The Jazz Palace (21 page)

Benny was playing a melody at full tilt. His right hand was flying across the keys, improvising as his left marked time. He let his breaks last longer and take him wherever they went. He was making it up, bar after bar. Opal kicked her leg high. Benny could see the place where her garters met her stockings. She took off her shoes and put them on top of the piano. Dark circles of sweat clung to her bloodstone dress. As she slapped her backside, then the soles of her feet, she moved with the precision of a Swiss watch and the surety of a snake.

His foot started tapping as he jumped into “Small Potatoes.” Balaban and Katz who'd come for their usual hot dogs and soda started clapping, and Lev Walenski, the butcher, banged on the bar. Mrs. Baum's dead husband leaped up and grabbed Opal by the hands. He hadn't danced since his wedding, but his feet and arms entwined like a contortionist's as he threw Opal out, and then pulled her back in. She tossed back her head of golden flax and roared.

She caught the beat. It came easily to her as if it were in her bones. Her arms and hands flew. Sweat poured from her brow and her golden hair tumbled to her waist. As she fluttered around Benny like a hummingbird, Napoleon caught sight of her. She was cotton candy with hair of spun gold. He'd never seen a girl move like that—all arms and legs, and the beat coming as if it was inside of her. She didn't stop until the music was done.

It was dark on the road to the Indiana Dunes. If it weren't for the moon, they'd only have had their lights to guide them. It seemed as if they'd been driving for hours. Benny was beginning to think they were lost. Perhaps they had taken a wrong turn. There were no signs of other cars on the lake road. No headlights coming toward them from the distance. But the moonlight shimmered on the water to his left. This was the only road that followed the lake.

Anyway it didn't matter if it was the right road or not. He'd follow it wherever it took them. He liked the feel of the car he'd borrowed from his father, the snow crunching beneath the tires, the light of the moon to guide them. He breathed her perfume. Laughter spilled out of her like splintering glass. She was young. But not that young. He squeezed her hand as he told her that he was glad Pearl let her come.

“So am I.” Opal breathed a sigh of relief. “I didn't think she would.” She smiled at Benny. Of course it was a lie. She hadn't told Pearl anything at all. Pearl never would have let Opal come. Though she'd convinced Benny that she was eighteen, in fact Opal had just turned sixteen. As soon as she'd heard that Benny was going to the Golden Door, she was determined to go. She wore a yellow silk dress with a pattern of blue cornflowers that matched her eyes. She'd stolen it from Field's. She wore yellow slippers that she'd shoplifted from
Carson Pirie Scott. The cloche hat and clutch purse she'd taken from there as well. She'd gotten them over several visits. Opal knew better than to take too much at once. And she always bought a little something first—a slip, a pair of silk hose. Her girlfriend Rita had taught her this trick. This way people weren't watching her that closely.

The yellow slippers pinched her toes. She hadn't been able to try them on before she lifted them and now wondered if she'd be able to dance. Her dress smelled of licorice and lemon drops, for she'd been hiding it in one of the old candy bins. She'd dressed at the back door of the candy shop, then waited, shivering in the cold before Benny could honk the horn. Her hair was tucked and pinned under her hat. Fern had refused to cut it even when she'd begged. These days everyone was cutting their hair. Fern had even cut Pearl's into a bob. When Opal complained, Fern said, “When you grow up, I'll cut your hair.” So Opal had piled hers on the top of her head and tucked beneath her hat instead.

She'd pay for this when she got home, but it was a small price.
Let her beat me
, Opal said to herself. Pearl was worse than any mother could be. At night in their bed Opal felt stifled. She gasped for air until Pearl put a warm poultice on her chest. Lately no matter where she was—in tight corners, in crowded “els,” though never on the dance floor—Opal wheezed. If she listened, she could hear her own lungs. She could almost hear the blood coursing through her veins. It was as if another person were inside of her, clambering to leave.

Opal wanted to wear short dresses, ride trains, and see the sunrise before going to bed. She wanted to eat because she was hungry and not because the food was prepared and the table set. She hated house rules and picture albums and hand-me-downs. She hated sitting around the kitchen table as her siblings discussed a bill that needed to be paid, a shipment of booze that was delayed. She wanted to run away and keep going. New York. Hollywood. She could be an actress. She would dance in films that one day Pearl would have to pay a nickel to see.

The flickering yellow lights of the Golden Door appeared ahead. The club rose up from the horizon and illumined the coast. It was an old beach resort, lit like a fairy castle, beaming on the shore. Husk
O'Hare's Wolverines were playing. Word was spreading about the young cornet player they'd recently hired. Already a drunk, rarely sober, Bix was said to play like a black man. Some people claimed he had to be black. Some said he'd made a pact with the devil to blow his horn. The Indiana Dunes were farther than Benny liked to go for music, but he wanted to hear Bix. And Opal had begged him to take her along.

A valet took the keys to Benny's car. Against a dark façade the gold door shimmered. A sign read
NO JEWS OR DOGS ALLOWED
. Benny chose to ignore it, and Opal didn't notice. Inside everything was glistening and yellow, and milky white, including Opal in her flapper dress that set off her blond hair. Benny took her by the arm. As the door opened, music seemed to spill out. As they made their way to the bar, Benny smelled her lavender perfume and smoke. “I'm going to celebrate,” he said. He ordered two whiskey sours.

“But you don't drink.”

“Well, tonight I do.” Benny rested on his elbows so he could see the bandstand. As a dark-haired, slightly chubby Bix stood up to take a solo, he looked like a kid, not even Benny's age. His tux rode up his ankles, and he was wearing white socks.

Opal laughed, pointing. “I don't know what the fuss is about. You can't even hear him.”

He played a soft horn that was hard to hear, but Benny cupped his ear to listen. “You're wrong,” he said. “He's quiet, but he's good.” There was more to that horn, and Benny recognized it. Cornfields, the flat lands, a father's contempt, and a defiant son. His parents had sent him to the Lake Forest Academy that was known for turning disorderly boys into men. But every chance he could, Bix took the Chicago Northwestern and then the “el” until he found himself on the South Side outside the Lincoln Gardens.

When Bix was a boy in Davenport, he wandered down to the river. He lay on the banks, listening to the riverboat bands that came up from the South. That New Orleans rhythm got into his veins. As the Mississippi flowed, he heard a high-pitched horn. It pierced the night and went straight into his heart. He'd go wherever it went. Despite his parents' efforts, he'd been following it ever since. Here
was another white boy who could play and who had a father who hated him. Benny wanted to shake his hand as Bix sat down after his solo. He dropped his head as if he'd just exposed the most private part of himself, and the band came back at a feverish pitch. Opal clasped her drink as her legs were pumping and she couldn't sit still. “Come on,” she shouted, downing the whiskey.

Opal forgot about her tight slippers and her pinched toes as she pulled Benny to the dance floor. Her supple body caught the beat while he fumbled like an aquatic bird that glides and skims on water but is graceless on land. At the piano he could make two different rhythms happen with his right and left hand, but he was lost when it came to his feet. Opal laughed at his arms that flailed like a drowning man's. As she shimmied and turned, Benny got caught up in his own legs and thought he would topple over. She was trying to teach him a new dance called the Charleston when a half-dozen men walked in. They were huge, all dressed in brown and black suits. Two stood blocking the door. Two more followed. One wore an electric-blue silk suit and a scarlet shirt, shiny blue socks, a pearl-gray fedora with the black band, and a diamond stickpin.

“Machine Gun” McGurn, as he would soon be known, dressed like Capone. The same tailor made him his custom-made suits of purple, yellow, electric blue. He liked his accessories—his fedoras and stickpins, his spats and cane with its silver knob. He was tall and wide as a vault. He weighed over two hundred and fifty pounds, but he could move like an alligator at lethal speed. He was known for his big tips, his dashing good looks, and the blade he carried in his inside breast pocket. Benny recognized him as the man who'd filleted Napoleon's lips. He wondered if McGurn would remember him.

His real name was Vicenzo Gebaldi. He became a psychopath after his father was murdered. He'd been cheating the mob to save money for his family. A nickel was found in his father's right fist. Whenever McGurn killed someone, he left a nickel in the palm in memory of his father. McGurn was a high-ranking associate of the Capone brothers. A silent partner, he orchestrated events behind the scenes. It was his expertise with a knife that made him famous.
McGurn knew how to peel back the skin on a man's face, not to kill him, but to teach him a lesson. Once he'd sliced the vocal cords of a singer who tried to move to a new club.

The band came to a halt. Dancers stopped dancing as if frozen in place. McGurn cleared away a table at the front. But not before he took care of their bill. The golden doors swung open again. Two of the men, carrying tommy guns, stood sentinel on either side of the room. Suddenly a short, stocky man, wearing a green silk suit, sauntered in. He had a cigar in his mouth and a scar carved across his left cheek. Everyone gasped. Some looked away. The man motioned to the band. “Keep playing,” he said.

Al Capone lived on Prairie Avenue. He shared his house with his wife, Mae, and their only child, Sonny, but he worked out of his office at the Metropole Hotel. It wasn't unusual for him to show up at one of his clubs. When he did, the doors were locked. No one left until dawn. Wherever he went, Capone was a celebrity. Police officers and politicians raced to shake his hand. Bands struck up the songs he loved to hear. He was affable and generous when he wanted to be. He wore cashmere coats and the finest silks. He loved handkerchiefs, fedoras, fine pigskin gloves. He required six bodyguards including two with machine guns. He was often seen at the opera and the symphony. He had rhythm in his stubby fingers and his feet. He loved jazz musicians. When musicians played for him, he stuffed C-notes into their pockets. Once he made a trembling surgeon sew back on a bass player's thumb.

Capone took his seat at the table in the front. He waved his arms in the air. The band played faster. A bottle of whiskey was placed on his table. Capone didn't look at it, but he picked up his glass when it was filled. He could make a bigger profit on milk, but he enjoyed the clubs. People needed to have fun. Music and booze, that's all it took. He kept his gaze fixed on the dance floor. Girls were being dipped and spun overhead. They slid between men's legs and twirled in their hands. His eyes came to rest on the girl with golden hair. She was dancing like crazy with a partner who could barely keep up. Her hair flew. Her arms and legs went everywhere, but she followed the beat.

Capone was a family man. Every night he dined with Sonny and Mae. He called his mother once a week. Still, he had his girls on the side. He had them whenever he wanted them the same way he had whiskey and cigars and automobiles and front-row seats when he wanted them. They were his for the asking, to be paid for, and delivered. Usually it wasn't that difficult. Girls waited for him inside clubs. They slipped him their number as they sold him cigarettes. Everyone knew who Al Capone was. Nobody refused him. They didn't dare.

On the dance floor Opal spun. She flung her legs back and forth. Her blond tresses shook free. Benny was starting to get the hang of it, but it seemed as if McGurn's eyes were on him. Perhaps McGurn did remember him. He tried to dance faster as if that would make the evening over sooner. Benny didn't know that McGurn had never seen his face that night in the alley. It was Opal he was watching. Capone was watching her, too.

Suddenly Capone stood up, and his men did as well. But he told them to sit down. He motioned to the band to keep playing as he walked across the dance floor. Tapping Benny on the shoulder, Capone made a gesture that he wanted a dance with his girl. Opal looked at Benny with watery eyes. Benny couldn't say no. Capone took her in his arms and planted his hand on the small of her back. When the first chord was struck, he started to move. Despite his bulk, he was graceful and light on his feet.

He tilted back and forth like a metronome until he caught the beat. Then he was whirling. He swung to the music. He threw Opal out, and brought her back. He kicked his feet, paused at the beat, then swung her out again. The whole club was watching. Opal wondered if this was what it would be like when she was famous. For a moment she was frightened, but she went with the beat. His hand was firm and moist on her back. Sweat seeped through the yellow silk of her dress. His moves were smooth and even, and he never missed a beat. His steps grew more complicated. She twirled around and around as they sashayed across the floor. When he dipped her, she relaxed in his arms. If she'd never danced before, she'd have been able to dance with this man.