CHLOIE: CRIME AND PUNISHMENT

Tags: B.F.Skinner, balls, behavior modification, Pavlov, salivating dogs, Chloie, The Dragon Lady, French whore, escorts, callgirl, hooker, pimp, factotum, jarvis, viral video, marquisdejolie, Western Union, money drop

Crime and Punishment: B.F. Skinner Would Be Proud

“Did Chloie give you the cancellation fee, James?” Jennifer asked.

“I couldn’t even get the security guard tip back from her,” I answered, “Am I going to get paid for tonight? The driver fee I mean?”

“Chloie will pay you. You’re gonna have to grow some balls, James. I can’t do everything for you. You got balls or not?”

“Uh, yeah. . .”

“We’ll see. I want you to take Chloie to Western Union. There’s one in the Savon at Wilshire and 20th. She owes me money from last week. $300. You get it from her and send it to me. Can you do that?”

“No problem.” But it would be.

Jennifer gave me the address to send the money and instructions to call her with the verification number when it was sent. Why she was trusting me with the money over Chloie was beyond me.

I began to notice a pattern of behavior in Jennifer. It seemed like the Dragon Lady was using the old Carrot and Whip routine on Chloie. A good call was the carrot and a bad call was the whip. It was something straight out of B.F. Skinner’s behavior modification scheme that I had studied in college.

After Chloie avoided her responsibility to tip the Frito Bandito, there was one cushion call, the carrot. This is what you get if you behave yourself, the carrot call implied.

Then there was Neil, a bad call. Since he was a regular, Jennifer had to have known he was a bad call, maybe even a punishment call.

Then, after Chloie cancelled Neil, refusing to take her punishment and compounding the infraction by not volunteering the cancellation fee, Jennifer waved another carrot in front of Chloie: Doug, on California, the cushion call before the punishment.

And finally, inevitably, came the punishment: stopping the workflow to send money that was suddenly late from last week. It hadn’t been late at 8:20 tonight when we checked in, but it was late now. I smelled a rat, a rat in dragon’s clothing. That’s no madam, I mused, that’s my pimp.

Chloie’s pager sounded again. The face read ‘86’, a code Chloie and I had hastily settled on which meant she was ready to be picked up. In the military, when you 86ed something, that meant it was over, scotched, nixed, done. Forget it and move on to something else. I thought it was an appropriate code.