Dreams Bigger Than the Night (10 page)

Polly ran her business like an old boys’ club that often seemed not to be about women at all. Decked out in a sumptuous mixture of décors, the house looked like a museum, with plush Turkish carpets, expensive furniture in the style of Louis Quinze and Seize, valuable antiques, first editions of Robert Benchley and Dorothy Parker, and paintings by artists who had traded canvases for sex.

When he entered, the place sounded like Kaplan’s, with different accents and conversations reinforcing the pungent aromas. A local businessman and one of the girls were playfully teasing.

“You did.”

“You did not.”

“You did so promise . . . a chain bracelet with piglets.”

George S. Kaufman and Moss Hart, buried in adipose parlor chairs, were kibitzing with two local gangsters.

“Da only one of yous guys that ever got it right was Damon Runyon,” said the hood. “He knows how the guys and gals talk.”

“Joey’s right. The rest of you ain’t got a glimmer. The only reason I buy the papers is to read Runyon.”

From the mah-jongg room came a clicking of tiles and voices.

“My move.”

“No, Trish’s. You oughta remember.”

“Geez, she takes so long, I forget.”

At the bar, he could overhear one of Joe Adonis’s boys and a local politician playing backgammon and drinking.

“Who the hell did he think he was talking to, some greenhorn just off the boat?”

“I don’t need no map, Councilor, I’ll take care of it. You got no worries.”

Polly greeted him and immediately sent for Margie, whom he had met the year before, when his Uncle Al introduced him to the enchantments of the Parrot. Although he never asked her age, he guessed twenty. Born in Denver, she said her father had brought the family east so that he could work in the bootlegging trade; but the Depression had wiped him out and led her to Polly’s to help support the family. This particular evening, trade limped. Four girls, two of them high yellows, were occupied polishing their fingers and toenails. He gathered that only one of the girls had some real action. The other bedroom doors stood open. Margie, reeking of perfume and dressed in a kimono with large yellow and orange orchids printed against a black background, greeted him on high heels decorated with sequins. As usual, a wad of chewing gum kept her mouth in motion.

“Sure was good seeing you at the Kinney Club. What happened to Miss Beautiful?”

“She doesn’t give me what you do.”

“You never want to marry someone lousy with looks. Her puss is like neon, a come-on for every lug on the make.”

Sensitive about Arietta and his feelings toward her, he changed the subject. “Guess what? I met Jean Harlow.”

“You gotta be kiddin’! What was she wearin’?”

“Next to nothing.”

“The movie mags say she ices her tits to make them stick out straight.”

“They got a point.”

A second later, the door opened and Polly greeted the man whom Arietta had identified as Charlie Fernicola. The guy wore an overcoat and a steel gray fedora. Jay couldn’t hear the exchange between him and the madam, but she handed him a key and pointed upstairs. Without looking around, Mr. Fernicola headed in the direction of the closed door.

“Rico Bandello,” Margie murmured.

“What?”

“The bruno who went upstairs. A real greaser.”

“His name’s Charlie Fernicola.”

“Bunk. That guy burns powder for Zwillman. He’s a torpedo.”

“You’re sure?”

“Absolutely.”

With Margie as a decoy, Jay led her upstairs, as if they intended to flop in the feathers. Stopping outside the room that Rico had quietly opened with a key in his gloved hand, Jay peered over his shoulder. Rico was pointing a revolver at a man holding his
putz
, in full penile flight ready to enter a woman from behind.

“Blix!” Rico barked.

The preoccupied mark had failed to hear Rico enter. At the sight of the gunman, the guy raised his hands and fell back on the bed, his dick turning into a wet corn husk. A second later, the woman, realizing the situation, screamed, grabbed a robe from a chair, and rushed into the hall.

Rico commanded, “You got one minute to get a stander or I shoot off your nuts.”

Seemingly oblivious to their presence, the hit man looked at his watch and counted off the last ten seconds. The pigeon, unable to coax his pecker to rise, begged for mercy.

“I’ll get outta town. Anything Longie wants, but don’t shoot.”

Rico grabbed the fellow’s clothes, which hung on a wall hook, and, removing a roscoe from the guy’s jacket, said, “If you ever push drugs again in the Third Ward, you’re dead. That’s Longie’s message to Dutch. Now get the hell out of here.”

Leaping out of bed and using his hands as a fig leaf to cover his genitals, the man said meekly, “Can I have my clothes back?”

“No, you can just go home in your skin. Take a powder.”

The man fled from the room naked as a newborn, down the steps, and out of the brothel into the street. Rico turned and sneered:

“Who the hell are you and what’s your game?”

Margie immediately extricated herself from Jay’s arms and ducked into one of the rooms.

Shoving his shaking hands in his pockets, he said casually, “Longie pays my salary too. I happened to be on the premises. When I saw you go upstairs alone, I figured you were on a job and might need some backing up.”

“And the dame?”

“Window dressing. She’s like Polly: Mum’s the word.”

Skeptically, they guy asked, “Ain’t I seen you before?”

For safety’s sake, Jay continued to trade on Zwillman’s name, saying, “Maybe we met at his party for Harlow and Jolson.”

Rico seemed to relax as he grunted, “I missed that one.”

Downstairs, Bandello insisted on buying drinks. “I’m having a Scotch, and you?” Jay requested a beer.

“Not one for the hard stuff?”

“It ruins a boner, and I’ve got someone upstairs waiting for me.” Rico snickered and eyed Jay suspiciously as they sipped their drinks. “You sure we ain’t met?”

“I can’t imagine where.”

Although bursting to ask him about Arietta, he felt he needed to ask her first why she had lied about Rico’s name. If Jay got too curious with this guy about that fateful day at the dance hall, he might be putting her in danger. But without healing the rift with Arietta, how could he approach her?

“I’m Jay Klug,” he said. “We haven’t introduced ourselves.”

“Rico Bandello.” They shook hands.

Margie was right, unless this guy, like a number of hoods, used different names. Jay decided to test him.

“You wouldn’t happen to know a Charlie Fernicola?”

Rico, sipping his Scotch, put his glass down.

“You kiddin’?”

“No, I’m on the up and up.”

“Funny that you should ask because . . .”

“Yes?”

“Never mind.” He took a swig of his drink. “If you mean the Fernicola who pitched for the Newark Bears, yeah, I seen him throw once. He didn’t last long in the league.”

Jay knew now why the name sounded familiar. But why had Arietta invoked it? “Any idea where he works?”

“Charlie? He took over his father’s barrel business. At least that’s what I heard. How come you want to know?”

Jay gulped. “Um, you remind me of him. Same, uh, walk.”

“Never noticed. So you seen him pitch?”

“Yeah, against Montreal, I think.”

For a while, they sipped their drinks in silence. Rico seemed lost in thought, but Jay sank into despondency. He could see no reason for Arietta’s lying.

“Whatta you do for Longie?”

“I write, uh . . .” If he said reviews of Jean Harlow, he knew Rico would never believe it, so he replied, “Letters for Abe. I’m his . . . amanuensis.”

“What’s that?”

“His private secretary.”

“I didn’t know he had one.”

“Hired me recently.”

Rico finished his drink and joked that Jay could write his future love letters. They shook hands, and Rico left.

Upstairs, Margie, fully dressed, sat on the bed. She said, “I told Polly, no hit men. Anyone else, okay. I hate gunplay and try to stay clear of the droppers.”

She clung to him for a long while, until her body slowly relaxed. Jay asked if she knew anything about Abe and the Olympic boycott. She looked as if he were speaking Greek. Eventually, they fell back on the bed and undressed one another, screwing slowly and caringly, without passion. The whole time, he tried to imagine himself entering Arietta, but the absence of abandon did not fit his dream of how he and Arietta would make love.

As Jay lay spent on the bed, Margie asked, “How come you never picked up the blower to ask how I was?”

“Didn’t you hear about the killing at Dreamland? It happened right after you went to the hospital.”

“I never read the papers. All they got is bad news. I wanna laugh, not cry.” She rolled onto her side and walked her fingers from his chest to his scrotum. “Whatta you say we become steady? I’ll be your regular.”

Damn, what does a guy say to a swell gal when she makes an offer like that but he knows it will never work? Not to hurt Margie, he told her he was planning to go back to college.

“What for? You already went.”

“Maybe law school.”

“Will that make getting a real job any easier?”

Margie thought of college as a trade school. If the degree didn’t result in a good paying job, the whole experience was worthless.

“Look at it this way, Marge, it’s college or my old man’s factory.”

“If it ain’t you, it’ll be someone else.”

“Maybe a rich fancy man who’ll keep you out of sight of his old lady.”

She sighed resignedly. “More likely I’ll hook up with a pimp or a pigeon.”

They hugged. He kissed her. She had tears in her eyes. On the street, outside of Polly’s, he heard a newsboy crying the late evening headlines: “Dutch Schultz Investigated for Racketeering!”

Longie’s name never surfaced, which was surprising, because when Dutch had failed to support the boycott, Longie had coldly said, “He’ll earn his fate.”

A week later, Jay received an invitation from Mr. Magliocco to have dinner with him and Arietta at the Tavern. Perhaps she had told her father about Jay’s behavior at the movie. They all met in front of the restaurant. After the usual wait, Sam seated them. Although Arietta said virtually nothing, an unusually garrulous Mr. Magliocco regaled him with the details of a recent lively reunion at the Robert Treat Hotel with some of the old rumrunners.

“Even a few of the young fellows joined us. In fact, one of them knows you. Rico Bandello.”

“What a coincidence, you and Fernicola,” Jay said, looking at Arietta.

Mr. M. laughed raucously. “Don’t blame Ari. Rico knew I’d never let her go dancing with him, so he called himself Charlie Fernicola. She didn’t know they were the same guy until Rico drove me home from the reunion and stopped at the house for a nightcap.”

Jay looked perplexed. If Mr. M. was being straight with him, then how come Rico hadn’t leapt out of his skin when Jay asked him if he knew a Charlie Fernicola? What other small deceits and sinful games were this pair up to?

“You said, Mr. Magliocco, that Rico mentioned me?”

“Yes, he spoke of you in a friendly way. Something about you trying to help him if things got out of hand.”

Apparently, thank god, Rico had left out the location.

Jay shrugged. “It’s hardly worth repeating.”

“An interesting guy, Rico. Like you and Arietta he loves dancing. Did he tell you that?”

“No. We spoke for only a couple of minutes.”

Sam took their orders, leaving a plate of
forshpiesers
that included slices of gefilte fish. Skewering one with a toothpick, Jay let it slowly dissolve in his mouth, waiting for Mr. M. to continue his indirection, clearly intended to worm something out of Jay, but what in particular, he couldn’t tell.

“Surely he must have mentioned Longie?” Mr. M. said with a rising inflection.

“Yes.”

“He works for him.”

“So he said.”

Mr. Magliocco sampled a piece of herring. Arietta sat mum as marble, staring out the window.

“Of course, when you saw him dancing with Arietta, he was out on the town, on his own time, between jobs.”

“Really? He didn’t say. In fact he never mentioned the dance marathon . . . or what happened.”

Mr. M. sighed. “Terrible thing, that murder. You know, when the police interviewed Arietta, they asked her a lot of questions about you. Why would that be?”

Jay looked at Arietta, but the stone maiden seemed utterly content to let her father speak for her. At that instant, he would have given a C-note to be with Arietta alone in a solitary place where he could try to get to the bottom of his suspicions. Mr. M. migrated into an anecdotal discussion about his adventures during Prohibition. Arietta occasionally smiled at some of his confessions but wouldn’t look at Jay. At meal’s end, Mr. M. excused himself and left the table to light up outside. His daughter never so much as gave Jay a glance.

“Why did you come to dinner if you weren’t going to talk?”

“You still owe me an apology.”

“For what?”

“For saying I had grifting motives.”

She was clearly hurt. He decided then, sitting there, admiring that faultless face, that growing up in the house of a bootlegger had given her speech a larcenous veneer, as she herself had suggested the first time they met, but that underneath she was really quite as innocent as she appeared.

“I apologize.”

It took a moment, but slowly a smile softened her face and she said, “Apology accepted.”

A few tables away, the diners were speaking German. That he had not noticed it before was probably owing to his absorption in Arietta. Four people rose to leave. The women went first, followed by the men. Apparently the German dislike of the Jews didn’t keep the local Deutsche population—even Newark Nazis—from frequenting the Tavern.

As the group passed their table, the last of them, a tall, thin, romantically handsome man, no older than thirty, with a dueling scar across his left cheek, stopped and bowed slightly. In acknowledgment, Arietta smiled politely and nodded.

“So nice to see you again, Fräulein.”