Chapter Nine
Polly
New York, New York
“Hey, Walter, is it true that the Ziegfeld Follies producers are poaching some of Polly’s girls for their revival?”
A familiar voice calls out across the bar.
I don’t need to see his face to know that it’s Jock Whitney, one of the wealthiest men in America as well as an investor in Broadway shows and film.
He’s practically a fixture at the King Tut bar, which is back in full swing twenty-four hours a day since I returned from prison.
Just in the nick of time, too, as my savings were running low and it was getting tougher and tougher to support the Lion and the girls, not to mention my family here and in Russia. So many people depend on me.
My guests erupt in laughter, which is good for business.
This nugget of gossip has been circulating around town for the past week, and even though everyone knows it to be a joke, how better to poke fun at Walter Winchell?
Syndicated gossip columnist, popular radio show host, and grade A snoop, Walter knows everyone and everything that happens in New York City and beyond.
He is also one of my best customers. He’d put up quite a fuss if I ever lost one of my girls to Broadway; he’s that attached to each and every one.
But given that he holds a grudge and he’s known to put an enemy on his “Drop Dead List” for the slightest infraction, this is the furthest anyone will go in teasing him.
Walter Winchell can make or break a star, a show, a movie, even a political movement, so the ribbing only goes so far. Even for Jock Whitney.
I put a hand on Walter’s arm and answer for him. Making my guests happy is one of my gifts. The happier they are, the more they spend.
“The Ziegfeld Follies is beneath my girls! You gents should know that!” I call back to Jock, setting him up for the retort. This way, both of the men are appeased.
“The only thing I like to see beneath your girls is me!” Jock calls back, as I knew he would. This delights the gaggle of fellow Yalie businessmen surrounding him. One of the men gives him a hearty slap on the back. These men are so predictable.
I force out a laugh at Jock’s anticipated response.
Playing along is expected of me, and in fact, this sort of accommodating camaraderie is one of the things that make Polly’s stand apart.
While I am welcoming and hospitable to all my guests, I make it a point to tailor my behavior to my clients’ personalities and, of course, their needs and desires.
Glancing over at the packed table to my right, where the creative crowd is gathered with one of my only female guests, Dorothy Parker, I think how I’d never set up one of these sorts of jokes for them.
Too crass. This group of famous, brilliant writers, actors, and critics—a rotating cast of characters, but which generally included Dorothy, Robert Benchley, George Kaufman, and Harold Ross—started coming here years ago after long liquid lunches in the Algonquin Hotel, and Polly’s operates almost as their second home.
It is then I hear one of Jock’s friends use a falsetto and say, “Ze Ziegfeld Folliez iz beneath my girlz!”
Riotous laughter ensues at my expense, and when Jock catches my eyes, I make sure to laugh along at this mockery of my accent.
My first schoolteacher in America taught me to smile along with those who poke fun, as it defuses the bullies.
Not that the technique always works, and I’ve faced my fair share of taunting.
But I don’t find these men’s ridicule funny, and I won’t forget.
It doesn’t seem to matter how extensive my vocabulary or how eloquent I am—despite not speaking a word of English when I arrived in America at twelve years old—these types of men will always see me as a lowly, dumb immigrant.
And a Jewish one at that. Never mind that I was the brightest student ever to come out of my region in Russia, so much so that I won one of the few spots reserved for Jews at a renowned high school in nearby Pinsk—and not to mention I was the only girl ever to receive a spot.
I swallow the insult, though, and count myself lucky that my short jail stint this past spring hasn’t turned the blue bloods against my house.
If anything, the notoriety has added to my cachet.
I motion for Walter to join me at the bar, where I offer him a comped cocktail. Prohibition may be over and speakeasies along with it, but the craze for cocktails continues. Everyone likes a free drink, even millionaires like Jock Whitney. And Walter.
The spaces are abuzz with chatter and booze and the clack of mahjong tiles and the gentle strum of the cello from the jazz trio and the quiet flirtatious murmurings of one of my girls.
All in order, exactly as I like it. It’s been this merry and calm since I got out of jail in May, and I’d like to keep it that way.
“Thanks, Polls,” Walter says. “Those Yalies get under my skin sometimes.”
“Don’t I know it,” I mutter quietly, “between you and me, of course.”
Strange though it may be, I know I can rely on Walter’s discretion here.
Though he trades in other people’s secrets, I know too many of his for him to trade in mine.
Not to mention, we have an unspoken kinship.
We both hail from immigrant Russian Jewish stock—him through his parents and me directly—making us outsiders in our respective realms. It’s a background he openly claims and defends; he’s one of the few journalists speaking out against the Nazis’ treatment of European Jews.
That sort of treatment of Jewish people—forcing us into certain jobs and specific communities and dictating every aspect of our segregated existence—precipitated my father Moshe’s initial plans to move my family from our tiny Russian town of Yanow to America.
That and the always-present pogroms, which only rose in intensity and frequency in the years before the Great War.
But my father’s scheme involved sending me ahead of everyone else, and so, on a frigid December day, twelve-year-old Pearl, as I was then known, was trundled off on a thousand-mile train and hiking trek to the German port city of Bremen, where I boarded the third-class deck of a steamship for a two-week voyage to Di Goldene Medine, the Golden Land.
Alone. I brought with me only a potato sack for luggage and strict instructions to send every cent home once I settled with acquaintances in Massachusetts, so my family could follow in my wake.
But no one came except my brother Ben, who was sent to Chicago.
Not until my father took the money I’d sent and sailed here alone a few years ago, leaving behind my mother, Gittel, and three younger brothers I’ve never even seen—with no fixed plan to bring them here even though I’ve pled and sent money to both my father and mother for their journey here.
I often think that, if my father had ensured that the whole family immigrated to America earlier, when I was young and so desperately needed their help, I might not have had to enter this life.
Walter chuckles, bringing me back to the moment, and then replies, “I think you know you can trust me on that point, Polly.”
“I do,” I reply, accepting a drink from Marv, my bartender for over a decade.
By all appearances, it’s an effervescent champagne—my clients like to see me joining them in the fun—but in truth, it’s watered-down.
I need to keep my mind sharp and my guard up.
On any given night, I won’t have a stiff drink until my last client has gone upstairs.
And that could be well into the morning.
Virginia descends the dramatic curving staircase that leads from the King Tut bar to the girls’ rooms. Her platinum-blond hair catches the light as it bounces, and the shimmery fabric of her peignoir and silky slip dress set—technically bedtime attire but could easily serve as racy nightclub garb—sparkles as it sweeps.
I motion for her, and the men part as she crosses the room toward me.
As I tilt my head in Walter’s direction, Virginia slips her arm through his and whispers into his ear. He is in need of her ministrations.
Suddenly the room grows quiet. Jock Whitney and his crew have stopped their banter, and the creative folks have ceased their intellectual repartee and witty barbs.
Even the constant click-clack of the mahjong tiles has paused, and the players are frozen.
Only the whisk of a steel brush on the drum and the low strum of the cello continues as the band plays, and even that is half-hearted.
Everyone’s eyes are on the secret entrance to the King Tut bar, which sits directly behind me.
My heart sinks. I silently say the Hashkiveinu prayer for comfort and safety, one my mother often recited but that I haven’t muttered, even to myself, since my childhood.
Because there is bad, and then there is evil.
Something I’ve managed to avoid for nearly six months, since I struck a bargain to keep my jail time low.
But now I’m guessing that my debt has come due, and it’s being called in.
I turn, painting a smile on my lips, and for once, I am upset to be right in my guess. There, stepping through the secret door into the bar, is Dutch Schultz.