Chapter Forty
Polly
New York, New York
Twilight casts a violet hue over my bedroom, darkening my private space.
I consider rising from my comfortable upholstered chair and switching on a few lights, but instead I allow the shadows to wrap around me like a cloak.
This darkness is the right place to assess the past few days, and wallow in my guilt.
Guilt over asking others to put themselves on the line when I haven’t done the same.
Guilt over how my girls really feel about me and what we do.
Guilt over the stories I tell myself about the sort of person I really am.
Guilt over what I’ve done and how I’ve involved the people I profess to care about most. Guilt over lying to my mother and brother Ben and the three brothers that I just met, and even my father, about how I earn the living that is supporting them.
The emotions overwhelm, and I’m not yet ready for the light.
I sip at my whiskey and ask myself the question I’ve considered more times than I can count over the past few days: Was it worth the risk to gather the necessary evidence from my girls and share it with Mrs. Carter?
I believe the case could’ve plowed ahead on the evidence already assembled.
After all, with my help, Mrs. Carter has established links from the girls to the madams; from the madams to the bookers like Jackie Ellerstein, Dave Miller, and Pete Harris; from the bookers to the strong-arm squad shaking down the bookers, which includes Jimmy Frederico and Little Abie Wahrman; from the shakedown squad to the Mob treasurer, Tommy the Bull; from Tommy the Bull to Combination day-to-day head of operations, Little Davie Betillo.
But we both knew the link between Betillo and Lucky was weak, and mostly based on the testimony of madams, who won’t exactly have stellar credibility in court.
And that’s where I came in to help the case and her.
Two days after I’d met with Mrs. Carter, Kit, the Lion, and I were spending the night sipping drinks and listening to jazz at the little kitchen table in my new digs.
The door slammed as Angelica and Rosalie returned to my house after visiting guests at hotels, flush with cash and in a merry mood.
When they plopped down at the table with us and asked for drinks, I knew my moment had come to do the sort of digging I’d been reluctant to do.
I poured tall flutes of champagne for each of us. Keeping the bottle close at hand, I refilled everyone’s glasses as soon as they took a sip. Everyone’s except mine, as I needed to keep my wits about me. I waited until the girls and the Lion downed a second bottle before asking my first question.
I sighed and said, “Wonder what’s happening with that Dewey mess. You girls heard anything?”
The Lion shot me a startled look. Even tipsy, she was on high alert.
She alone knew about my meetings with Mrs. Carter.
And while she didn’t like them, she understood their importance.
Neither of us wanted to be under the Mob’s thumb, and we were worried for the girls.
Especially after Virginia. And she knows as well as I do how badly we need to reopen the house and make serious money again; my coffers border on empty.
But I have never, ever involved my girls in my snitching, not in any way. Too risky for them and for me.
“Nah,” Rosalie said, finishing off her champagne and holding her glass out for another refill. “Same old, same old.”
I stood up and wandered over to the icebox, where a third bottle awaited. “How about you, Angelica?” I asked as I popped the top.
“You still talking about the Dewey case?”
“How much champagne have you had?” I chuckled. “Don’t think anyone has changed the subject yet.”
“Why are you curious?” she asked, a single eyebrow raised.
I had steered clear of discussions about the raids and the trial before.
Once the girls, the Lion, and I reunited in New York, we resumed our living arrangement without a lot of conversation about why we no longer conducted business in my house.
Angelica’s reaction was a warning. She wasn’t as liquored up as I might have hoped; maybe she’d even wondered about how we escaped the raids in the first place. I had to tread carefully.
“Want to make sure we’re protected. Seems like the whole of our business is on trial—in one way or another,” I explained.
Rosalie half snorted, half laughed. “Seems more like every person in our business is in the slammer, awaiting trial.”
“Just don’t want any of us to end up there, too,” I said.
“You’re keeping your nose out of trouble.” Angelica gave me a sidelong glance. “Not seeing guests here, not hosting parties. What have you got to worry about?”
“Never know what some of the girls will say when they’ve been behind bars for weeks.” I paused for a beat, letting the possibility sink in. “Or the madams who’ve got an axe to grind.”
“I think it’s a good sign that the cops haven’t come knocking on the front door. They’ve had those girls in custody for months. Even the boozehounds and the junkies are clean now and are capable of talking if they want,” Angelica proclaimed. “I think you’re in the clear.”
“I don’t know about that,” Rosalie said with another big gulp of champagne. “I heard Nancy Presser has just dried out. And you and I both know she’s got stories to tell.”
Kit piped up, “Excuse me! You can’t drop a bomb like that and not tell us the scuttlebutt. What stories?”
Rosalie leaned toward us, a conspiratorial grin on her face. “Well, the rumor is Nancy Presser used to be one of Lucky’s favorite girls—”
Goose bumps started to rise on my arms. But before Rosalie could continue, Kit interjected, “Boy, she’s slid down the ladder since then. Doesn’t she have that disgusting mobster Ralph Liguori as her pimp now? I heard he made her work at Jenny the Factory’s two-dollar house.”
“Snorting all that Cadillac will do that to you,” Rosalie replied, then continued.
“As I was saying, Nancy used to be one of Lucky’s favorites.
And I heard she and Lucky would meet at Keen’s English Chop House near Madison Square Garden for a few drinks before they headed to either the Barbizon or the Waldorf, depending on where Lucky was staying. ”
“You’re making me hungry for a chop right now,” Kit squealed, but Rosalie was on a roll and couldn’t be stopped.
“Lucky would hold court while he and Nancy drank at Keen’s. Little Davie, Tommy the Bull, Little Abie, and Jimmy Frederico would join them some nights, and they’d talk about girls and houses right in front of Nancy. As if she wasn’t one herself.”
“What kind of stuff did they say?” I blurted without thinking. Damn it. It wouldn’t do for me to appear too eager.
But my question didn’t give Rosalie any pause—and even Angelica seemed interested now.
“Nancy overheard discussions about the girls’ prices being raised and putting the madams and bookers on low salaries.
But what really got her goat were the instructions to trash the houses when they didn’t fork over bond money and straighten out the girls who didn’t play ball. ”
“That kind of talk doesn’t surprise me from thugs like Tommy the Bull or Little Davie,” I said.
“Funny thing is, it wasn’t Tommy the Bull or Little Davie that said those things. It wasn’t even Little Abie or Jimmy Frederico.” Rosalie scooched even closer to us. “It was Lucky.”
Had she just said what I thought she said?
This was the kind of direct, specific link between Lucky and his underlings that Mrs. Carter needed for the trial.
It showed Lucky’s active role in managing the prostitution business in New York City.
I was giddy but couldn’t show it at that moment.
Lord knows I didn’t mask it when I handed over this new information to Mrs. Carter and gave her specific ideas on how to elicit this testimony from Nancy Presser.
In fact, she and I were both giddy right then.
—
As I think back on this from my cocoon of darkness, the guilt remains. But it is tinged with hope. Hope that we might just bring down the Boss yet. And the Combination along with him.
As I sink back into my upholstered chair with my whiskey in hand to contemplate this conundrum, I hear commotion outside my door.
Are the girls fighting over which one gets to go to the swanky Pierre Hotel tonight for the booked assignation?
Sighing in frustration, I put my whiskey on the end table and walk out into the brighter hallway.
The raised voices emanate from the foyer.
As I progress toward the din, I pass all three girls in the living room listening to the radio and lounging in their housedresses; nothing fazes them.
So they aren’t part of whatever kerfuffle is brewing.
The closer I get to the noise, the more it seems like the Lion is having firm words with someone at the door.
I hate for her to be the front line for any drama, and it’s moments like these that I really miss Jerry.
“What seems to be the trouble here?” I ask the Lion, who’s half in and half out of the doorway.
Before the Lion can reply, a voice trails in from the hallway. “Pearl? Pearl, is that you?”
It is my mother’s voice, in Yiddish. My mother. Here.
The dread I’ve felt since her arrival nearly two weeks ago bubbles forth.
I cannot allow her to step inside this apartment.
One glance at the girls, surrounded by the King Tut bar and the mahjong and poker tables, and she’ll know who and what I am.
Even if she does find out one day that I am New York City’s most famous madam, I can never, ever allow her to see it.
She will forever view me as Polly, not Pearl.
Placing my hands on the Lion’s shoulders, I gently move her aside. She’s only trying to protect me, as usual, even if the threat comes from my family. “I’ll take it from here.”
I enter the corridor, closing the door to my world behind me.
How incongruous this elegant, restrained hallway, with its crystal wall sconces and tasteful damask wallpaper, seems compared to my tear-streaked mother with her old-fashioned headscarf and my father with his flushed face and crumpled hat in hand.
My mother may wear the American clothes I bought for her, but they are ill fitting.
Not in terms of tailoring, but in terms of suiting her character.
At her essence, she is still a woman from rural Yanow.
Ignoring the clear signs of distress on my parents’ faces, I offer a polite excuse for keeping them outside my apartment, as if they were social acquaintances popping by for a visit.
It’s the only way I know to compose myself—to pretend like this is a normal, everyday interaction. Even if just for a second.
“I’m sorry I can’t invite you inside. The place is a wreck. If I’d have known you were coming, I would have arranged a cleaning.”
“Is it true, Pearl?” My mother’s voice is shaking.
“I don’t know what you’re referring to, Mama,” I say, although I can hazard a good guess.
She waves a copy of the Daily Mirror in the air. “Is this true, Pearl? Or should I call you Polly?”
My heart pounds wildly. She knows.
I glance at the front page of the Daily Mirror.
There, emblazoned under the headline Why Isn’t the Vice Queen in Jail?
, is an old picture of me exiting a paddy wagon, my facial features on full display.
I suppose it doesn’t matter that I missed this piece in my regular scan of the newspapers; they would’ve found out about me sooner or later.
“Probably not all of it, Mama,” I reply, blurring the lines with my answer.
“How about the part calling you a whore?” she yells, and I’m thankful her words are in Yiddish.
“I’m not a whore, Mama. I run the most exclusive brothel in New York City. It’s more like a club,” I confess, torn between keeping my head high and throwing myself at her feet to ask forgiveness. “But I’m not running it anymore.” This is technically true.
“So you hire out whores instead of whoring yourself out,” my father hisses. “There is no difference. You should be ashamed of yourself, Pearl.”
It is one thing for my mother to chastise me for this path and quite another for my father to do so.
Rage supplants my guilt and shame. “You think I am the one who should bear the burden of this shame? Moshe Adler, you are the one who should feel regret and mortification. You are the one who sent your defenseless twelve-year-old daughter alone to America to make money for the family. A girl who didn’t speak a word of English, cast out to live with strangers and labor in a garment factory.
A girl who was raped and thrown out onto the street, without any means to support herself.
Yet I still sent money home—whether to Mama in Yanow or to you in Chicago—in amounts that increased according to your demands.
You are the one who gave Pearl no choice but to turn into Polly. ”
My mother drops the newspaper and places that hand over her mouth.
Is she horrified at me? Or do I see a softening in her features—and her heart—at the truth of what I’ve endured?
I yearn to be wrapped up in her arms, forgiven for my transgressions and loved regardless. But I know that it is a pipe dream.
“I will not stand here and listen to these insults from a whore,” my father yells at me. “From this point forward, you are not my daughter, whether you call yourself Pearl or Polly. You will not see us again.”
Mama’s eyes are on me as Moshe—if I’m no longer his daughter, then he certainly isn’t my father—tugs her away from me.
As he begins marching toward the elevator with her in tow, she reaches out for my arm and gives me the gentlest, briefest squeeze.
Perhaps there is still hope with her. But not today.
Sobs begin to overtake me. I open the door to my apartment, and there stand all four women, waiting for me.
They do not need to understand Yiddish to comprehend what just transpired between me and my parents, it seems. My girls and the Lion, with their arms outstretched and their expressions mournful on my behalf.
The sort of response I wish my mother had given me when she heard my full story.
I allow myself to be folded into their embrace, comforted by this strange reversal of our roles. Very quietly, Rosalie says, “We have all been where you are now, Polly. And we are here for you.”
Kit adds, “What is it you always say, Polly? No one wakes up and dreams of becoming a whore? It’s also true that no one wakes up admitting to the role they played in forcing us into this business. Not society, not the men we entertain, and not our families.”