by Jim Musgrave
Chapter 3: The Madame
After the war, New York became crushed with new residents coming in from all over the United States and foreign shores, and with this great influx of new people came those who would take advantage of them. The largest illegal business was prostitution, and there were many varieties of bordellos across the city, catering to just about every carnal appetite of which the mind can conceive.
Before the war, I was raised in the commercial area of New York in a rear tenement about three blocks from where my family first landed from Ireland in 1834. We had a great famine, and my father, who was a farmer in Kilkenny, came to New York to establish a new life. His wife and our mother, Kathleen, died in the famine, and he brought his two boys to America. I was four years old and my brother Timothy was six. At first, we lived near Castle Garden or Castle Clinton that was later turned into the Emigrant Landing Depot.
My father, Robert, quickly learned a trade as a bartender in a saloon called Mickey’s near Five Points, and we later moved there. When his boss, Sammy O’Rourke, died, years later, the old man left the saloon to my da in his will. My father was a conservative man, and he supported the mayor, Fernando Wood, in his proposal to make New York a “free city” if the South seceded from the Union. Wood’s Republic of New York idea was popular with a lot of business men in the city, including John Anderson. If there were two separate nations in the North and South, that would leave New York, with its vast ports and low tariffs, as the trade capitol of the western hemisphere. Wood and my father believed this would keep the city from taxing its people.
I remember my father saying we should not fight for the inferior Negro race, and that if Lincoln emancipated the slaves, we would all lose our jobs to this race when they moved in on us because they would no longer be employed on the farms down south.
However, when the rebels fired on Fort Sumter, the war began, and New York quickly realized it needed to remain with the government to stay solvent. Lincoln quickly called for 75,000 men to fight for three months and end this “little” revolt. This was in 1861. My father knew we could prove our allegiance to this country by entering the fray, so he encouraged me and my brother to enlist. My brother had chronic pancreatitis and was declared unsuitable for combat. I did him one better by making money as an enlistee by taking the place of the wealthy young stock broker, Mister Stephen Pullman. My family received ten dollars per month from Mister Pullman, in addition to my wages as a Union soldier.
However, in 1863, many of the Irish in New York did not feel as patriotic as I had been. On July 23, 1863, the new Draft Act was enforced. Benjamin Wood, Fernando’s brother, printed in his Daily News that this Conscription law “draws lots for its victims from among the sons of industry, the workers, leaving the rich man to his luxurious repose.”
The mob was made up of mostly Irishmen, including my brother, Tim, who feared that Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation would lead to his unemployment. Newly freed slaves would come north and compete for jobs in an already congested and overpopulated working place, so the mob destroyed the draft office. Many institutions, which supported Lincoln and the Republican Party, had to barricade their entrances to keep the mob out. Horace Greeley’s house was stoned, as he wrote articles in favor of the proclamation. Tim led a group downtown to Fifth Avenue where they looted, burned and destroyed mansions. The feeling that this was a rich man’s war fought by poor men was given more credibility because of the $300 that could be paid for exemption. Tim already knew about my taking Mister Pullman’s place. Therefore, I remember Tim writing to me and telling me that his battle cry when sacking the mansions was “There goes a $300 man!” and “Down with the rich men!”
This fury had built-up over the first years of the war and it consumed the city quickly, as most of the city’s defenses, including myself, were off in Pennsylvania fighting General Robert E. Lee’s army of Northern Virginia. The small squads of police called in were no match for my brother and his band of brothers. Anarchy was all around; even Police Superintendent John Kennedy was beaten until he was unrecognizable. The mob beat every policeman they saw; they even burned the houses of people they thought were aiding the fleeing police.
Racism was also part of the mob’s brutality. The Negros in the city were dragged out of carriages and beaten, hung, burned, or all three. A Negro orphanage was burned killing over 200 children inside. After nearly four days, my brother wrote, “Lincoln sent in union troops fresh from the fields of Gettysburg to put down the rioters.” It was reported that over a thousand people died in the riots.
My brother took to serious drink following the draft riots. My father wrote to me and told me, “Patrick, I can’t get your brother off of that infernal bar stool. He’s there from mornin’ ‘til closing time.” He died before I even got back home, in a fight he had with Paul Kelley, the leader of the Five Points Gang, over a young prostitute named Katie. I thought it ironic that my brother had died defending the honor of a hooker named Kathleen, our departed mother’s name.
My father still lives in New York, and he now owns three taverns in the city. I visit him from time to time, and we talk about politics, sports and business, but we have never talked about women or about what makes a good relationship with a woman. When my mother died, a great emptiness overtook my father’s nature, and he refused to talk to any woman. My brother and I grew-up in this environment, and I can say we did suffer from an all-male complex.
In the Army, I learned about women in a more primitive way. I also learned about women from the poets, especially Poe and Walt Whitman. My literary hero, Edgar, seemed to understand the suffering I had gone through by losing my mother, and it came out in the longing contained in his verses.
The prostitutes followed us to our encampments. They, too, it seemed, were doing their patriotic duty. I was never able to have sexual congress with a woman, but I was able to reach their hearts by reading them poems and paying for my time with them. I respected these hookers, who had been given this name because it meant “to entice,” but it became even more popular when General Joe Hooker, who was under General Sherman’s command, allowed prostitutes to follow us and live outside our camps. This is where I first partook of the “world’s oldest profession” and learned about the darker side of women.
After the war, I had not lost my enjoyment of these women “hookers,” and so I still frequent the bordellos in New York in order to entertain them with my poetry readings and my war stories. Of course, I never partake of their intimacies, as I had seen many men who contracted diseases and became unserviceable to the war effort. Instead, I will have my woman disrobe and sometimes even dance while I read her my poems or tell her a story. This gives me enough of a fantasy life to attend to my personal manly needs in private, at my residence.
I met my favorite such woman after the Battle of Shiloh, and her name is Rebecca Charming, although, as she informed me later, her Christian name was Jones, and she came from a wealthy family of Joneses near Albany. Her father, Edward, in fact, is a New York Congressman, and he put Rebecca through finishing school and even to college at Vassar, where she learned she could make more money entertaining the male students there than by gaining a degree on her own. When the war began, Becky began following the Army of the Potomac around, and soon she became the Madame procurer, in charge of recruitment and training of these patriotic lovelies. Indeed, she even had secret contracts with Generals, especially ones like Hooker, and she became quite wealthy by the end of the war.
Because Becky is so intelligent, I also use her to discuss my cases and to ply her for information about what might be happening in the city. She obtains quite a bounty of information from notable politicians, business men and gangsters, and thus I am able to often get evidence I can use to solve a case.
Becky Charming has her “offices” in a luxury apartment near the theater district on Union Square near Broadway. She is a more educated and distinguished rival of the famous brothel madams where I hail from, Red Light Lizzie a
nd Jane the Grabber. These women procure their prostitutes by sending recruiters dressed in fine clothes out into the country where they promise the girls jobs in the city. When they arrive, however, they are drugged and forced into prostitution.
Becky, on the other hand, prides herself on never forcing any of her “ladies” to do anything, except to be kind to the gentlemen callers, as she prefers to term her solicitors. As she often told me, “I am binding a contract between two consenting adults, and both sides must come out with an advantageous result, or else I do not want to do business.” To accomplish this goal, Becky hires girls from business schools in New York City, as these women understand the more intellectual needs of the clients, and they are provided with the care of a regular physician, a Dr. Hiram Epstein, who looks after Becky’s girls and gives them the most modern cervix diaphragms necessary to do their business successfully.
“What have you been doing with yourself these days, O’Malley? I trust you’re keeping your feet dry, like I told you. Those fungi work their way upon bachelors’ feet like mushrooms on a forest floor. Change your socks regularly, and you won’t become infested.” Becky always begins her greetings with certain chastisements she has for me, which are leftover from our previous meetings. It is my personal habits she is most interested in, as she knows the grooming malfeasances of bachelors, as they are a large part of her clientele.
“Don’t go on about my personal habits, now Becky. I have more important matters to discuss. I would like you to inquire about some gentlemen for me. They are suspect in a case I am working on.” I continued to tell her about my theory concerning the murder of Edgar Allan Poe, and I finished by giving her the names of Longfellow, Anderson, Crommelin, Wallace, Moran and McKenzie. If there were any shenanigans going on with these fellows, Becky would find out for me.
“Good. Now that you’ve taken care of your business matters, what would you like to read to me today?” Becky asked, sitting down on a Parisian lounge chair and crossing her legs. This woman had chosen her surname well. She is, indeed, a most charming woman. Her hair is a radiant mass of blonde curls that bounce when she walks, and her shapely figure is molded deliciously beneath the baggy orange trousers and short, open-fronted pea green Zouave jacket she is wearing. Beneath the jacket is her bare bosom, a most robust sight to see. She knows I enjoy her wearing some kind of military garb during our encounters, and this was no exception. Her aquiline nose is fetching between her aquamarine eyes, and her intelligent gaze is full upon me whenever she speaks. This is not a timid woman. I have seen her break the arm of a sergeant-at-arms who beat one of her girls. She has taken many martial arts courses, and her techniques at breaking bones and emasculating men come from all corners of the globe.
However, when I read something from Whitman, her heart becomes melted butter, and she moans with a quiet, seductive purr that is quite enthralling to this Irishman. I pulled out my poem and began, “A woman waits for me. She contains all, nothing is lacking, yet all were lacking, if sex were lacking, or if the moisture of the right man were lacking.”
“Oh, my! That’s quite good,” said Becky, closing her long lashes in meditation.
“Sex contains all,” I continued, watching her begin to writhe on her plush divan, her legs sliding back and forth under her pantaloons, “bodies, souls, meanings, proofs, purities, delicacies, results, promulgations, songs, commands, health, pride, the maternal mystery, the seminal milk; all hopes, benefactions, bestowals, all the passions, loves, gods, follow’d persons of the earth, these are contain’d in sex, as parts of itself, and justifications of itself.”
When I had completed reading the entire poem, Becky was quite beside herself. She was moaning and whispering, and her lips were pursing together like fleshy rosebuds. It was my turn to say, “Oh, my!” Instead, I said, “Glad you enjoyed it.”
That’s when Becky got up from her lounge and came toward me. She had a curious gleam in her eye, and it was the same look she once had when the war was declared over after Lee surrendered to Grant at Appomattox. She wanted to seduce me!
I got up and raised my hands in the air like a citizen being robbed in the Bowery. “Don’t come any closer, Becky. You know me. I don’t like intimacy with women.”
Becky hesitantly walked over to me, and I knew she could put her acrobatic forcefulness to work, so I was on guard. She didn’t try anything tricky; she simply stood about a foot away and frowned. “Patrick, I know you have it in you! You have the heart of a true romantic, and all you need to do is become accustomed to your own gentleness. It’s easy. Close your eyes and think about all the soft things you’ve ever known. The silken texture of a butterfly’s wing. The soft plumpness of a baby’s cheek. Or, this,” she said, and she raised her vest up over her breasts and stepped over to me and pushed up against my arm.
I could feel the raised brown nipples against my skin and the delicate ambrosia of the swollen globes as they rubbed against my arm. It was as if I were being burnt with a hot poker. I backed away from her and shook my arm to rid it of all physical memory of the experience.
I tried to explain it to her. “I liked the way it felt, at first, Becky, but I suddenly became horrified that you would burn my skin. I don’t know what’s wrong with me!” I said, and I began to feel tears well up in my eyes and nose.
“Patrick, you have told me all about your dear mother and how your brother died. It’s understandable that you wouldn’t trust a woman. You must learn to be intimate by taking it slowly. Perhaps I come on too fast. You know me. I get transformed when you read to me. It’s quite thrilling, actually, and this is something you must know about a woman. A woman needs to touch. It’s like in the poem, you silly goose. Sex contains all. It’s my business, and it’s my philosophy. You must know that by now.”
Quickly, I wanted to change the subject. She was getting too close to my Achilles heel. “I’m trying to prove that Edgar Allan Poe was murdered. That’s why I want you to find out about those men. I found a note attached to the bed where his dear wife, Virginia, died from consumption. It said he needed to avenge the murder of the cigar store girl. I also went down to Baltimore and interviewed the only man who saw the great poet when he passed on. Dr. John Moran believes Poe was never inebriated when admitted to his hospital. He checked him over physically, and there was no sign of intoxication by alcohol. However, he did get testimony from a conductor at the train station who swore he saw Mister Poe being followed by two rather dubious-looking gentlemen. I am trying to find out if the murder of Mary Rogers, the cigar store girl, is linked to Poe and if someone else wanted him dead because of it. There you have it. If you can find out something that links Poe with one of those suspects I gave you, it will be a great boon to me and my case. You know I’m just starting out in this business, Becky, and if I can solve this famous death of Edgar Allan Poe, I most certainly will get recognized by patrons who will want to hire me for future such cases.”
Becky had a determined yet disappointed look on her pretty face. “All right, detective O’Malley. I’ll do the best that I can. I’ll ask my ladies what they know about those gents, and I’ll get back to you in a few days. Listen. Have you been eating three meals a day? I don’t like the paleness of your skin right now.”
“I get by,” I said, picking up my hat from the table near the door. “I’ll return to see what you have. I’ll bring another poem also. I want to thank you for your reaction to today’s reading. I still have no problem with intimacy of the onanistic variety,” I added, smiling.
That’s when Rebecca Charming lifted her right leg, in a lightning-quick move, and thrust it into my stomach. I staggered backward out into the hallway, a bit out of breath, yet laughing as I did so.
I was hoping I could get some information from Becky about my suspects so that my intrigue could continue. Without a firm connection between the death of Poe and one of these characters, I wouldn’t have much to go on. However, this is what is so much more rewarding than military life. You need not follo
w the orders of your superiors, and the survival you learned was that of the sleuth who must live by his wits and make his own schedules.
As for my intimacies with the fairer sex, I was not very optimistic about learning how to do that on a personal level. Certainly, Becky wanted to teach me, but my family history was such that I had built a fortress around my heart, and to an Irishman, defending one’s idea of love becomes the loneliest sport of all. It’s affairs of the heart, after all, that eventually make us all behave like fools, and I was no exception. Perhaps this is what made me understand my dear friend, Edgar Allan Poe, so well. He was also hurt by women who left him at crucial times in his life, and it led to pouring his heart out to the world in the form of lovelorn verse. Now I was trying to save his reputation because I wanted to feel that same love he felt for his beloved women. Perhaps I would learn something when it was all over. Only time and circumstance would tell.
Chapter 4: Alcohol and the Black Cat
The next day, I wanted to go back and see if I could get some real information out of Plug Ugly gang leader Walter McKenzie in Hoboken, New Jersey. He was doing business all along the docks during the time Poe was working in New York. Today, he was limited to the docks in Jersey. I was hoping he could supply me with some specific clues about Poe and his relationship with the murdered tobacco shop girl.
The cobblestone streets in the poorer neighborhoods collected refuse and dead animals. People threw their garbage out of the windows and the dead rats, dogs and cats fell down into big cracks in the road where they would stink to high heaven. One of our tortures as children would be to force the victim’s face down into one of these cracks until he or she began screaming for release.
