by Michael Mayo
That’s when she found out that her friend liked to relax at “hop parties,” where she partook of a pill or two of opium in a nice warm pipe. At first, Pearl thought it was just something that Kitty did from time to time, and it would certainly stop when Kitty’s mother arrived. I don’t know if she really believed that or not, but she learned different.
Kitty’s mother showed up with a young lounge lizard gigolo in tow. She called him “Dad,” and both of them dove right into the hop party whirl. Pearl tagged along.
One of their favorite places was another vast Upper West Side spread where an older woman named Melissa Louise lived. Melissa Louise was the mistress of a Wall Street financier, and she was so well heeled that she made the rest of them look like bums. Besides the apartment, she had a car, a chauffeur, a two-hundred-dollar-a-month allowance, and, she claimed, a hundred-thousand-dollar trust fund that was hers whenever she decided that she wanted to leave.
At Melissa Louise’s place, they’d close the transoms and put damp towels under the doors of the drawing room. That’s where the lady of the house would stretch out on a big fur rug while her guests reclined on the divans that surrounded her, and they’d all hit the pipe. All but Pearl.
Both Kitty and Melissa Louise warned her against the stuff, and so she never indulged. Though Pearl never said so, I got the idea that it wasn’t so much her welfare and problems with the law that led them to keep her away from the pipe. They needed somebody who was straight to look after them. That’s how Pearl and I met.
You see, at the same time she was moving into the world of the upper crust, I was living in a building in Hell’s Kitchen with Mother Moon. Oh Boy Oliver lived there too. Now, Mother Moon was either my aunt or my grandmother, we were never sure which exactly. Before she married a Chinaman, she was Mother Quinn, and my father had been told to find her when he came to America from Ireland. He did that, and he and my mother moved into her place. Then after he left and my mother died, Mother Moon raised me. She taught me how to steal and who to steal from, how to run and how to fight when I absolutely had to, and she hired me out to Rothstein as a messenger. She also loved her pipe. On those days and nights when she was not in the mood to stretch out in the Sans Souci opium den, she’d give me money and send me over to the place on Third Avenue to buy a can and bring it home. Pearl did the same for Kitty and Melissa Louise, and that’s where we met, back at the office with a Dutch door where the old man who ran the place kept the supply that he’d dole out to a few old and trusted customers.
The sign on the street said that the Sans Souci was a music hall, and they did have some kind of entertainment. There was also a restaurant and a casino. The opium den was around back and in the basement. But if you wanted to pick up a tin of the best-quality stuff, you had to call ahead and see the old guy.
That’s what I was doing one evening, waiting in an alcove off the main hallway and outside the office, when Pearl showed up.
She was not happy to be there. Melissa Louise told her it was completely safe and provided the car and driver and said that everything had been arranged, but the Sans Souci was not in the best neighborhood, and Pearl had hoped that part of the city was behind her.
Chinese waiters and other guys hustled through the hallway. It was narrow, crowded, dim, and thick with incense and tobacco smoke. A few of the guys glared at us suspiciously, but most paid us no mind. Pearl crowded in next to me. Even though I was just a kid, I was about her size and color. She said, “Is this the place for . . .”
“Yeah,” I answered and rapped twice quick on the door. “Mr. Ung, you’ve got another customer.”
The top part of the door swung open, bumping into us, and I could see Mr. Ung perched on his tall stool in front of a rolltop desk that took up most of the room. There was a little five-tael can of opium on the desktop. Mr. Ung gave Pearl the once-over and said, “Who you?”
Pearl stood as tall as she could, handed the old guy an envelope, and said, “Miss Melissa Louise called. I’m expected.”
He sniffed and snatched the envelope. He said, “You wait,” and started to pull the door shut.
I grabbed it and held it open. “Hey, that’s mine,” I said, pointing to the can.
He gave me a mean look, handed it over, and slammed the door. I could’ve left then, but I could tell the girl wanted me to stick around, so I pocketed the dope and introduced myself. “Don’t worry about him,” I said. “They wouldn’t let you in if they didn’t know somebody was coming. First time?”
“Yeah.”
“How much are you picking up?”
“Three cans of”—she looked at a slip of paper—“Li Yun.”
I told her that was the good stuff and the cans would fit in her bag, and she should be sure to keep it closed and tucked under her arm.
She shot me a skeptical look and said, “I may be new to this, but I’m not stupid. Besides, I’ve got a driver right outside. I’m not worried.”
Like hell she wasn’t worried. Pearl knew her way around some rough parts of town, but being in a place like that for the first time, she could use a little company, even a smart-ass kid like me.
I waited until Mr. Ung came back and checked the labels to make sure it was the Li Yun, not some junk he was trying to foist off. But I guess Melissa Louise was on the level. Pearl stuffed the cans down deep, clutched her bag, and held onto my arm as I led her back out by the restaurant to Third Avenue where her car and driver were waiting. She said, “Thanks, kid,” and I didn’t see her for a while after that.
She went back to Kitty’s place, Kitty’s Mom and Mom’s Gigolo, and things went south.
Heroin and cocaine had been replacing opium for some time because they were easier to handle and more profitable, and people got a bigger kick out of them. There were only a few old holdouts like Mother Moon who stuck with the pill and the pipe. Kitty started shooting heroin.
Pearl was looking for a way out when she met a bootlegger named Scoodles Jerome at one of Kitty’s parties. He told Pearl that he was having a fling with a society dame who was married. They were looking for someplace nice where they could while away an afternoon. He said he’d pay the rent if Pearl could find the right apartment and make herself scarce for a few hours from time to time.
It turned out to be two bedrooms furnished on Riverside Drive. Pearl moved in, and for a few months everything was terrific. Maybe Pearl caught a few more movie matinees than she might have, but that was okay. She still thought it was a sweet deal. Then Scoodles and his squeeze called it quits. He asked Pearl if she might know of a new squeeze. Just doing a favor for a friend, you understand, nothing more than that. She asked around and, sure enough, a cute girl named Fran, from back in her first days at Kitty’s, said she was interested in a little hubba-hubba.
Things worked out so well that some of Pearl’s other friends asked if they might help to entertain Mr. Scoodles. She said yes, and pretty soon he was spending two or three nights a week at her place. Pearl told me later that it was the best time she ever had in the business.
Scoodles was a nice-enough guy. I knew him because he worked with Lansky and Charlie every now and again. He thought Pearl’s setup was so great that he’d show up most evenings about six with bags of chicken from the rotisserie down the street, and jugs of dago red, and they all had a fine old time. Eating chicken, drinking red, screwing, eating chicken. Since it was so informal, Pearl could still convince herself that she wasn’t involved in selling sex. And, she kept telling herself, this was only temporary, anyway, a way to earn enough to go into some kind of legitimate business.
Then Scoodles invited some of his pals over. More girls told her they were interested. Before she really knew what she was doing, she was pocketing a hundred dollars a week, big money in those days, and she was looking for a larger place. Two bedrooms just wasn’t getting the job done.
Now, the truth is that Pearl wasn’t doing anything that hundreds of other guys and girls weren’t doing all over the city. The d
ifference was that through Scoodles, she met Charlie and a lot of other guys in the booze business, both the guys like us who sold it and the politicians and cops who got their cut to let us sell it. They had wallets full of cash and they were ready to spend a little extra or a lot extra, if the girl was pretty enough and energetic. And Pearl, as they say, had a good eye for young talent.
It didn’t take long for word to get about that Pearl had the best girls and the highest prices. Sure, she was busted from time to time, but the charges were always dismissed and it didn’t hurt her business. She got taken up by the literary and show business crowd, too. That’s when she changed her name to Polly Adler, and the phrase “Going to Polly’s” came to mean more than ripping off a quick slice. A lot of guys went to Polly’s to play cards and backgammon, and to be seen and to talk about who they saw there. I visited once or twice myself, in my younger days, when I was flush with dough and the sap was rising. She served good booze and good food, and she charged top dollar for everything. She was fond of saying that her place was a combination of a gentlemen’s club, a speak, and a harem.
Whenever there was a big nightclub opening or the like, she’d doll up three or four of her classiest heartbreakers and make a big show of parading them around. That always boosted her traffic, but she was careful. You didn’t get into her place unless she knew you. Or you were recommended by the right guys.
I got out of the cab at Fifty-Fifth Street and Madison. The lobby of Polly’s building was flanked by storefronts. Inside the lobby, I gave the colored elevator operator my name and said I was there to see Pearl, no, Polly Adler. He said she was entertaining visitors in a private party. I told him to call anyway and tell her I was there. He went behind his desk and, frowning at me, dialed the phone. After talking for a minute or so, he told me to wait, and took the elevator up.
Polly was with him when he came back. She was wearing a nicely tailored skirt and jacket that made her look like a well-heeled schoolteacher. Her hair was done up nice and in her high heels, she was almost as tall as I was. Damn, it was good to see her again. It must have been at least a couple of years since I’d been to one of her places or she’d been to mine.
“Hello, Jimmy,” she said and hugged me. “Sorry to keep you waiting, but I had to be sure you were you. Charlie’s here and he don’t like to be disturbed.”
I said that was good, I needed to talk to him, and we went up to her place.
She had the second floor. All of it.
There were twelve rooms to the place, and she wanted to show off all of them, except the ones that were being used. She’d just moved in and it was all new to her. Her taproom looked like the army had decorated it with red, white, and blue, stars and stripes, and the like. The mah-jongg room was Oriental red and gold. She told me that the bedrooms were peach and apple green because peach brought such a warm look to the complexion. I remember that the dining room was huge, and the main room was gray with green satin curtains that she was really proud of. I said hi to Charlie “the Bug” Workman and another guy I didn’t know who were smoking and looking bored, while Charlie Lucky was enjoying himself in a peach bedroom. Three of her girls who were sitting around put down their magazines and perked up.
“All this furniture,” Polly said, making a sweeping gesture, “that’s Louis Seize.”
“Oh yeah,” I answered, “Louie says what?” It was an old joke with us.
She slapped my arm and said, “Goddammit, you’re still an ignorant thug with no culture.”
Truth is, the first time I said it at one of her fancy west side places, I had no idea what she was talking about. It was years later that Marie Therese explained that “Louie says” was French “Louis Seize,” for the sixteenth guy named Louis who was the king of France and had fancy furniture named after him. Go figure.
“Yeah,” I said, “I’m an ignorant thug with no culture. No drink, either.”
“Cynthia,” she said, “a cognac for Mr. Quinn.”
Cynthia got up and went to the taproom. She was Polly’s main assistant who took over running the show when they got busy. Since she wasn’t as pretty as some of the other girls who worked there, she wasn’t as popular in the sack, but she came to Polly from the nightclub business, and everybody liked to talk to her.
Polly and I sat down in the mah-jongg room, and Cynthia brought me a brandy. She said, “Hello, Mr. Quinn, nice to see you again. Everyone has good things to say about your place. Are you going to continue after . . . ?”
“Looks like it, thanks.”
After she left, Polly said it had been a long time since I’d been in. “I hear you’re keeping company with a pretty barmaid.”
I said it was true, and she said it was time I settled down, and I said it wasn’t that serious.
She got a funny look in her eye and said that she’d heard different. We talked about this and that for a few more minutes. Then Polly stopped, and I could tell there was something else on her mind. After a second or so, she said, “Do you remember the woman I told you about, Kitty? I was living at her place when I met you?”
“Yeah,” I said, “the one with the Mother and the Mother’s gigolo.”
“That’s the one,” she said and lowered her voice even though we were alone. “I saw in the papers that she was arrested on a narcotics charge, and then a songwriter who knew her back when I was staying in her apartment, he told me that when they booked her, she was living in Chinatown with a Chinaman, working the street. He said she’d wasted away until she didn’t weigh more than fifty pounds, if you can believe it. Fifty pounds! Two weeks later, she was dead.”
“No kidding?”
“I know what the hard stuff can do to people. Enough of my girls have gone through ‘the cure,’ but for her, of all the girls I’ve known, to die from it, that’s hard to take. Such a goddamn waste. I’m not saying that she was destined to be a Broadway star or anything like that, but she was so young when she got here and she got a big break right away. Millions of pretty girls come here and never get close to that kind of thing. Anything could have happened for her. And then to wind up like she did. I don’t know, I still can’t say that it was completely her fault. Maybe she never had a chance.”
I was sitting there not knowing what to say to that when Charlie walked down the hall and stopped when he saw us.
“Jimmy, what the hell are you doing here?” He strolled in and shook hands. Polly said she’d get him a drink and hurried away.
Charlie settled in the nicest chair in the room and fired up a cigarette. He wore a dark gray pinstripe, a bright silk tie, and polished black wingtips.
As I’d explained to Lansky, I told Charlie about the picture book, the movie, Detective Ellis, and the studio lawyers. He’d heard of King Kong so he knew what I was talking about. I didn’t mention the two guys who’d braced me at the diner. I just said, “So they figure that these pictures will embarrass the studio and the studio will fork over six Gs to keep ’em under wraps. When I take a look at the book, I see that at least a couple of the pictures were taken here in the city, and I think the book looks like something your guys might be handling with the peepshows and magazines and slots. If it is your guys, I’ll tell the lawyers to pay up.”
Polly brought his drink and left. Charlie ignored it. In the years since we knocked off Maranzano, he’d taken over the rackets, but all he really did was to skim the cream and then divide up the rest of the pie and try to keep guys from horning in on other guys’ territories. He didn’t have anything to do with that “boss of bosses” stuff. As long as the dough was rolling in, it was easy to keep the guys in line. Lately, it hadn’t been so easy, but as far as I knew, he still had control over the Forty-Second Street neighborhood.
He shook his head and said, “No, I haven’t heard about anything like that, and if one of my guys tried to put the arm on a movie studio without telling me, I’d have his balls. But this book, you got it with you? Let me take a look.”
He got out his glasses and stu
died it more carefully than Lansky but not as much as the lawyers did.
When he reached the end, the picture of the girl with her dress ripped open, he said, “I know this girl. She wasn’t a blonde, but I’d never forget those tits.”
“Did she work here?”
He shrugged. “Probably. Can’t say I really remember. What do you care anyway?”
“I don’t. As long as you and Meyer aren’t part of it, it’s just a job. Pick up a little pocket money for an evening’s work.”
He took off his glasses and stubbed out his smoke. “We could all use some of that.”
After Charlie and his guys left, I tried to find Polly but she was tied up on the phone. Cynthia was in the taproom. I showed her the picture of the girl on the Empire State Building. That was the one that had the best view of her face. Cynthia recognized her right away.
“Sure,” she said, “that’s Nola. Wow, she never had a wig that nice while she was here.”
“That’s a wig?”
She gave me that look that women give and muttered, “Men . . . Yes, it’s a wig.”
“Who is she? Where can I find her?”
“Let’s see, she left about a year ago, I think. Let me get her card.”
Polly kept a three-by-five card file on all her girls. Filled up a drawer. She had a lot of staff turnover.
Cynthia came back with the card. She said, “Yes, she was Nola Revere when she was here, and that was from February to May last year. I remember her but not very well. She was quiet, I think. Pretty, you can see that. Didn’t use drugs, not much for booze, either.”
