The Jazz Palace (28 page)

“That's not the same thing as killing them.” Napoleon took him to a nearby diner where he ordered a pot of strong coffee. Then they
went back to his room above the laundry and waited as he showered and shaved. A few hours later they were knocking on the door of the darkened speakeasy, banging until Moss let them in. The Jazz Palace was dark and ghostly still, but Benny and Napoleon had come to play. The place looked as if it had been closed for years, not weeks. Cobwebs were in the corners; the countertops and tables were coated in dust.

With a cloth Benny wiped the piano and the bench. It was odd to be in the Jazz Palace with no one there as they began a dirge-like lullaby for the girl who looked like an angel. They began with the opening phrase of Benny's “Twilight Blue.” Napoleon's playing was mournful. Some notes were ghost notes, barely audible, floating behind the tune. Some were fluffs—those missed notes on a trumpet that came from a quivering lip. When they reached the first chorus, Jonah came downstairs. He stood beside the bar, listening to their sad tune. He walked through the candy store and removed the black ribbon from the lintel, dumped the baskets of fruit and dead flowers into the trash. “I'm tired of mourning,” Jonah said. And he opened the door.

The old customers in the neighborhood, hearing the music, flowed into the Jazz Palace as Benny and Napoleon lightened the mood. Opal, they both understood, would have wanted it that way. Lev Walenski and Mrs. Baum's dead husband made their requests and dropped coins into the musicians' cup on the piano lid. But upstairs in the kitchen, Pearl didn't budge. Even though she heard the music and knew that Benny and Napoleon were playing downstairs, she sat at the table. She wore a black dress that fell below her knees, and her hair cut short into a bob that Fern trimmed for her every few months had grown longer. In her dark mourning she fondled the note that Ruby had left on their pillow two days before.

It was only a few lines long, but Pearl had read it over and over. It began “Dearest Pearl…” Pearl couldn't read on, but then she did. “I don't know if I'll ever be able to explain this to you or make you see, but I needed to go away.” She was going to New York to be an artist. “I will write when I've found a place to stay.” A chill ran through Pearl. It was not the shiver like being in the lake in the spring when
the water was quiet and cold. This was more like death itself walking by. Pearl understood that for the first time she was alone.

She forced herself to rise. She walked down the stairs to the landing where she saw Benny hunched over the keys. From this vantage point she almost laughed. He was losing his hair. It amused her that somehow they had grown old. He was playing a light, easy tune, nothing too demanding for the late hour. When he looked up, their eyes locked. Pearl had a million things she wanted to say to him, but her silence was stuck in her throat. She wanted to tell Benny that she missed Opal. That Ruby was gone, and she would have to learn how to sleep in an empty bed. And even though Pearl knew that Opal's death was not his doing, it seemed as if he was to blame.

She smoothed her hair and went behind the bar. Without a word they played on into the evening when Napoleon had to go to his gig downtown. After Napoleon had left, Benny just sat fiddling at the keys. Soon the neighbors went home. Her siblings went back upstairs. When it was only the two of them, Benny rose. He closed the piano and sat on a stool across from her. “I haven't seen you in a while,” she said.

“I'm sorry…I should have come by sooner.” He shook his head back and forth. His eyes were sunken as if he hadn't eaten in days. “How are you?” he asked.

“I've been better.” She fingered the letter that she kept in her pocket.

“I'm sure you have,” he said. “Pearl, I want to tell you…about Opal.”

But Pearl held up her hand. “There's nothing you have to tell me,” she said. “And honestly even if there was, I don't want to know.”

“Would you like me to stay for a while?”

After a pause Pearl rose, shaking her head. “No, actually I wouldn't. It's late and I'm tired. I think it would be better if you leave.” He had never heard such coldness in her voice as her dark eyes stared into his own. He nodded, slipping on his cap.

“I'll go now.” But Pearl was already walking up the stairs.

Benny watched her leave, and he felt as if he would fall down and weep. Instead he walked out into the warm night and began wandering
the streets. He walked with no purpose or direction. He felt as if he had a hollow place inside of him and something had slipped through it and was lost to him forever. This was what his “Twilight Blue” tune was really about. In its sad refrain he could hear that now.

It was the middle of the night as Benny made his way to his room above the laundry and sat on the bed. The musty smell seemed stronger than before. He touched the folded sheets and then lay back, staring out the window into the gray skies. The girl in the billboard was smoking her Lucky. Benny's hands were shaking. It was as if they belonged to someone else, and they were pale and trembling as an old man's.

On a November morning Al Capone wanted to go duck hunting. He hadn't had a vacation in years, but he wanted one now. He thought that shooting birds out of the sky would do him some good. He walked into Marshall Field's and paid three thousand dollars on gear for himself and his entourage. He bought a dozen pair of waders and dark flannel shirts. He bought green hats and Bowie knives, shotguns and rain ponchos. He bought hunting rifles and silver flasks, hand-painted duck decoys and fur-lined jackets. For a week he and his men clomped around in rubber boots and waterproof jackets. They were good marksmen and they killed many ducks. As he trudged through dense forests and across mucky streams, Capone had time to think.

After all he'd done for Chicago the city still didn't appreciate him. He'd tried to make people happy. He provided entertainment and booze. “Public service is my motto” is what Capone said, but still they blamed him for everything. This made him sad. It made his stomach sour and his bowels flare. He had never killed anyone except in self-defense. He had never intentionally hurt anyone. He had brought money to many public officials and police officers and saloon keepers. He had a good heart. His family knew this. Musicians knew this. Still he was misunderstood.

There in the northern woods Al Capone decided to leave Chicago. He was going to go to Florida, but he learned that he'd be
unwelcome there as well. He was twenty-nine years old and no one wanted him. He'd never been west, so he decided to go to Los Angeles. That far coast. It was a good place to get a fresh start. Capone traveled with his bodyguards in a special car. It was designed only for him with velvet curtains, real whiskey, and bulletproof glass. This was his first adventure. He'd never been anywhere except Brooklyn, Chicago, and East Lansing. He was surprised by the vastness of the country. He didn't know that the sky could be so blue and the land stretch so far. He was humbled before so much space. He thought of his older brother, Two-Gun Hart, who packed a gun in each holster, was a lawman somewhere in Kansas. He put people like his own brother in jail every day. Richard was his real name. He'd turned his back on his family long ago, breaking his mother's heart.

Everything on this sojourn surprised him. The people were blond, with pale skin and vapid blue eyes. They were thin and tall. They grew corn and wheat and their vast world was yellow. They lived in small towns. He had no idea how people lived in these towns or what they did in them. How did they pass the many hours of the day? These states were dry. There were no saloons or bars, not even any speakeasies to console them. What was it like for them at night? He rode through Colorado and came to the mountains. He had never seen mountains. He'd never seen deserts. It all frightened him. There was nothing here.

When he arrived in Los Angeles he was greeted by the messenger from the chief of police and told that he had twelve hours to get out of town. Instead Capone checked into the Biltmore. He took a tour of the houses of the stars in a bulletproof limo. He paused to admire Pickfair, the great mansion where Mary Pickford lived. He toured a movie studio where he watched Union soldiers fighting the Battle of Gettysburg and saw an actor named Buster Keaton slip on a banana peel and fall into a woman's arms. He called filmmaking a great racket.

His journey ended abruptly when Detective “Roughhouse” Brown arrived to escort Capone out of town. “Why does everybody pick on me?” he lamented to reporters at the Los Angeles rail terminal as he was getting ready to leave. He boarded the
Santa Fe Chief
.
It took him east, back to where he'd come from. This time the journey made him tired. He had no stamina for travel. If he could help it, he'd never go anywhere again. On his way to Chicago the train stopped at Joliet. When Capone descended from the train to stretch his legs, he was met by six policemen. They had their guns pointed at them. To make matters easier Capone handed over his .45-caliber pistol and all his ammunition. They arrested him for carrying a concealed weapon. He spent eight hours in a Joliet jail. Then he posted bail. He got back on the train and returned to Chicago. He was officially Public Enemy Number 1.

As Capone's train pulled into Union Station, Benny was thinking about how soon he could be boarding one to leave. He had his own dreams of departure, each ending years later with a triumphant return. He'd come back with his own orchestra and a longstanding gig. He'd have record contracts and fans clambering to hear him. He still had his red suitcase, packed, and his tunes, tucked in the zipper pouch. As the days passed after work or in the evenings he went for long walks. It seemed as if only by moving he could make any sense at all of things. He was drawn to the activity of the streets—the vendors and peddlers, the smells of roasting meats and baking bread, the pace of the inhabitants. Each morning he walked through a different neighborhood. The Polish and the Slavs of Pilsen, the Chinese, the Irish. He wandered through Greektown and along Maxwell Street. Everywhere he passed strangers. No one knew his face, and he knew no one. It would be so easy to join this crowd, to melt in where no one would recognize him.

Benny wondered what it was that made people disappear. Bad debts, failed love, petty crimes. Maybe he should disappear. He didn't have to stay here. He could leave, head off to New York and work for Paul Whiteman's band, or to Paris where he'd play in the clubs of Montparnasse or the burlesque houses of Pigalle. He'd start in New York. He'd heard that the music was different there. The bands were bigger, and they called the music swing. In Chicago people danced the Bunny Hug or the Black Bottom. In New York people still danced, but in most places they sipped martinis and applauded when a solo was done.

He'd saunter into the hotels, through lobbies of crystal chandeliers and wall tapestries. Doormen would tip their hats. He'd write letters home on sheets of creamy stationery with raised lettering, telling his parents about the gigs he'd landed and the recordings he was making. He'd tell them that he was living in a spacious room with a view of the park, but it would be best if they write to him in care of the general post office as he might be heading out on tour soon. He'd always include a check. His mother would write back to say how proud she was. And his father would be proud of him, too.

He'd rent a tuxedo and go to the Cotton Club. The Cotton Club, he'd heard, was built like a Southern mansion with large white columns and a backdrop painted with weeping willows and slave quarters. The orchestra performed in front of the double doors of the mansion. All the musicians were black and all the dancers light skinned. All the patrons were white. The musicians performed on a platform, and the dance floor was below. It was shiny as an ice rink. The dancers wore feather headdresses and pretended to be Indians. The murals on the walls depicted jungle scenes. Waiters in red suits carried trays of cocktails and shrimp.

Joe Oliver had been in line to play there, but he held out for more money. While he was waiting, Duke Ellington took the job. Now Joe Oliver was in Savannah, working as a janitor in a school. Duke played fast and furious. He was an affable man and he smiled, but his mind was always on his music. There were rumors that he was queer. His eleven-piece orchestra swung. Benny had heard a couple of recordings. The music was moving to New York. The recording studios were there. He could pick up sessions work. Maybe it wouldn't be enough to send home to his family. Maybe he'd just be living in another dingy room with another view of a billboard of a smoking girl, but his brothers were running the factory now so his parents would be taken care of, and Benny could earn enough to keep himself alive.

He rarely went to see his parents. Mostly he went to his job in the pit and stayed in his room. He got gigs when he could find them. He was trying to save up his money so that he'd have enough to leave. On a cold February night he sat, eating bananas and sipping warm
gin. He stared down at the street. Below couples strolled in the chilly evening. Women clutched red roses in their hands and clung to the arms of men they adored. It was Valentine's Day, and he longed to have someone beside him. He listened to the sirens in the night. Everywhere there were emergencies and crimes and deaths.

Outside the billboard girl seemed to be watching him, and he found himself wanting even this woman who eluded him. He'd been without a companion for so long. He thought of all the women he'd spent a night with or more. The sad whores at the Rosario Sisters and Opal who had once aroused him and now was gone. His mind wandered back to the Polish girl with the thick braid who'd been in his history class. The girl with whom he'd imagined dancing when he was a boy, standing on the Clark Street Bridge. He hadn't thought of her in years, but now he did. What had become of her? She was probably fat and sold pierogis on the West Side of Chicago with a bevy of kids and a husband who drank.

None of these women stayed with him. They were as ephemeral as smoke. But as the night wore on, his thoughts brought him to Pearl. He was surprised to find himself thinking of her, but there she was. Once Napoleon had told him to look at her from a different angle and now he did. He saw her from afar. She was like a painting that didn't make sense up close. He had to step away. He saw her as a memory. Her skin, tawny in summer, her rich, dark hair. Her lean swimmer's body. He felt a longing that surprised him, but it wasn't to make love to her. He wanted to talk to her. He decided that if she didn't want to see him he would write her a letter. He would explain why he was leaving. Whatever he told her, it would be the truth.

In the small desk in his room he had paper and envelopes—not the creamy beige he'd envisioned for himself, just plain white paper and a pen. He tried to start the letter a dozen times. He'd addressed the envelope, but that was as far as he got. The words wouldn't come. He wanted to tell Pearl that all he knew were mistakes. Everything that once mattered to him was gone. He needed to get back inside his music again. It was as if he was standing on the outside of his own life, gazing in. But he couldn't put his sadness on the page. He only
knew how to say those things with his fingers on a keyboard, not on paper with a pen.

The sky was lightening, the city waking up, when he folded the blank sheet of paper, put it into the envelope and stuffed it back into his drawer. He'd finish it another night. He slept for an hour or two, and then went out to get coffee. On a windy corner a boy was hawking the morning papers, and the headline caught Benny's eye. “Seven Gangsters Slain.” He bought the paper and read it as his coffee grew cold. A squad of men posing as police officers had walked into a garage on Chicago's North Side. They'd lined the members of the Moran gang against the wall. They made them spread their legs and raise their hands high. The Moran gang joked among themselves. These raids happened all the time. You greased a palm or two, and then it was done. They were about to start laughing when the machine guns opened fire. Within moments they were dead. When neighbors saw cops leaving the garage, they assumed a bust had been made. Then they came upon the grisly scene.

Newspaper photographers rushed to the garage to snap pictures as they had when the
Eastland
sank. Images of bloodied bodies were splattered on all the front pages. No one had ever seen such a crime. Chicago became known as the city where boys murder boys for no reason, and grown men are gunned down. Capone was in Miami at the time, staying at his villa on Palm Island. He spent the day betting on horses. In the afternoon he went to the dog track. He was shocked by the news. Two days later he threw a party at his villa. More than a hundred guests arrived.