by Vanda
“Heavens, never. I treasure our times together and your column, dear. You know, Dorothy, I never drink coffee in the morning. I find it too bitter. I read your column, instead.”
“…Do you, dear?”
“You are a whiz with a turn of phrase.”
“Yes I am. My husband often tells me that. Don’t you, my sweet?”
He laid his chin on her shoulder. “Uh huh, snookums.”
“My babykins,” Dorothy said, patting the side of his face.
“Joseph,” I called to the Maitre’d, “show the Kollmars to their table, and bring them a bottle of our finest Cognac on me.”
“You remembered?” Dorothy said, as she and her husband followed Joseph to their table.
When I turned to look at Bertha in her hatcheck booth I saw that, again, she was watching me. She quickly busied herself with her tickets. “Have a pleasant evening,” I said to her before returning to my office.
She raised her head, a look of shock on her face. “Oh, yes, Miss Huffman, I will. Thank you.”
Maybe that was all she needed from me. Some acknowledgment. Had I really been so cold? I would have to correct that.
* * *
The night wound down and I kicked off my shoes, wiggled my stockinged feet as I sat at my desk. My new client, Patsy LaRue, opened for Mel Torme. Despite her name making her sound like a stripper—she refused to change it—her two songs had gone pretty well. We still had some work to do on her act, though. She waved at me as she left for the evening. A sweet kid. Mel Torme and his people left over forty-five minutes ago; the last of the Harlington Honeys were long gone, and I was looking forward to crawling under some sheets.
I slipped on my shoes and went into the next room, where all the magic had been turned off, the lights and pulsating fountains silenced. No music. I always got a small ache in my stomach at this time of night, when almost everyone was gone. It was customary for me to check the room at the end of the night. Sometimes I’d find a few drunken stragglers asleep by the bar, or under it. Joey, our bouncer, would scoop them up and put them out the door facing the IRT. The place was empty now. When I listened deep into the quiet, I could hear Juliana singing on our stage. Soon. Soon I’d make that happen.
“You need me, Al?” Joey called from the hallway.
“No. You go ahead. I’m going to take one more look around and lock up.”
I walked over to the stage, stepping around crumbs and papers that littered the rug. I reached the side wall and switched off the work lights. Only the ghost light, with its one naked incandescent bulb, lit the stage now. Shadows of the gods and goddesses loomed large over the floor. As I turned to go, I heard a whimpering sound. From the stage? All the technicians were gone. Or at least that’s what I thought. Had a cat gotten caught somewhere? I followed the sound onto the stage, past the gigantic columns, stepping around the pool. I suppose a cat could get stuck in one of those balconies. I headed toward the staircase that led to the first tier. The sound of a moan. Not from the balconies. Backstage? I pushed through the thick curtains that covered the back wall of the stage. Where was the damn light? I fumbled around like a blind man, trying to find my way as the sound got louder. I moved faster, stumbled over musical instruments, bumped into the door where Patsy had changed; it opened.
“Al!” Moose said through the shadows, a bare lightbulb dangling over the bald spot on top of his head. He was pointing a gun at me. The blood in my veins froze as I took in the scene. He sat in a chair, pants open, penis erect. His meaty fist in Virginia’s hair, pressing her to her knees between his legs. She moaned.
“Don’t do nuttin’ stupid, Al,” Moose said. “I like ya, but dat ain’t gonna get in my way. Yer next.”
He pulled Virginia’s head back, tightening his grip on her hair. “Now, go, bitch.”
“Please,” she begged.
He pressed the gun to her cheek. “And no funny business. You bite me an’ yer dead.”
Still hanging onto a fistful of her hair, he pushed her head down onto him, and whimpering, she took his penis into her mouth.
Moose slumped down in his chair, a dopey look on his face, going deeper toward some euphoria, the gun poised on the arm of the chair. Is he lost enough? Can I … what?
“Faster, bitch,” he pushed Virginia’s head up and down. “Oh, yeah, gawd, yeah.”
My heart banged in my chest. I couldn’t move. The navy-blue curtain behind Moose’s chair shivered. A flash of metal. Jimmy the Crusher stood there, a hacksaw held over his head. His half-melted face even more ghoulish in the dim light. With one swift blow … Slam! Onto Moose’s wrist. A scream. Blood splattered onto Virginia’s face. Jimmy the Crusher sawing. Screaming. Blood and semen. The gun on the ground. I couldn’t move. Sawing through flesh, blood, screams …
I grabbed Virginia’s arm and pulled her from the room, throwing my arm around her shoulders. We ran. I didn’t stop till we were outside and surrounded by blinking neon, screeching traffic, and a light drizzle. I pulled a couple bucks from inside my bra, and threw my arm up. “Taxi! Taxi!”
We got in the cab, and Virginia curled up into a ball on the seat. I got her up to my living room and onto the couch. She curled up there too, hiding her head under her arms. My blouse on my left side had speckles of blood. “Uh, you want something? Tea? A drink? I only have wine.”
Without uncurling herself she whispered, “A toothbrush.”
“Sure. I have lots. I always keep extra toothbrushes on hand. In my bathroom, my office, everywhere. I’m a nut about it. But you’re not interested in this. Sorry. My bathroom’s over here.” I put my arms around her and walked her into my bedroom. Her face was splattered with blood. “I have a nightgown you can wear.” I opened one of my drawers. “My nightgowns aren’t fancy like you must wear. I get them on sale at Woolworths.” Her face was blank. I wasn’t sure if she could hear my meaningless chatter. I wondered if I should take her to the hospital, but she wasn’t hurt.
I left her in the bathroom with three fresh toothbrushes to choose from and a just- washed nightgown. “Ya want me to come in with you and help get that blood off your face?”
She slammed the door. I changed into a nightgown. While I waited for Virginia, I poured two glasses of wine in the living room. I sat in the wooden rocking chair I’d bought recently at a flea market and stared out my window at my little tree. I could only make out its outline, lit by the half-moon in the velvet sky. Is there a God behind all that velvet? A God that cares about us down here stumbling around? A God to comfort Virginia? Something scraped against the inside of my stomach like I’d swallowed a thousand razor blades.
Virginia seemed to be taking an awful long time, thirty-five minutes, forty-five, an hour. A hint of the sun starting to break through the velvet.
I went into my bedroom and stood near the closed bathroom door. “Virginia, are you okay?” What a stupid thing to ask. A flash. A closed bathroom door. Mom in there, cutting … “Virginia!” I yelled, and yanked the door open.
“Don’t look at me,” she cried, burying her face in her hands, toothpaste dripping from her mouth, down her chin, and over her wrists. The three toothbrushes all had been used and discarded in the sink.
“Virginia,” I said, and I almost cried, but I figured that was the last thing she needed from me. I pulled her into my arms, but she pulled away.
“How come I didn’t know?” she asked. “You knew what he was like. Max knew. But me … What’s wrong with me?”
“Let me wash your face.” I filled the bathroom cup with water and held it to her lips. She sipped. “Now, spit.” She did. I put a washcloth under the faucet and washed the dried blood mixed with semen and toothpaste from her face and hands. I took a deep breath so I didn’t vomit.
I walked her into the room. “You can sleep in my bed. I’ll take the couch.”
“I’ll sleep on the couch. I’ve already put you out enough.”
“I don’t mind.”
“No!” she shouted, pushing
me away. “I want to sleep on the couch. Let me do what I want!”
“Okay, sorry.”
She walked into the living room under her own steam, and I followed her. “Some wine?” I held out the glass. My whole arm shook as I handed it to her. She caressed it in her hands and sat on the couch, sipping it. I went back to my rocking chair.
The silence between us made me want to jump out the window and visit my little tree. The pale sunlight of dawn covered the courtyard, and in the distance, I could hear the faint sound of birds greeting the morning. The morning. It was coming again like it always did. “Uh, Virginia, do—you want to talk?”
“No.”
“Okay. You’re probably exhausted. I’ll get you a pillow and cover so you can sleep.”
I left to get the bed things. When I got back Virginia, sat in the same place, staring into her empty wine glass.
“Want me to refill that?”
“Please.” She held out the glass to me.
I put the empty glass on the coffee table. “I’ll fix up your bed first and then I’ll get it.”
“Now!” She demanded.
“All right.” I dropped the bedding on the couch and went for her wine. When I handed it to her she wrapped her fingers around the glass as if it were something precious and drank it down in big gulps.
“If you could stand, I’ll make up the bed.”
She remained seated, drinking.
“Virginia?”
“I don’t need those things. Take them away.”
“But if you’re going to sleep, you need—”
“Sleep? Do you think I can sleep? That I’ll ever sleep again?”
I put the bed things on the coffee table and sat beside her. “Virginia, do you want me to call someone? Someone you can talk to. A relative?”
“No! You won’t tell anyone! Please, you mustn’t.”
“I was thinking you—or me, or—we should—tell Max.”
“Never! Please, Al.”
“Listen a minute. If we don’t say anything, Moose could come back to the club. Unless Jimmy killed him. You could see him again. But this time he’ll be really mad. If he’s still alive. If he isn’t, he could have friends who’ll look for you.”
“I won’t come to the club anymore.”
“If he wants to find you, he will. He can’t be too happy with what Jimmy did. Max should know you’re in jeopardy.”
“No! He must never know.”
* * *
The day after it happened, I got to the club early, long before the cleaners. I hated leaving Virginia alone, but I had to check … In time, she fell asleep, so I left a note with some breakfast things. As I crept backstage, afraid to open that door, visions of what I’d find flooded my brain. I remembered the blood, and Moose’s screams, and Jimmy’s half-face with no expression. I remembered Virgina sullied with semen and blood, and the fear in her eyes. I pictured finding Moose’s severed arm on the floor behind the door. I didn’t want to open it. But I had to. Maybe it’d be Moose’s whole bloody body. Severed arms, legs? …head?
I opened the door so slowly, I could hear the wood moan and feel my heart almost bursting out of my chest. I closed my eyes and poked my head inside. I forced myself to open one, then the other. Nothing. I took a step into the room, my hand bloodless and tingling from my grip on the doorknob. There was nothing. Not one sign that anything had happened here last night. Not one drop of blood.
Virginia stayed with me one more night and then insisted on going home to that huge mansion. With her mother in a nursing home, she had the place to herself, except for the old English Butler, Ainsworth, who had been with the family since she was a little girl, and Nola, the Irish Maid, whose arthritis made it hard to prepare Virginia’s food or clean the house. The next few days after it happened, Virginia didn’t contact me, or Max, or anyone at the club. I tried to reach her by phone several times a day, but Ainsworth always picked up. He sounded anxious when he said, “The Madam is occupied. I’ll inform her you rang.”
She never called me back, and I was plenty worried. I came close to telling Max what happened, but she had been so insistent. I took the bus over and tried to get past Ainsworth, but he was quick to say, “The madam does not wish to be disturbed,” before he slammed the door in my face.
* * *
“I hear you’ve been playing backseat bingo with my husband?” Juliana said, calling from her hotel in Chicago. “How long has this been going on?”
“Juliana, really.”
She laughed and then her voice got serious. “What was that item in Kilgallen’s column about? Do you think she knows about us and she’s using Richard as a ploy? A way to feel things out?”
“I don’t think so. You and I never even see each other. How could she guess?”
“I suppose, but the way things are these days, anything can happen, and we have so much to lose.”
“I know, but I don’t think Dorothy—”
Moose and a young man I’d never seen before passed by my office window. “Uh, Juliana, can I get back to you? Something’s come up.”
I barely said good-bye before I hung up. I stood in my office doorway, watching Moose and the young man in the sloppy clothes and sloppy hat that he didn’t take off as he hopped onto a barstool. Moose had a huge bandage on his right hand. I couldn’t tell if the hand had been completely severed or what. I wondered where Jimmy the Crusher was. Had Moose killed him?
Moose slid off his stool and walked over to where I stood, leaving his companion at the bar. “Hi, Al,” he said. “How ya doin?”
I pushed past my fear. “I’m doing fine, Moose.”
“You tell Virginia I got somethin’ special for her, and I wanna give it to her poisonally. Will ya do t’at for me, Al, huh?”
My mouth was so dry I could barely speak. “Leave her alone, Moose.”
He laughed, “And t’e likes a you is gonna make me? I have sumfin nice fer you too …” He whistled, and the young kid slid off the stool and jaunted out the club door with him.
Now, I had to get Max involved. I hurried back to my office to call him at the Mt. Olympus. “What’s this about?” he asked. “I’m busy over here. Handle it yourself. You’re capable.”
“Not for this.”
“Then what is it?”
“I can’t talk about it over the phone.”
“Okay, okay, I’ll get there as soon as I can.”
But he didn’t get there. Later, at home, in the early morning, I snuck into his room to talk to him, but he wasn’t there. The bedspread was still tightly pulled across the bed. I tried reaching him at the Mt. Olympus, but no one had seen him. Now, I was really scared. I wondered if I should call the cops. But what would I tell them?
The next day, Virginia pranced into the club while I was talking to the band. She wore a breezy, flowery dress, all smiles.
“It’s a lovely day today,” she announced. “Let’s have lunch.”
My God, what if Moose came in? I pushed her into my office and locked the door. “Virginia, it’s not safe for you to be here. I’ve tried to reach you, but you never return my calls.”
“You haven’t read yesterday’s papers, have you?”
“I did. Theater/nightclub section.”
“But not The Daily News, page eight.”
“What happened?”
She smiled coyly.
“I don’t have time for these games,” I said, taking my yesterday’s Daily News from the trashcan and quickly turning to page eight. Headline: “Gangland Killing.” There was a picture of a man with a big belly lying on the floor, blood all over his face. A bandaged right hand.
I looked up at Virginia.
She nodded.
I looked back down at the paper.
“Alberto ‘Moose’ Mantelli, Underboss of the Luciana Crime family, was killed in The Bocavillia Café, in Teaneck, New Jersey yesterday afternoon while eating lunch. A gunman believed to be from his own family entered the eating establishment and
showered him with a spray of bullets to his face and head. It was rumored that this was a mercy killing, because it was thought that Mantelli was losing his mind.”
Could it have been Jimmy the Crusher?
“I’m free,” Virginia said. “Free.” She laughed, “Don’t you see? I’m free! Free, Al!” Her laughter became wild as she pirouetted around the room like a dancing girl. “Free, free, free!”
“Uh, Virginia?”
“Free! Free!” She screamed, anger pouring out. “I’m free! Can’t you hear me? I’m free! Free! Free!”
Max banged against the door, and I hurried to unlock it.
He dashed in. “Virginia, what …?”
Silent tears rolled down her face, “Oh, Max, I have done the most horrible thing.” She hid her face behind her fists. “Forgive me. You must forgive me. Forgive me …”
He wrapped his arms around her and looked to me for an explanation; I couldn’t explain. “Virginia,” he turned back to her. “I’m sure you would never do anything terrible …”
“I did. I did.”
Her body folded; she lay on the floor, her head on Max’s shoes, her knees held tight against her chest. Max looked to me again to explain. “Uh …” I shrugged my shoulders.
Through the window in my office, I saw Jimmy the Crusher smiling at me.
* * *
Virginia stayed with Max for a few days after the news about Moose came out; she rested on the terrace, enjoying the view and regaining her strength before returning to her mansion. Max helped her to put her mansion on the market. The city quickly bought it as one of the last mansions in that area. They had plans to knock it out down and put in modern apartment buildings.
Virginia took some of the money she would inherit from her mother when she passed and gave it to the butler, Ainsworth, and her old maid, Nola. Ainsworth used it to return home to his native England. Nola found a pleasant old-age rest home in North Carolina that she could now afford with the money Virginia had given her.
Once they were taken care of, Max helped Virginia to move into a cozy, but elegant apartment on Lexington Avenue. It wasn’t terribly far from him, so he could stop by every so often to check on her. She was trying to begin anew. At least, that’s what she told everyone, but after Moose, she was never quite the same. It was hard to say in what way she was different, but she was quieter, perhaps, more nervous; there was something changed that I couldn’t name. She seemed to distance herself from me and Max and from most of the people we knew. It was like she had woven a cocoon around herself, from which she could not wish to emerge.