Chapter Thirty-Two
Polly
Honolulu, Hawaii
Tap, tap, tap.
The repetitive sound becomes part of my dreamscape.
I am back on the SS Neckar, traversing the dangerous Atlantic waters from Bremen, Germany, to New York, and I hear the final rap of the sailor as he locks the door to steerage.
I recoil. For the next two weeks, I’ll be locked in the dark, dank basement of this ship, shoulder to shoulder with hundreds of other immigrants in bunk beds stacked four high.
Scrabbling for food and space and safety.
A twelve-year-old alone on this ship. Alone in the world.
Tap, tap, tap. The noise grows louder and more insistent. The sailor’s rapping transforms into the thudding of a branch on a window of a Coney Island cottage, blown by a strong, late-autumn wind. This scraping and banging is the terrible background sound of the assault on me by Frank the foreman.
I lurch forward, dragged from two of the most excruciating moments of my past into the present, only to realize that the tapping is a knock on my hotel room door.
I folded the sound into my nightmares, transforming it wildly and terribly.
I’ve worked hard to put my history behind me, and I refuse to let it hook me back now.
But who the hell is at my door?
Ever since Robert Benchley blew in and out of here like a Hawaiian hurricane this past week, I’ve been hounded.
Initially by letters and telegrams from the Lion on behalf of her and the girls—who need me to pay my Majestic rent, their own board and temporary housing, and the myriad daily expenses I always cover for them—and my father, who wants money for a new business venture.
All on no income. This has left me unable to lay hands on enough cash to keep up on my hotel bill, about which the hotel manager has been reminding me.
Then I was hounded by the gaggle of shady gentlemen who were at the bar that fateful morning with Robert.
As I’d suspected, they were petty criminals who fancied themselves big shots, since the real gangsters haven’t hit Hawaii yet.
Upon learning my identity, they cobbled together some grand scheme about how I could open an upscale brothel on the island with their support.
It doesn’t seem to matter where I go at the Royal Hawaiian—pool, beach, lobby, restaurant, bar—one of them is there with another layer to their proposition: “What if we opened a house near the Royal Hawaiian to get top-notch clientele?”; “What if we made a shell-shaped front door to the bordello?”; “What if we installed a glass-sided pool for the girls to perform as mermaids?” I wave them off like gnats, but like gnats, they are annoying and persistent.
I hope to hell that neither the local, small-time thugs nor the Royal Hawaiian Hotel accounting staff are behind that door.
“Miss Adler! Are you there?” a young female voice asks.
Ripping off the eye mask I always sleep in, even now when I keep to normal nighttime hours, I grab my robe and call out, “Who’s asking?”
“I have a telegram here for you. It’s marked urgent.”
A telegram? Who would be reaching out to me here?
Only the Lion knows where I am, and I just heard from her when she forwarded me bills and my father’s letter asking for money.
I’m not exactly hiding, but I’m not exactly broadcasting my whereabouts either.
Instead, I’ve allowed myself to exist in a haze of sun, ocean breezes, swaying trees, and cocktails, forgetting—for a time—about the madam life I led in New York with all its dangers.
Except when the local lowlifes nag at me, and the bills.
Hawaii will intoxicate you if you let it, and I’ve given it full berth.
I know it can’t last forever. If nothing else, I’ll be down to my last nickel soon enough.
I should leave the Royal Hawaiian to save on cash, but I can’t quite tear myself away.
Opening the door warily, I’m greeted by a wide-eyed young woman, lovely with dark eyes and shining black hair enhanced by the pink Royal Hawaiian uniform. With an eager smile, she hands me a sealed envelope bearing the Royal Hawaiian logo.
She pivots and walks back toward the staircase to the lobby. “Hold on, miss,” I call to her.
Wanting to give her a generous tip, I slide a dollar out of my handbag. Curiosity overtakes me, and before the door closes, I open the envelope—forgetting to hand her the tip. Staring up at me on a Western Union telegram slip is a most unexpected message:
NEED INFO ON SALLY KAPLAN, AKA RED SADIE.
TO FORCE TESTIMONY.
COULD USE YOUR HELP HERE
EC
“EC” can only refer to Eunice Carter. I step away from the open door and fall into the desk chair.
All the way from New York City, Eunice Carter is reaching out to me again?
How did she even find out where I am? I’d thought that, once I gave her the information she needed for her wiretaps and she secured her targets, our arrangement would come to an end.
She’d have the key to unlock the web of relationships entangling Lucky with the Combination of bookers, madams, johns, and girls that he’s created, and enough evidence to nail the boss of all bosses.
From the newspaper articles highlighting the fact that Mrs. Carter still has girls and madams in prison for questioning, I have guessed that they aren’t exactly spilling secrets.
I had figured, however, she’d gather enough eventually. Sooner rather than later, I hoped.
But I was wrong. It seems that Dutch’s pronouncement—that once you’ve committed yourself to one kind of life, you’re committed forever—applies not just to criminals. It goes for snitches, too.
My instinct is to toss the telegram into the wastebasket.
To keep silent and put this chapter behind me.
But then I remind myself why I took the hazardous step of reaching out to Mrs. Carter in the first place: to put an end to the Mob’s Combination, to restore whatever modicum of control and dignity is possible to a horribly undignified profession.
If I refuse to help Mrs. Carter, will her case unravel, leaving streetwalkers and high-end brothel girls exposed to the exploitation of the Combination?
Leaving my own girls without a safe path forward?
And leaving me without the ability to run a house and meet my many financial obligations?
“Ma’am?” the young woman asks.
Her question brings me back to myself. The poor thing has been standing in the doorway while this battle plays out in my mind.
“Sorry, miss,” I apologize, handing her the dollar I fished out of my handbag.
With her shiny black hair and winsome, grateful smile, the girl puts me in mind of Annie.
The exquisite Midwesterner worked in my house for three years, until she returned home, having purchased a small farm for herself and her family with her earnings.
How can I deprive girls like Annie of the only chance they might have to change their paths?
Even if it means telling the prosecutor what I know about Red Sadie, a fellow madam?
Sadie is despicable. When the Combination started to take hold, Sadie was first in line to offer up her girls; at least, that’s the rumor.
She gathered them up on a silver platter for the Mob, making them available on any given night to fifteen different brothels via the bookers.
Kit, who’d been friendly with one of Sadie’s girls, shocked us with stories of girls used to living and servicing regular clients in Sadie’s upmarket brothel being forced into two-dollar houses in Hell’s Kitchen, where they were required to service fifteen men a night. Fifteen rough men, at that.
Suddenly I remember a conversation I overheard at my own bar.
About a week before the raid, Dave Miller and Jimmy Frederico were deep in their cups, leaning against the King Tut bar.
In actuality, I’d say the bar was keeping them upright.
They weren’t tremendously intelligible, but I’m certain I heard them talking about working with Sadie on the placement of her girls.
I was too busy at the time worrying about my own hide and those of my girls to think much about it, but it seems I filed it away for this precise moment.
This tidbit would be crucial for Mrs. Carter, because Dave Miller and Jimmy Frederico are two of Lucky’s top aides.
Could this prompt the sort of direct link between the Combination and Lucky that the Dewey Commission is looking for?
It’s a step beyond the kind of link she currently has, I’m guessing, if she’s reaching out to me here.
I call down the hallway to the young woman, who’s waiting for the elevator. “Miss, would you be willing to do me a favor?”
“Of course, ma’am. That’s my job.”
I start scribbling on the hotel stationery, then glance up at her. “If I give you the details of a telegram I’d like to have sent, would you be able to orchestrate sending it personally?”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“And not share anything about this with anyone, even your boss?”
“The Royal Hawaiian prides itself on providing discretion for our guests, ma’am.”
I almost snort. Only about a hundred times, I’ve overheard the staff chatting about this guest or that one in very public spaces. But one thing I’ve learned over the years is that discretion can be bought.
I finish the text of the telegram: TELL HER YOU KNOW SHE WORKED WITH MILLER AND FREDERICO TO PLACE GIRLS. Then I copy down Mrs. Carter’s information and pull a fifty-dollar bill from my wallet. This is likely more than the young lady makes in a month.
Handing her both, I say, “Please make sure this telegram gets directly to Mrs. Eunice Carter, following these instructions. And that no one at the hotel is the wiser. If you do your job well, another fifty will come your way.”
Her eyes widen at this prospect, and then she scurries off.
Undoubtedly the girl wants to get the telegram sent and report back before I change my mind.
I close the door behind her and lean up against it, feeling the pull of my financial obligations and Mrs. Carter’s requests alongside the push of the pesky local hooligans. It seems my time in the tropics is up.