover that my daughters had helped themselves to the bulk of the money in one of my bank accounts. I kept waiting to hear from them, hoping for an explanation, maybe even an apology, but they never called.

AND AS IF
THAT
WASN’T
enough, the next time I went to Palm Springs I found myself locked out of my own house. I didn’t understand it. Then I found out that my daughters had sold it out from under me! I swear to God, I almost burst into tears right there and then. Not because of the house — I didn’t give a damn about the house — but because I couldn’t understand why my daughters had motherfucked me yet again.

Once more, I was patient, hoping to hear from them, but I never did. That was over twenty years ago and I’m still waiting for their call.

In my heart of hearts, I wish my girls had reached out to me, to apologize, to explain why they did what they did, to make amends, but it never happened. I’m a guy who is more than willing to forgive, because we’re all human and we all make mistakes, but I don’t respond well to betrayal.

Someone fucks me, I don’t waste my time with revenge. They simply stop existing. And as I sit here writing this it brings tears to my eyes because my two daughters no longer exist.

On the heels of that disaster, I got a call from Phoenix early one morning, from a former neighbor who said my property was falling into disrepair. I asked him to please have my father phone me so we could figure things out and he broke the news. “I’m sorry. I thought you knew. Your father died last year.”

I got off the phone and wept.

S
HORTLY AFTER GAYLE LEFT,
while I was busy in Orlando, I made a quick side trip to Tampa to talk to another company that wanted to do business with me. While I was there, I met one of their employees, Stacy, a gorgeous blonde. I invited her to dinner and we ended up back in my hotel room. Suddenly I was in love all over again. I wanted to bring her home with me, but she was stuck in a bad relationship and couldn’t seem to break free. The morning I left for the airport, I told her, “When you’re ready to cut him loose, call me.”

When I got back to Palm Springs, I went to San Diego to meet with a company about another time-share project, and I signed on. Then I drove back to Palm Springs and stopped for dinner at a local restaurant, where a gorgeous woman walked over and said, “Remember me?” I didn’t, so she helped me out. It was Tammy’s daughter, Bonita, the one I would send off to get ice cream so her
mother and I could get down to business at my Reno condo. She’d been a little girl then, but she was all grown up now and hot as hell.

The next day, Bonita came over to my house to see me and we ended up in bed. She was very good in bed, and for good reason. Long after I’d disappeared from Tammy’s life, Bonita had gone to work at the Moonlite. Like mother, like daughter.