The Last Madam: A Life in the New Orleans Underworld

by Chris Wiltz

  Bubba and Elise Rolling visited Norma and Wayne for the weekend as often as they could—Bubba liked to get in some deer hunting.

  Bubba was always joking about something, but on one visit he told Norma (in all seriousness) that she shouldn’t let Pershing Gervais come around—he’d heard there was a contract out on him. Norma laughed it off, so later Bubba told Wayne, “If Pershing’s here and you hear a car on the road to the house, hit the woods running and don’t stop—they’ll kill everyone in sight.”

  It seemed that the volatile Gervais, with his appetites for money, women, lies, and vengeance, had been “playing results,” as he liked to call his system of operating, and gotten himself into big trouble.

  Gervais had quit as the district attorney’s chief investigator when Jim Garrison started his probe into the Kennedy assassination. He went around telling people that Garrison had “gone off half-crocked over the Kennedy thing,” and the old army buddies had an irreparable falling out.

  Several years later Gervais found he was in trouble with the Internal Revenue Service, and to bail himself out he told the feds that Garrison had been taking bribes from the amusement company operators for years to protect illegal pinball gambling. As a result Garrison was indicted for bribery and the pinball operators for bribery conspiracy, illegal gambling, and obstruction of justice. Since Gervais was the chief witness for the government, Bubba reasoned that any number of people would have been glad to take him out.

  But Gervais never visited Poplarville again. Instead he called one day; Norma and Wayne left immediately for New Orleans. They drove directly to a seedy motel in East New Orleans, where Norma and Gervais had a private confab. That was the last time Wayne saw Pershing Gervais.

  On the way back to Poplarville, Wayne asked Norma what was going on. She said, “It’s better that you know nothing about this business. I don’t want you to be involved.” She told him she was protecting him by keeping him in the dark.

  It may have sounded romantic to Norma when Golfbag Sam told her that thirty years earlier, but for Wayne it was old news: Norma didn’t want him involved in her business, legitimate or illegitimate. Pershing Gervais disappeared—into a witness protection program, as it turned out. And Wayne began to feel that he had been put away too. But the closer Norma tried to keep him, the further he slipped away.

  •••

  In 1972 the journalist Clint Bolton went to Poplarville to write a story on Norma for New Orleans magazine. The two got along famously, Norma saying that Bolton was “her kind of man,” one who liked to laugh and tell stories late into the night as he knocked back a few drinks. Norma told her stories to Bolton—about her early life, her loves, her houses, and her restaurant. She told him about the raids on Conti Street and Freddy Soulé’s big moment that sent her to jail; she could hardly disguise her glee that he was now in trouble himself. Soulé had been arrested as part of the pinball conspiracy, for bringing payoffs to Gervais intended for Garrison, taking his cut—a bagman, Norma called him. Sixty-three thousand dollars was found buried in his backyard in a pickle jar, a detail that Norma relished. Now it looked as if he would go to jail. Norma and Clint Bolton laughed about the ironies of life, and as the profile took shape, the idea came about quite naturally that it should be turned into a book. At the end of the article, in a brazen “Epilogue,” Norma promised that “if the truth will make you clean, I’ll come clean . . . all the way.” She added, “I don’t want to be bothered with judges, juries, lawsuits, and all that. But if that does happen, I won’t take the Fifth, and a lot of people had better stand back.”

  The article itself prompted letters to the editor, some irate, condemning its reportage of immoral practices as inappropriate subject matter for a magazine of high caliber. Yet when Norma was invited to the Press Club on August 12, 1972, to speak and be presented with a key to the city, people flocked for the ex-madam’s autograph.

  In line to see Norma were many of her former clients. One of them, a lawyer who had gone to her house when he was a Tulane student, brought his new wife to see Norma, never thinking for a minute that this infamous woman would remember him. He stepped up to the table with a copy of New Orleans for her signature. He didn’t see her eyes meet his from behind her dark glasses. “Hello, Waterproof,” she said, taking the magazine and scrawling her name across her photograph on the cover. The lawyer was astonished. “Oh, I remember you,” she went on, as if to say, “I remember everybody.” Rumors spread about her black book; the whole city enjoyed speculation about who would be named in Norma’s autobiography.

  At seventy-one years of age, Norma was still powerful, a woman to be reckoned with. It was an exciting time for her. Because of the magazine profile, she heard from people she hadn’t talked to in years, and she got in touch with old associates from out of town. She mailed a copy of the magazine to J.G. and Helen Badon, her half brother and his wife, and she decided to send one to their son, Johnny, and his wife, Pat. It was clear from the letter she wrote to the young couple that she was afraid the life she’d led might cause them embarrassment. After so many years she was still worried about what people, especially the progeny of her father’s respectable family, thought of her.

  Respectability be damned, though; she attacked her memoirs with energy. She began to tape her stories, but a peculiar thing happened: Norma found that her habit of reticence was too deeply ingrained; she couldn’t name the names she’d promised in Clint Bolton’s article. Her soul, as she’d told Joe Giarrusso so many years ago, was the soul of discretion. She had a code—a code of honor, a moral code—and she could not violate it.

  Nevertheless, Norma continued taping her life story, talking into the recorder as she sat on the contour sofa in her living room in Poplarville; Bolton, in his French Quarter apartment, listened to the tapes and started writing the book. Tantalizing references to Norma’s autobiography appeared in the newspapers’ gossip and society columns. But only three chapters into the book, Bolton had a serious heart attack. He returned Norma’s papers to her in Poplarville.

  Norma stopped taping for a while and searched for a new writer. After interviewing two from New York, she decided she wanted a New Orleanian to write her story and chose a young woman who wrote for The Times-Picayune, Patsy Sims. She gave Patsy a copy of the New York madam Polly Adler’s best-seller, A House Is Not a Home, and told her that was the kind of book she wanted Patsy to help her write. But Patsy was offered a job in Pennsylvania and decided to take it. Norma began to be frustrated.

  Wayne had watched Norma put her lipstick on hundreds of times. She carefully applied it outside her lip line to make her lips appear fuller. Teasing her one night as they prepared to go out, Wayne said, “You missed your lips.” Norma lit into him with the ferocity of a trapped viper. The making-up part, which she had always said made the fight worth it, often got eliminated these days: Their sex life, after ten years, had slowed markedly.

  Yet Norma’s jealousy remained unabated. Her sister-in-law, Sarah Huff, who had remarried after Elmo’s death, visited Poplarville one weekend with her pretty young niece, Linda. Wayne and Linda made eye contact once too often, and Norma berated Sarah for having the nerve to bring Linda with her, not caring that Wayne and Linda could both hear her.

  Wayne let it all slide off him, as was his habit, but he wasn’t quite as imperturbable as he’d once been. He too was without work, having finished the fence and the barns. He would be out in the pasture or tending to the animals, all this beautiful country around him, the rolling hills and far-reaching vistas, a place he loved, yet in all this open air he felt as if he was suffocating.

  Wayne decided to take a job. Eddie, a contractor friend of his, needed help with some construction on the Gulf Coast. The site was close enough that Wayne could drive from Poplarville and be home at a reasonable hour. Norma didn’t want him to take the job, but Wayne overrode her, for the first time. “I need something, Norma,” he told her. “I need something to do.”

  At first Wayne came h
ome, extremely tired, watched a little TV, and went to bed. Then one night Eddie suggested that they stop for a drink on the way home. Eddie was about Wayne’s age. They sat at a bar and talked. It was the first time Wayne had talked about football in he didn’t know how long; Norma had no idea what a football game was. Another night they went to a juke joint, and Wayne realized he’d never heard some of the great music from the sixties and seventies. Eddie couldn’t believe it; he had to tell Wayne about the Beatles and the Rolling Stones.

  Wayne began to get the feeling that his life was passing him by. All he was doing was reliving Norma’s life with her. He kept going to the bars and juke joints with Eddie. He started noticing the younger girls. He looked around and saw what other young people were doing, going to the races, dances, football games—the things young people do. All he did when he got home was watch TV and go to bed. Norma was there, but he’d already started asking himself where that was going to get him. He was tired of sitting with his back to the restaurant. He was tired of Norma’s anger if he wanted to go out alone or if he as much as looked at someone female. He was tired of being left out of the big decisions. Norma hadn’t bothered to ask him if he wanted to give up the restaurant. Or if he wanted his paychecks, five hundred and sixty dollars a week, which he’d turned right back over to her. But he had his own money now, and there was nothing Norma could do about it. He knew he was making her very unhappy, but there was nothing he could do about that. He needed something, all right; he needed something besides Norma.

  That year, 1973, Norma and Wayne went to Bubba and Nan Ease’s house for Thanksgiving dinner. Bubba’s limp had become more pronounced because of the arthritis he’d developed. Norma said to Nan Ease, “Look at him.”

  “Don’t worry, girl,” Bubba said, “one of these days, you’ll be limping too.”

  “Oh no, Bubba,” Norma told him, “you’ll never see this old whore limp.” Then she added darkly, “You’ll never see this whore get old.”

  At first Wayne thought that he had no sexual feelings for other women. He was so used to Norma’s touch that he could hardly get aroused with anyone else. But women kept finding Wayne, and he started going to bed with them. And some nights he didn’t make it back to Poplarville.

  Norma cried. “Why, Wayne? What went wrong?”

  Wayne didn’t know how to articulate what had gone wrong. He felt terrible that he was hurting Norma so badly, but something pulled at him, something that made the guilt seem small and inconsequential, maybe even necessary if he was to move on with his life. He told Norma he didn’t know what had gone wrong, but she demanded an answer. Finally he said, “We’re just not compatible, that’s all.”

  That was when she told him that if he married a younger woman and had a bunch of kids, he’d have to work like a dog until he was sixty. He just shrugged. “You always knew this couldn’t last forever, Norma.”

  He couldn’t look at the pain on her face. But in a clear voice she said, “I told you if you weren’t happy and you wanted to leave, there’d be no hard feelings. I meant that, Wayne.”

  He held her and they made love that night and Wayne wasn’t so sure he wanted to leave at all.

  Wayne was working a construction job near Franklinton, Louisiana. At noon he stopped at a convenience store in town to get some lunch. He got in line to buy his sandwich but found himself fumbling with his money when he got up to the counter. The girl holding her hand out for his change was a good-looking petite blonde with very short hair that gave her a gamine look. She had on a halter and a pair of cutoffs. She hardly gave him a glance as she took his money. Wayne was intrigued.

  Thereafter he stopped at the store as often as possible, trying not to go until the breakfast crowd had dwindled or the noon rush was over. Her name was Jean. They spent a few weeks talking to each other in the store. He liked her voice, a little throaty—sexy. He liked her coolness; she wasn’t all over him. She was seven years younger than he was, recently divorced, and had two little boys. He thought that was fine too.

  It wasn’t easy telling Jean about his marriage and how unhappy he was. He explained that Norma was older, that she’d told him if he wanted to leave there would be no hard feelings. Jean seemed to be able to deal with it. She and Wayne started going out together.

  Early 1974 found Norma in a downward spiral. Her health was good, but she was surviving many of her friends. Elmo had been gone six years now; Pete Herman had died in 1973; in May 1974, J.G. died. Wayne went to the funeral with Norma, but his mood was dark and edgy. He sat out in a waiting room by himself, not even attending the service. Helen asked Norma where he was. Norma told her and added, “I need to get rid of Wayne. He’s too young for me.”

  She’d said that cavalierly enough; she went a step further with Sarah: “Wayne needs to find himself someone younger.”

  “Oh, Norma,” Sarah replied, “Wayne would find someone young if he wanted to. He wants to be with you.”

  They went back to Poplarville—Wayne going off to work; Norma, waiting, remembering, afraid. About the time Wayne met Jean in April, Marie had decided to return to New Orleans. So Norma was alone in the woods, without her confidante and companion of many years. Her closest friends, Bubba and Elise Rolling, knew little about the demise of her marriage. Elise was Wayne’s aunt, and Norma, with strong feelings for family herself, did not want to put her friend in a position that might force her, if the marriage totally disintegrated, to choose.

  Norma put a couple of steaks out to thaw so she could cook if Wayne came home. She got dressed in her red pantsuit that she knew he liked. She went out the back door with Rusty, her Irish setter, for their last walk of the day. They went down the path, past the barns and into the woods. Rusty, running ahead of her, began to bark fiercely. When Norma got to him she saw the diamondback rattler coiled, ready to spring.

  She told Rusty to come with her, and she went back to the house. She got her .410 shotgun and took the path again, past the barns and into the woods. The snake was still there. Norma was a crack shot, and it took only one round. The snake lay headless.

  But she was shaking after she killed the snake. The long night stretched ahead of her. She sat on the red-velvet sofa, listening for a car, hoping for a phone call. The twilight faded.

  Norma decided to finish taping her memoirs. She pulled out the recorder with something like determination. She told the story of the suicide of Mr. McCann; then she spent the rest of the evening telling about the deaths and death scares that had happened at her houses, beginning with the man who died in flagrante at Louise Jackson’s house over a half a century ago. Then she told about a wealthy man from the North who’d stayed on the third floor on Dauphine Street, his ticker so bad that he could hardly make it up the stairs, drinking himself into a stupor every night until Norma telegraphed his family and put him on a train home. She remembered another man who was under doctor’s orders not to screw because his heart was so bad. He was a trick all right—he’d tricked her into letting Terry give him a blow job. When she heard a few days later that he’d died, she wondered what she would have done had he died there on Conti Street—rolled him out into the alley and waited for someone to discover him?

  All she could think about was death. She put the machine away. She needed to face reality: She had no love and she had no work. She couldn’t stand this any longer, not knowing when he would come home. She couldn’t bear to be in the woods, so afraid, one more day. It was time to make a move.

  Wayne was furious when she told him. They’d had a bitter argument about his staying out all night again, and Norma had said, “You’re not leaving me alone in these damned woods.” Then she told him she was going to sell the place.

  “I’ve put my heart and soul into it, Norma,” he said angrily. He loved the property, and he was hurt.

  They fought some more. Norma told him how she’d followed him since he’d started working with Eddie and come home with beer on his breath. She’d disguised herself and sat in a bar in Biloxi;
she’d followed him once to New Orleans and questioned the barmaids.

  “Those motherfucking barmaids,” she said.

  Norma didn’t understand how Wayne could love the property and not want to leave it when he was hardly there anymore.

  “You always said I could go, Norma.”

  Norma didn’t seem to hear him. “We’ll find another piece of property that you can love. We’ve just got to get rid of this property. I’m telling you, Wayne,” she said miserably, “I can’t be out here alone.”

  She was just getting back at him; she knew how much he loved this land and the house he’d built. But Mississippi isn’t a community property state. The property was in Norma’s name, like everything else, and he’d let her do it that way. He had no one to blame but himself.

  Nevertheless, he told her he wouldn’t agree to sell the place unless they could make a killing, knowing full well he wouldn’t get a dime out of it if she didn’t want him to. But she agreed. They sat together in silence after that. To Norma selling the property was another way to control him if he dared to run around on her. She could do it to Mac, but even now no one ran around on Norma Wallace.

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  Obsession

  These days Rose Mary Miorana ran an operation out of Kenner, a suburb of New Orleans, calling girls to meet men at a swank apartment on St. Charles Avenue. She made a living, but she had no ambition to run a large call-girl operation or have a house or be in the life in any way. She wanted, more than anything, to have a baby and live quietly in the suburbs. But it wasn’t easy. Problems with pernicious anemia had prevented her from getting pregnant for years during her first marriage. When she met Sidney Scallan, who became her second husband, she had been praying in earnest for a child, boy or girl, ill or insane or crippled—none of that mattered. She would take care of it and devote her life to her child. God answered her prayers and delivered her a test of their sincerity: Rose Mary’s baby was born with cerebral palsy.