Chapter Thirty-Seven
Polly
New York, New York
I don’t resist. I don’t twist and turn against the pressure of my captors’ bodies. I don’t lunge across one or the other for the car door when we stop at a traffic light. In fact, my fiercest desire at this moment isn’t freedom. It’s for time enough to say goodbye.
I long to embrace the Lion and tell her how much her friendship and loyalty have meant to me, how she gave me the unconditional love that my father never did.
And I do wish I could see my mother’s face one last time; it seems terribly unfair to miss that when she’s finally nearby.
I long to give a farewell embrace to Kit, Angelica, and Rosalie, my current girls, and to all my girls lost. To Virginia.
They are the sisters—or, in some ways, the children—that I never had and will never bear.
But then a thought strikes me, one that sucks the wind out of me like a punch.
Do the girls feel the same way about me?
Do they blame me for what goes on behind their closed doors, something I try not to think about?
The tawdry games they have to play and the risky surrender of their bodies night after night.
Because when I do allow myself to venture to those dark places, I have to acknowledge that I’m no hero.
That the protection I offer them is only surface deep and that the biggest sacrifice is borne by the girls themselves.
That the house I offer them is no home, and that in fact, it’s the minimal atonement I can offer for benefiting from their submission to this terrible vice.
No, the girls probably don’t think of me as family the same way I think about them.
Maybe, it sickens me to think, they perceive me just as I perceived my own father.
The sedan takes a sharp right turn, and the mounting danger supplants my sadness over my girls.
Glancing out the window, I try to keep track of the twists and cuts the caravan makes down a series of increasingly dark streets, but I soon lose all sense of direction.
Even though I attempt to catch the names of the street signs as we zoom past, I can’t even say for certain that we are still in Manhattan.
After three-quarters of an hour, our vehicle slows, and we pass into a tunnel.
A tunnel to where, I have no idea. The passageway narrows and becomes almost pitch-black.
Finally, I see a glimmer of light in the distance.
As it grows brighter and brighter, I realize that we have driven into a vast, underground garage, where a line of black sedans, almost identical to this one, are parked.
The man to my left turns to me with a smile. I can’t tell if it’s meant to reassure or terrify. Either way, my fear mounts as he reaches for my arm to help me out of the vehicle.
I scan the cavernous space, my senses alert to danger.
The man leads me through the maze of vehicles, with the other man close behind, until we reach a staircase.
We climb three flights, and I begin to tremble, thinking that they’re planning to toss me off the top of this building.
I know more than one streetwalker or john who died that way.
Instead, at the fourth-floor landing, the first man stops and opens a door.
Inside is a standard office layout, a real plain vanilla work area with offices and secretarial stations.
I’m relieved that it’s not the roof of the building—or some god-awful torture chamber—but I’m confused and still spooked.
Why in the hell have a pair of mobsters brought me to what looks like an accountant’s office?
Weaving through rows of desks, we slow as we approach a set of ajar double doors. The man leading me pauses, peering inside what must be a conference room.
I watch as he nods to someone. Then he turns to me and speaks for the first time. “They’re ready for you.”
My mouth opens, and I’m about to ask, “Who is ready for me?” when I think better of it. Confidence and coolness have got to rule the day if there’s a chance in hell I’m getting out of here in one piece.
I square my shoulders and muster up what little height I’ve got, and I step inside. The half smirk I’ve forced onto my lips vanishes.
There, sitting around a garden-variety conference table, are a dozen of the top mobsters in the country, racket men who may have never been assembled together before.
From sightings at nightclubs and parties and shows, I recognize Joseph Bonanno, Tommy Gagliano, Joseph Profaci, and Frank Costello sitting on one side of the table.
On the other, we’ve got Alfred Polizzi, Owney Madden, Joseph Aiuppa, and a few I don’t recognize. It’s a regular gangsters’ heaven.
If there’s a heaven, there’s bound to be a hell. And I guess that’s where I’m headed.
“Enjoy the ride?” Joseph Bonanno breaks the silence, a cigar dangling from his lips. This guy’s nickname might be the comical Joe Bananas, but there is nothing funny about him.
“A regular gasser.”
The words slip out before I can even think. If I had the presence of mind to craft my response before speaking aloud, I wouldn’t have chosen anything that smacked of humor or disrespect.
But a couple of the men snort at my retort, and soon everyone is chuckling.
Have I done all right here? One of the men I don’t recognize says, “I don’t think anyone has ever called our goon over there a gasser before.
Eh, Bruno?” He nods in the direction of the man from the car, who stands inside the conference room. Bruno doesn’t move a muscle.
“I’ll cut to the chase, Miss Adler,” Bonanno says. “We’re behind the eight ball on this Lucky trial.”
A couple of the men nod, and several grumble. I have a million questions, but I know better, and I’ve gathered myself enough to wait.
“It seems this blasted Dewey is locked onto the idea that Lucky combined every hooker and brothel in New York into one big organization, if you can believe it.”
I can. Because it’s the truth. But it’d be a death sentence to admit it, so I shake my head and scoff like everyone else. I almost laugh at the thought that, if these goons weren’t so entrenched in the Mob life, they might consider having a run at Broadway. Their acting skills are that good.
Another one of the bosses chimes in. This time, it’s Tommy Gagliano. “Now, they’ve hauled in dozens of girls and madams. Not to mention nearly every one of the bookers and fixers. And they’re milking them like cows for information.”
Again I tsk, just like everyone else. I’m still not sure what these bosses of bosses want from me. Unless they know about my meetings with Mrs. Carter. So far, I’m not sensing fury or retribution, but it’s too early to be hopeful. I’ve seen men like these play terrible games with their victims.
“That’s where you come in,” Bonanno says, the ball back in his court. “Information.”
I freeze. Is he suggesting that I’ve given the Dewey team information? The tone of this meeting suggests otherwise; that and the fact that I’m still alive. But I’m not sure what he’s driving at.
“You know I’m no blabbermouth,” I say quietly.
“Nobody would ever call you a snitch, Miss Adler.”
Relief courses through my body at these words. I could sag to the ground at this reprieve.
Instead, I say, “I would hope not.”
“Actually, talking to us is the opposite of snitching. It’s helping family.” Bonanno gives me a terrible smile.
I force myself to smile back. “What is it you’d like to know? I’d do anything to help family.”
“Well,” Gagliano says, taking another turn now, “our person on the inside, not on the Dewey trial team exactly but on the fringes, has told us that Mildred Balitzer is being considered as one of the prosecution witnesses.”
I freeze as two thoughts seize my mind at once. First, Mrs. Carter is making hay of the information I gave her about Mildred. Second, as usual, the Mob has someone on the inside feeding them information. Nothing new there.
“Do you know Mildred?” Bonanno asks.
“I’ve heard the name.”
“What’s the scuttlebutt?”
“I may not be the best person to tell you. Mildred is a few rungs down on the madam ladder, if you know what I mean. We don’t exactly travel in the same circles.”
“We get it,” Bonanno says after a glance at Gagliano. “But anything you know—anything we could use against her in court, to discredit her testimony against Lucky—would help us. And we know how to show our gratitude.”
I nod, sifting through the reams of stories I’ve heard about the opium-addled Mildred.
I’ve got to offer them something; it’s not believable that I know nothing.
But what could I tell them that would get me off the hook but still preserve the power of her testimony against Lucky?
I mean, I could tell them about Mildred’s well-known grudge against Lucky for some beef he had with an old lover of hers, but that wouldn’t help Mrs. Carter’s case. I decide to start with other details.
“She’s an addict, you know?” I say. “Big-time.”
“We’ve heard she likes the stuff,” Gagliano says. “But lots of girls take junk from time to time.”
“Lots of gents, too!” one of the men toward the end of the table calls out, to much guffawing.
“Yeah, this is no ordinary case,” I say, trying not to sound too eager. “She started out as a two-dollar girl and worked her way up to madam of two-dollar houses. She could’ve been more successful, but she’s hooked on the junk something awful. That’s been her downfall.”
“She got a drug of choice?” Bonanno asks.
“I think she’ll take anything you give her, but I hear her favorite is heroin.”
“Maybe we could slip her some behind bars—” Bonanno says, and Gagliano interrupts, “Make her unfit for the witness stand?”
“That’s a good idea,” I say enthusiastically.
Bonanno gives me an approving nod. “That’s helpful stuff, Miss Adler. We could get her so drugged up she can’t testify. You got anything else?”
“I’m guessing that you already know Pete Harris is her husband? Not that you’d find a marriage certificate filed in any courthouse.”
“Yeah, that we’ve learned. ’Course, Pete is locked up, too.”
“You do know the two are mad as hatters for each other, right?”
“He better not start talking,” Gagliano seethes, “to protect his woman.”
“Or vice versa,” I suggest.
Bonanno, Gagliano, Profaci, and Costello then lean toward a man sitting at the end of the rectangular conference room table, and the five whisper to one another.
With his full head of silvery hair, glasses, and conservatively cut pin-striped navy suit, he looks more like a lawyer than a gangster.
He stands up and walks toward me, holding a single sheet of paper in my direction.
“Miss Adler, I am an attorney here to assist in this unjust persecution of Charles Luciano. I cannot tell you more than that without violating the attorney-client privilege, as I’m certain you understand.
In fact, I think an argument could be made that everything said in this room today is covered by that privilege of confidentiality, if you catch my meaning. ”
I nod, even though I doubt that the attorney-client privilege applies here. And I’m worried about that paper in his hand.
The lawyer passes it to me, and I see it contains women’s names.
“Before you is a list of women in your line of work who are being considered as witnesses. At least that’s what we’ve been given to understand.
Are you familiar with anyone on that list?
Even if you’ve only ever heard the nicknames set forth next to the full name? ”
I study it. Pointing to the fourth and seventh names—a Bella and a Mary—I say, “I’ve heard the nicknames of these two before, but I’ve never met them. All I know is that they’re higher-end girls. They might work for Diamond Lil?”
“That’s something we can work with,” Bonanno chimes in. “We could bring Lil in here, see what she can tell us about those two girls. Assuming she didn’t get swept up in the raids—”
“Where have you heard the names Bella and Mary?” The attorney interrupts Bonanno’s patter.
“At my house. At the bar. You know how men talk about their conquests when they’ve had a few. And they like to compare notes.”
Knowing laughter ripples through the room. Once the men settle down, the lawyer continues. “Do you recall the nature of the conversation about these two girls?”
“I think it was something like ‘Is Bella as good as Mary?’ Then they compared the two girls to one of mine, discussing who was the best.”
“Do you remember who had this conversation?”
“I don’t. They were two regular gents standing at my King Tut bar with their backs to me, and I was on my way to break up a fight.
The only reason I remember the exchange at all is that it involved an assessment of one of my girls.
As a businesswoman, I’ve got to keep on top of my clients’ observations. ”
“Pardon the pun,” Profaci calls out, and the room breaks out in laughter again. I laugh along, of course. Even though I feel like throwing up.
“Was Diamond Lil brought in during the raid?” Bonanno asks Gagliano, and then they both turn toward the lawyer.
“No,” he says, consulting a different folder.
“As you suggested, we might want to bring Diamond Lil in, ask her about her girls. And that also begs one last question, Miss Adler. How is it that your house wasn’t even touched?
How is it that you managed to evade arrest when so many of your peers are behind bars? Diamond Lil excepted.”
Keep it together, I tell myself. This moment determines your future. Time to tell the tale you’ve practiced over and over.
“I’d sent my runner out for bar supplies, and he ran into one of the guys he knows from another house. That house had just been raided, and he warned my runner. Fortunately for me and my girls, he returned to my house and informed us—instead of just saving his own skin.”
His expression implacable, the lawyer says, “Indeed, Miss Adler. I would say that’s very, very lucky.” Then he adds, “Anything else you’d like to offer?”
I place my free hand on my hip and give these terrifying men the sort of smirk I’d give to any old john at my house. No matter what happens from here, I want them to think of me as the sassy Polly Adler of legend. I need them to think of me that way. Because a guilty Polly wouldn’t be a sassy one.
So I say, “I wish I could invite all you gents over to my house and give you a taste of how a high-end bordello operates. But unfortunately, there’s been too much heat to open up shop.
So let’s upend this trial fast and get the show back on the road.
Then I can introduce you to all the glories of Polly Adler’s house. ”