Chapter Forty-Seven
Polly
New York, New York
I sit behind the steering wheel of my car, deep in the bowels of the Waldorf parking garage. I’m clutching on to the leather-clad wheel, my hands gripping as tightly as if I were careening down a sinuous highway, a cliff to my left. In a sense, this is my situation.
The overhead garage lights flicker, but I can make out the door to the hotel interior well enough.
When I’m not watching that entrance—eager for Mrs. Carter’s return—I’m staring at the dashboard clock.
Over an hour has passed since I bid her farewell at Mr. Woelfle’s door.
I didn’t have a sense of how long Mrs. Carter would meet with the Waldorf staff, but it feels like an eternity.
At least we don’t have to worry about getting her back to court, as it’s not in session today.
Will they deliver what she needs? What we all need? I’m betting the bank on it here; I’ve got no more aces up my sleeves.
I’ve thrown in my lot with Mrs. Carter, no doubt about it.
If the prosecution doesn’t prevail and Lucky is returned to the streets of New York, I’ll need an exit strategy.
Because someone, somehow, at some time, will figure out my role in all this.
And Lucky will make me pay and my girls along with me, never mind that they’ve had nothing to do with it.
Actually, the more I think about my girls, the more I realize that if Lucky gets off scot-free and runs the Combination again, there’s a chance he will learn about the part I’ve played from Angelica.
I release my grip on the steering wheel and reach for my handbag.
A Chesterfield is calling to me, and my nerves calm with the first inhale.
As I blow out the smoke through the rolled-down window, I hear a creaking sound.
I turn toward the door. Light streams into the garage as it opens and Mrs. Carter returns.
I want to leap from the car and ask her how it went. But we must be cautious. Mrs. Carter and I will only make contact if she’s sussed out the setting and deemed it safe.
As she approaches my car, I can’t make out her face with the light behind her like some kind of fluorescent halo. When she finally gets close enough to tap on my window, I see that she’s smiling. An honest-to-goodness smile. Maybe the first one I’ve ever seen on her face.
I open the car door from the inside, and she slides into the passenger seat. “You look like the cat that ate the canary.”
“I suppose I did. In a manner of speaking,” she says, that smile widening.
“What in the name of all that’s holy happened in there?”
I was hopeful after my initial conversation with Mr. Woelfle.
His experience with “Mr. Ross” had been abominable, and he seemed willing to prevent Lucky’s return.
But I was too leery to wish for much, particularly his ability to recruit more witnesses.
This is a dangerous business, after all.
From the look on Mrs. Carter’s face, however, I might have underestimated the Waldorf staff.
“They are gems,” Mrs. Carter says, her eyes bright. “True gems.”
“Tell me,” I say.
“Well, Mr. Woelfle is the picture of respectability, a longtime manager in the most luxurious hotel in the world. He’ll testify that Mr. Charles Ross resided in the Waldorf-Astoria Towers for six months.
That, while Mr. Ross was staying in the Towers, he entertained a steady stream of ‘unusual characters’ in his apartment, men and women.
The sort of ‘characters’ that drew the attention of other Waldorf guests, such that Mr. Woelfle had to intervene on several occasions in the hotel’s public spaces.
He’ll also say that he heard rumors that Mr. Ross was none other than Mr. Lucky Luciano.
Now, this last bit will be speculation or hearsay, of course, but I daresay Dewey will sneak in the whole question before the defense objects, thereby planting the seed in the jury’s mind.
But even if he doesn’t, Mr. Woelfle will be able to identify Luciano in the courtroom—linking Mr. Ross to Mr. Luciano and supporting the testimony of the prostitutes who recounted conversations at the Waldorf. ”
I let out a low whistle. “Like Nancy Presser.”
“Like Nancy Presser,” she says, her expression almost gleeful. “That’s not even the best part.”
“What could be better?”
“The testimony of the maid and the waiter. Mr. Weinman, an upstanding workingman, served Luciano meals in his apartment several times. On at least three occasions, there were other men present. Luciano referred to one of the men as Fredericks.”
“That’s Jimmy Frederico’s nickname!”
“Exactly. The co-defendant that Luciano has repeatedly denied knowing. Luciano’s insistence that he has never met the other defendants before is one of the oddest arguments his attorney is making at trial, particularly since they are known compatriots.
We now have a reputable witness who can put the two men together, here at the Waldorf. ”
“And that will shore up other statements on the witness stand about Lucky and Jimmy.”
Mrs. Carter puts a gloved finger on her nose and gives me a little grin. “But the real star is Miss Marjorie Brown.”
“How so?”
“First of all, she’s so darn likable. A decent young woman who travels into the city every day from Union City, New Jersey, to spend long hours cleaning at the Waldorf.
She’s excelled at her job and has been given a plum position servicing the apartments on the thirty-ninth and fortieth floors.
Most importantly, she personally observed the other defendants entering and exiting Luciano’s apartments dozens of times—”
“Did you say dozens?” I can’t help but interject. Surely I’ve misheard her.
“I did.”
“Miss Brown saw Jimmy Frederico, Little Davie Betillo, Little Abie Wahrman, and Meyer Berkman going in and out dozens of times.”
“She did. I showed her their pictures. She even saw girls in Luciano’s suite, some of which were drugged up or beaten.
And she overheard snippets of conversations about the business.
She’s fearless. Once I promised her and the others that we’d protect them throughout the trial and afterward. Even moving them if we have to.”
“What a find!”
“This is your find, Miss Adler. And your find will not only correct our credibility problem with the other witnesses but add new, important testimony. I am immensely grateful,” she says.
“You know, in another lifetime, you would have made an excellent lawyer. Such good instincts and such a talent for knitting together a compelling case.”
How nice that would have been, I think, warming to her compliment.
Yet how little Mrs. Carter knows about my dire origins to even suggest such a thing might have been possible.
“Ah, I’ve told you a bit about my background, so you know that would have required a much easier upbringing, one with more opportunities and supportive parents. Maybe one closer to your own,” I say.
All her softness vanishes in a flash, replaced by the guarded woman I first encountered. “I hardly think it’s fair to call the life of a colored woman in this country ‘easy.’ ”
“I never said you’ve had it easy. All I said is that you had it easier than me.
I’m sure it was hard to attend law school as a colored woman, but you must have had people that encouraged you along the way.
I never had that. My road hasn’t been smoother than yours simply because I’m white,” I say, feeling a little defensive myself.
“I never said that. In fact, I talked to a lot of girls and madams as I prepared for trial—colored and white—so I know there must have been hardships. And I can understand because I’ve endured my own.
Violent race riots drove my family out of Atlanta to New York, where my parents made it their purpose to fight against racism.
True, they gave me opportunities and support for my education, but I’ve faced hatred for the color of my skin at every turn. ”
“All our stories are hard, but in very different ways. And there is something I didn’t tell you about my early years here.
Once I was forced out of school into factory work, I was raped by the foreman.
When the distant cousin I lived with discovered I’d gotten pregnant from the rape, she threw me out, and vice was the only place that would have me. ” I blurt out my terrible story.
I’m not exactly sure why I feel a compulsion to tell Mrs. Carter the full, ugly truth.
Maybe speaking it aloud to my mother has freed me to share it with others.
Once you’ve told the person you’re meant to care about most the very worst thing about you, how bad can it be to share it with others, right?
“I’m sorry, Miss Adler. I didn’t know.” She sounds contrite, even empathetic. She is indeed the rare sort of woman with compassion for the girls and madams who descend into this sort of work.
“I guess there is no way to tell who fares better in this godforsaken country—a well-educated woman from the middle class whose skin happens to be colored or a poor Jewish immigrant woman who never got past seventh grade and whose skin happens to be white.”
“It’s a toss-up, Miss Adler. But one thing is for certain. No matter how difficult your beginnings—and they do sound appalling—you have some latitude to reinvent yourself and your history, something I can’t do. Because I cannot change the color of my skin.”