Chapter Sixteen
Polly
New York, New York
In the end, I didn’t need to pursue the task Dutch laid out for me—to find out who tried to kill him—because he wasn’t around to enforce its fulfillment.
In typical Dutch fashion, he lashed out at doctors at the hospital while awaiting surgery, and then handed three thousand dollars to an intern to keep watch over him, to make sure no one else tried to slaughter him.
Even as he received last rites from a Catholic priest—covering all the religious bases before he went under the knife—he seemed indomitable.
But even Dutch Schultz couldn’t survive a Mob hit, and he died of his wounds within twenty-four hours of the shooting.
Not that it would have been hard to do what Dutch asked and validate the rumors that drift into my house through my maids and guards and girls and even delivery boys.
The word on the street is clear as day: Dutch practically pulled the trigger on himself.
He’d asked Murder, Inc., the hit squad for the vast group of mobsters called the National Crime Syndicate, to assassinate Dewey, and when the National Crime Syndicate vetoed the proposal as bringing too much heat, Dutch stormed out of the meeting, railing that he’d murder Dewey anyway.
And Dutch, who’d always operated as an independent mobster outside the National Crime Syndicate, was just enough of a loose cannon to make them worry.
By insisting on Dewey’s murder and making plans to undertake it against the National Crime Syndicate’s ruling, Dutch left his fellow mafiosi with no choice but to kill him.
Who ordered the actual deed? No one is saying the name out loud, but we all know only one person has the power to bring down Dutch Schultz.
Only the creator of the National Crime Syndicate itself, which oversees New York City’s Five Families as well as the bosses of Chicago, Buffalo, Philadelphia, and Detroit crime families and all the vice they orchestrate, would have the moxie to order a hit on a mobster of Dutch’s stature: Lucky Luciano.
I’ve never met the man himself, but I’ve sent him girls, and I’ve heard stories.
Fantastical tales have been wafting through my King Tut bar and across the mahjong and poker tables about Lucky’s rung-by-rung climb from Sicilian-born kid hoodlum to Mafia hit man to regional capo to boss.
Not satisfied with this astonishing ascent, Lucky did something no other mobster had been able to do before—unite the crime factions under one governing whole.
Even though he eschewed the traditional title of capo di tutti capi, he does assume the role of boss of all bosses over every facet of Mafia life, from the narcotics trade to theft to loan sharking to bookmaking to extortion to gambling to union exploitation, you name it.
Only prostitution has been spared, as far as I know, notwithstanding that peculiar ask by the goon at the bail bondsman.
But I wonder. Will Dutch’s death have any impact on that?
Will Lucky become interested in running prostitution, now that Dutch is out of the picture?
Not that Dutch seemed to exercise any interest or control over the “skirt trade,” as he liked to call it.
He simply liked “skirts” and my house, which would have been reason enough for Lucky to steer clear.
No one liked dealing with the volatile Dutch unless they absolutely had to.
Who knows the answer? For now, all I care about is that my house is spared Lucky’s gaze.
I hope I’m too far down on the crime ladder to merit his attention.
I’ve never craved anonymity—bad for business, except around the cops and my family, who are oblivious to my line of work—but I long for it now.
Complete obscurity would be nice, or, at the very least, the sort of somewhat benign neglect Dutch treated me with—until I made the mistake of inviting him into an unholy alliance to lessen my jail sentence.
Time will tell, I think. Until then, I’m determined to celebrate being out from under Dutch’s thumb.
I lift my crystal brandy snifter to the window of the little parlor off my bedroom, encouraging the wan afternoon light to stream through it.
There isn’t enough sun to cast rainbows on the opposite wall today, but still, I allow myself to feel relief and even contentment for a long moment.
Soon enough, the cacophony of my girls’ rising and the maids’ cleaning and the chef’s cooking will overtake the place as we ready for the night; while I do operate a twenty-four-hours-a-day joint to cover the bills, that just means a girl can always be available, not that the glitz and glamour of Polly’s is constantly on display.
To gift myself a few more minutes in this cocoon, I rise and put a Duke Ellington record on my gramophone, turning it up pretty loud and allowing the growl of the trombone and Duke’s own piano playing to wash over me.
Clinking the air in a toast to myself, I then draw deeply of the amber liquid and sink back into the soft, apple-green upholstery of my favorite chair.
The brandy heats me from within, soothing my jangling mind and worries.
It is the only tall, stiff drink I’ll allow myself until the last client of the night leaves. How I wish I could sit here all night.
And then I hear a knock.
“Miss Adler,” the Lion’s voice calls to me through the closed door.
She sounds shaky, even meek, which is a far cry from her usual demeanor of quiet firmness and frankness with me.
The Lion may have a certain reserve about her person, but she’s never docile.
As many a client has learned the hard way.
Then something occurs to me. Why is the Lion calling me Miss Adler? She only ever refers to me as Polly unless clients are here. And there shouldn’t be anyone here other than me, her, the girls, Jerry, and the maids.
Could the cops be here?
I leap up and rush toward the door. “Yes,” I call out, flinging the door open. “What is it?”
There the Lion stands, a gleaming knife to her throat and a copper-headed man behind her.
Her eyes meet mine, and her gaze is surprisingly steady and unafraid.
I know she’s been in far worse pickles than this—as have I—but the terror that something might happen to the stalwart Lion immobilizes me momentarily.
I cannot allow fear to overtake me. Shaking it off as I have over and over in my life, I step toward them, with my hand outstretched in a gesture of appeasement but my ears searching for Jerry.
Keeping my voice steady and my tone placating, I say, “There’s no need for violence, sir.
I’m certain we can get whatever you need without all that fuss. Liquor? Girls? Money?”
The knife remains in place, and the man—somehow familiar, I think—doesn’t flinch.
He doesn’t even move, except to chuckle.
This is no random break-in, and this man is no amateur criminal here for a quick buck.
How do I know this redheaded goon? Have I seen him around with one of the other, lower-level gangsters?
No, I think, redheads aren’t common among the dark-haired Italian mobster ranks—even those gangs that include the smattering of Jewish and Irish men—and so I’d remember him from that.
I steal a quick glance behind him to suss out the state of the house.
Broken glass lies on the floor alongside several books torn from shelves.
Where is Jerry? He’d normally put an end to this onslaught before it even began.
But when I see the big lug face down with his hands tied behind him and a behemoth looming over him, I know we are in trouble.
“What do you want?” I ask.
“Well,” he says with a sickening smile, “we came for one purpose, but on our way here, we remembered another.”
“And what’s that?”
“Rumor is that Dutch commissioned a safe just a couple months before his death, specifically to hold his assets in case he ended up in jail. Seven million dollars in cash and bonds stored in that strongbox, by all accounts. That got Johnny and me thinking”—he turns back for a split second toward the giant guarding Jerry—“what if Dutch hid that safe here? I heard he spent a lot of time here before he got what he deserved. We thought we’d take a gander while we conducted our other business. ”
“I don’t know anything about a safe.” I speak the truth. Dutch never mentioned a safe, and I would have noticed if he brought in a strongbox large enough to hold that kind of loot into my house.
“It ain’t out here, Murph,” the giant Johnny calls out.
“Take a poke around this room,” Murph says, and Johnny enters my sanctuary. He opens every drawer and door in the parlor, then storms into the connecting bedroom, where he throws perfume bottles and toiletries and clothing all over the place.
“Nothing,” he pronounces.
“Then it must be upstairs. In the girls’ bedrooms,” Murph calls back. He nudges the Lion and says, “We’ll search up there next.”
I think about my girls up there. If they heard all the racket, maybe they were smart and snuck down the back staircase from their rooms to the servants’ access.
But what if, like me, they were playing music?
Or what if they’re still knocked out from the booze or draughts some of them take to get their sleep?
I can’t have these monsters springing on them. And I can imagine what this “search” Murph referred to might then entail. I can’t let them go up to the bedrooms alone. Or with the Lion. I’ve got to protect them all as best I can.
I take a few steps forward and attempt to wedge myself between the Lion and this Murph. “Take me instead of my friend here. I’ll go upstairs with you to search the bedrooms.”
“No,” the Lion whispers, but barely moves her mouth. She can’t risk a slip of Murph’s knife.
“You’d put yourself in harm’s way for this…
this servant.” He spits out the word. I know he wants to use a much more venomous term—one that begins with an n—and I’m surprised he holds back.
It’s a good thing he does. I never, ever allow anyone to demean the Lion for the color of her skin or anything else.
“I’d do much more than that for her.”
“If the famous Polly Adler wants to feel the tip of my knife, she is welcome to it,” he says, pushing the Lion aside and grabbing me instead. “Lead the way.”
With the blade firmly lodged against my throat, Murph shoves me ahead of him.
Gingerly, I walk across the path of destruction these two hoodlums have wreaked upon my bar, ever cognizant of the knife.
A stumble or a trip could cause the switchblade to pierce my neck, whether or not Murph means it.
I tread with care through the room and mount the first stair.
Slowly, I climb to the second step. Murph follows so closely that I can feel his hot, quick breath on my neck. The sensation makes me shiver, and I almost prefer the knife to his panting. Can I turn this situation around?
I want to know the real reason these men are here. This treasure hunt for Dutch’s safe—which seems the stuff of fiction—is a secondary concern only. That much is clear. But who sent Murph and Johnny, and what does that person want?
“You mentioned that Dutch’s rumored strongbox isn’t the reason you came here,” I say, keeping my stare fixed ahead on the next step I must climb with care.
“Yeah. What of it?”
“I’m just curious why you came to Polly’s.”
“You should be more concerned about your health,” he says with a stomach-churning chortle.
“I am worried about that, Murph.” I keep my voice small. This is a man who relishes his power, however limited it may be. However violently it may manifest itself. “But I am also curious.”
That chuckle returns, and he says, “I’m surprised you haven’t guessed.”
“Guessed what?” I ask.
“Why I’m here. Don’t you remember me?” He sounds genuinely surprised. Even a little hurt.
“Remember you from where?”
“From the bail bond office.”
I suddenly feel sick. Because I do remember this man now. And I know why he’s here; he doesn’t need to explain. But he wants to make his purpose abundantly clear.
“I’m here to make certain you and your girls join our Combination.”