He glanced over at Carrie. She looked different. Then he realized that she was obviously dressed to go out. He was disappointed, having earlier decided that tonight he would invite her to dinner. Oh, well…. He had waited months as it was. Another week or so wasn’t going to make any difference.
Outside the stage-door entrance of the theater Mel waited anxiously.
His friend, Freddy, who was quite good-looking and knew it, said, “I hope she’s six feet tall. I’ve always had a yen for tall girls.”
“What do you care, as long as she puts out?” Mel replied dismissively. “If she’s anything like Goldie, it’s two drinks and she’s all yours.”
“Can’t wait! I haven’t been laid in two days!”
Goldie and Carrie emerged from the theater. “Be sure to order champagne,” Goldie whispered. “It makes them realize you’re something special.”
Mel and Freddy stepped sharply forward.
“Hiya, fellas,” greeted Goldie in her best Mae West voice.
“Happy birthday, gorgeous,” said Mel, grabbing her in a bear hug and kissing her full on the mouth.
Carrie and Freddy stared warily at each other.
“Whoops-a-daisy!” exclaimed Goldie, pushing Mel away. “You’re spoiling my lipstick, you big oaf.” She grinned at Freddy. “Hello, I’m Goldie, as if you didn’t know. And this is Carrie—your dream date for the night. Aren’t you the lucky one!”
Freddy’s expression did not indicate that he was the lucky one at all. He nodded curtly at Carrie, and the four of them set off down the alley to Mel’s car.
Once there Mel opened up the doors. Goldie climbed into the front, and Carrie got into the back. Mel and Freddy stood outside.
“What’s the matter with you?” Carrie heard Mel ask his friend.
“Je-sus!” Freddy replied, in what was supposed to be a whisper. “She’s a fucking dinge!”
“So?” replied Mel matter of factly. “Haven’t you ever heard of black pudding?”
“Sure,” replied Freddy, “but I’ve never taken it out in public.”
“Aw, c’mon,” laughed Mel. “Let’s get this show on the road.” They climbed into the car.
In the back, Carrie sat gazing miserably out of the window. Their hateful words hung in her ears: Fucking dinge. Black pudding.
Her eyes filled with salty tears that slid silently down her cheeks. She kept her head determinedly turned toward the window so that no one would observe her misery.
Goldie and Mel chatted merrily away in the front seat. Freddy sat rather stiffly in the back. He cleared his throat a couple of times and finally said, “So you and Goldie share an apartment?”
“Yes,” Carrie replied, willing her voice to sound steady and normal. No way could she let him see that she was upset. If he realized that she had heard, it would only make things worse. She decided to let him off the hook. “You know, I have an awful headache,” she announced. “Maybe I should just go on home.”
Goldie replied immediately, “Definitely not! It’s taken me six months to get you out, and you’re staying. That’s that! Right, Mel?”
An enthusiastic “Right.”
Carrie sank miserably back into the seat. There was no getting out of it.
They started off in a small jazz joint on Fifty-second Street. Neat little combo playing, champagne flowing.
Goldie was in high spirits, rarin’ to go. And when Carrie stated she wanted to stick to fruit juice, she let her have it full blast. “Hey, listen, chickie. It’s my birthday an’ I plan to have fun. If you’re gonna moon around with a long face it’s goin’ to spoil everything. Now have some champagne, for God’s sake, an’ put a smile on your face!”
Carrie obliged. She had forgotten the potent taste of champagne, although when Whitejack was flush he had bought it by the bucket. She figured one glass wasn’t going to send her on the road to ruin. And she had to get through the evening somehow.
One glass turned into two, then three, then on to another club, and frothy white daiquiris that were so delicious she had at least four. After all, they were such little drinks, what harm could they do?
By the time the four of them piled into Clemmie’s they were feeling no pain. Carrie and Freddy were the best of friends, giggling, laughing, dancing. And when his hands accidentally on purpose kept brushing against her breasts she didn’t mind one little bit. She felt so free. So alive. It was the first time in years she could honestly say she was living.
“You are sim’ly great, y’know that?” Freddy slurred.
She responded by locking her hands around his neck and gazing into his eyes. Fucking dinge no longer reverberated through her mind. “Thank you,” she murmured sincerely. It had been a long time since anyone had told her that.
“No, I mean it,” Freddy insisted, as if he was expecting her to argue. “I really mean it.”
“Hey,” said Goldie, nudging Carrie. “You see that guy over there. That’s the Gino Santangelo. He owns the joint. I met him once. He’s a real bad boy.”
Her eyes swiveled to check him out. “I’ve taken on a lotta bad boys in my time,” she boasted.
“Carrie!” exclaimed Goldie, giggling. “I’ve never seen you like this!”
“Yeah. You don’t know nothin’!”
Goldie nudged Mel. “She’s really bombed.”
Mel grinned. “How’d you like to make yourself fifty bucks, Carrie?”
“What didja have in mind, big boy?”
“I betcha fifty bucks y’can’t make it with the great Mr. Santangelo.”
“Yeah?” Her eyes gleamed. “You lost yourself a bet.”
Before any of them could stop her, she was on her feet and sashaying across the crowded club.
Goldie clapped her hand to her mouth in amazement. “Oh, my God, Mel! What have you done? This isn’t like her at all.”
He laughed in a nasty fashion. “C’mon, doll, she ain’t gonna do anything she hasn’t done a hundred times before.”
“No, no.” Goldie attempted to argue through an alcoholic haze. “She’s not that kind of girl….”
Mel silenced her with a great big wet kiss, then began to whisper promises of what he was going to do to her later.
Goldie forgot about Carrie and concentrated on herself.
Freddie grimaced drunkenly. “Thanks a lot, old buddy,” he complained. But already his eye had been taken by a tall brunette sitting by herself two tables away.
As Carrie proceeded across the room she was on her own.
Gino
1938
Gino sat at his usual table. Cock of the hoop. A constant stream of customers trailed over to pay homage.
He wore his customary three-piece dark suit, white silk shirt, tasteful tie. His black hair was slicked down. The huge diamond ring on his pinky caught the light occasionally and gleamed expensively. Only the scar on his face gave him a slightly sinister look. That and his hard black eyes, which one woman had recently compared to Rudolph Valentino’s. He had liked that compliment. Rudolph Valentino. Yeah.
He had been wearing black for nearly a year now. Well, it was only right, wasn’t it? A mark of respect for his dear departed wife, Cindy. She had slipped and fallen from the twenty-fifth-floor window of their penthouse apartment. A terrible tragic accident. And Gino not even in the city at the time. He had been in Westchester, staying with his good friends Senator and Mrs. Duke.
Yes. A dreadful disaster. A crushing blow for him to be left a widower at only thirty-two.
He had arranged a magnificent funeral with an impressive turnout.
Cindy would have been honored.
Unfortunately, Henry Moufflin Jr. had been unable to attend. He had been involved in a rather bad car crash and was in Europe recuperating. The rumor was that he loved Europe so much that he might never return to the States.
That very same week there had been a fire in the offices of Sam Lawson, a private investigator. He had been burned to death, along with all his files. Coincidentally S
am Lawson had been the private detective that Cindy had been using. Gino felt it only right to send a wreath as a mark of respect. Cindy would have appreciated a gesture like that.
He sipped his scotch on the rocks and inspected the female heading his way. Black. Exotic. And breasts that would stop traffic.
She reached his table, stopped, and smiled. “Mr. Santangelo?”
“Yes.”
“I hear you own this place. I just thought I’d stop by and tell you what a classy spot I think it is.”
He smiled. He liked bold women. Sometimes. “Sit down, have a drink.”
Carrie sat. She felt marvelous. Just drunk enough to feel she could own the world if she wanted to.
“Champagne?” he questioned.
“Naturally.”
He clicked his fingers, and a waiter was instantly by his side.
“A bottle of the best champagne.”
“Yes, immediately, Mr. Santangelo.”
Gino studied her. A rare unusual beauty. One glass and he would take her home.
One more glass and she would go.
“Do that again,” Carrie moaned. “Um… please.”
He was licking her. Patiently darting his tongue in and out with skilled expertise. It had been a long time since he had tongued a woman. But this one was so creamy and eager…. It was almost as though she hadn’t had a man in years. And he liked that. It got his sexual juices and desires going full force.
Not that he wasn’t well occupied sexually. There was Bee—always available, warm and solid. There was a girl singer in the club—very sexy, but he suspected that she didn’t bathe as often as she should. And of course there were the various one-night adventures with everyone from Copacabana showgirls to rich society dames.
She moaned again, this time more loudly.
He stopped with his tongue and rolled on top of her. She gripped him with her smooth brown legs and urged him on.
For one fast moment he almost got carried away. But not quite. His mind was always a spectator. Sharp and wary. Observing the action like a particularly alert bystander. Even in orgasm.
The girl was reaching a climax. A prolonged session of concentrated energy as she came. He could feel her throbbing around him, and as if on cue he willed himself to climax too.
Now it was over, and he wanted her to go home.
He got up from the bed. “Hey, hey, hey,” he said. “Betcha didn’t learn to do that in school.”
The champagne was still coloring Carrie’s mind. She felt powerful and in control and oh, so good. Gino Santangelo had not used her. She had not used him. It had been a mutually enjoyable experience.
Lazily she stretched. Her body felt reborn, as if someone had come along and hammered out all the tenseness.
“My car’s downstairs. The driver’ll take you home whenever you’re ready,” Gino said easily. “Oh—and here’s a little present for you. Buy yourself something pretty.”
He handed her a hundred dollars. He always gave the women he took to bed money for a gift. It was an idiosyncrasy of his, and no one ever objected. Even the society girls tucked it into their purses and sauntered into Tiffany’s or Cartier’s the next day to pick up a little something to remind them of Gino Santangelo.
“You sonofabitch!” she screamed, leaping up from the bed. “You think I’m a whore?”
“Hey, of course not….”
“How dare you! How dare you!”
This one was obviously nuts, struggling into her clothes like a wildcat, glaring at him and screaming.
“Hey, listen, if I thought you was a whore I’d have given you the going rate. This money’s a present.”
“Fuck you!” she screamed. “If I was a whore it would have cost you a hell of a lot more,” and throwing the money in his face she stormed out of his apartment.
He shook his head in amazement.
Women.
He’d never understand ’em.
Carrie
1938
Carrie ignored Gino’s car and driver, waiting downstairs, and began to walk along Park Avenue. She was sobering up in a hurry. Fucking dinge was coming back to haunt her. And a red hot fury was building inside her.
What had she been thinking of, approaching Gino Santangelo like that? Who else but a whore would go over to a man’s table, sit down, and half an hour later be sharing his bed?
Fucking dinge. Whore. The words flew through her head. She had tried so hard to be decent. And now—after one night—she was back where she had started. Why hadn’t Goldie stopped her? Why had she gone out with her and her lousy friends in the first place?
She walked seven blocks before she got a cab, and then the driver gave her a dubious look and said, “I ain’t goin’ to Harlem, honey.”
She gave him a cold stare in return. “Nor am I, honey.”
He didn’t like that. He maintained a frosty silence all the way back to the Village.
She paid him off and climbed the three flights of stairs to the roomy loft. Once inside, she was dismayed to find Freddy in bed. Her bed. She could not believe her eyes.
Angrily she shook him awake. “Get out of here,” she insisted in a furious whisper.
“Aw, c’mon, toots,” he mumbled, bleary-eyed and still drunk. He had no intention of getting up and going home.
“Will you get out of my bed?” she hissed.
“Whyn’t you come in an’ join me? I’ve bin waitin’ all night,” he slurred.
“Whyn’t you drop dead?”
He gripped her wrist. “C’mon, sweetie pie, be a sport.”
“Let go of me.”
He was surprisingly strong. He was able to pull her onto the bed with ease.
“I’ll scream if you don’t stop,” she raged.
“Don’t you do that, sweetie.” And he placed the heavy palm of his hand over her mouth, stopping her from screaming and holding her down all at the same time. With his other hand he pulled up her skirt and ripped off her panties.
She went numb. The strength just drained right out of her.
He took this as a sign of acquiescence, and somehow he got out his penis and began jamming it into her.
She made little choking noises in her throat. His hand prevented her sobs of anguish from emerging.
“You’re wetter than a bathful of oil!” he crowed. “I bet yer lovin’ every minute of it. Huh, honeypuss? Huh?”
She willed her mind to go blank. And when he took his hand away she did not scream. She waited until he finished, and then said quite calmly, “That’ll be thirty bucks, mister. Thirty big ones.”
“What?” he mumbled.
“You screw a whore, you pay,” she said in a cold unruffled manner. “Especially when you screw a fucking dinge.”
“But—”
“Pay or I holler rape.”
He paid.
Carrie could not wait to get away from Goldie. She moved out the very next day, after phoning the theater and telling the stage manager she wouldn’t be coming back.
With her one suitcase she tramped around, trying to find a single room for rent. No luck. Eventually she got the message when enough doors were slammed in her face. She took a bus and went uptown to the streets she knew.
Harlem looked grimier than ever, but it was where she belonged. She found herself a room and hibernated. She had just enough money to sit out a couple of months before making any decisions about what to do next.
Six weeks later she realized with a dull shock that she was pregnant. It was a bombshell, because she had always thought she was unable to conceive. “You just ain’t fertile,” Whitejack had assured her on many occasions.
Now she was pregnant and she had no idea who the father was.
Gino Santangelo. Freddy Lester. It could be either.
She didn’t know what to do or where to turn.
Gino
1939
Bee mumbled in her sleep and rolled toward Gino. She was bare-assed—he liked his women bare-assed in bed.
&n
bsp; She still lived in her Greenwich Village apartment, but there had been changes made. For one thing, Gino had bought the building. He had arranged for her apartment to be enlarged, so that there was a separate bedroom for Marco and a great big kitchen where she could prepare his favorite meals. The decor was more or less the same, though, Gino liked it that way—nice and homey. And since he had never had what he considered a proper home…
He still kept a permanent residence of his own. A penthouse, practically identical to the one he had shared with Cindy. It was designer decorated and extremely plush. He spent very little time there.
He had bought himself a building just off Wall Street in partnership with Oswald. Duke. He was getting into legitimate business in a big way, while also keeping a firm hand on his not-so-legitimate ventures.
He owned a liquor company. Two laundry firms. A trucking business, and a string of automobile showrooms. All going concerns. Not bad for a boy who started off with only a kick up the ass for company.
Every day he attended his office, struggled through the Wall Street Journal, dictated a few letters, and fled on over to his small office at Clemmie’s, where he felt more comfortable.
For pleasure he owned three cars. Sixty suits. And a library of books which he was slowly plowing through. Gatsby remained his favorite.
In his safe, Oswald Duke’s indiscreet letters were a constant reminder that he was vulnerable and should never do anyone a favor again.
Oswald had been suitably grateful. Clementine was a different story altogether. She simply refused to accept the fact that their affair was over. She lost her cool, elegant demeanor and pestered him constantly. The tables had certainly turned. When he had first met Clementine she had been at her peak and he had been a green kid desperate for anything she had to offer. Now he was at his peak. Surely ten years of sexual service was enough repayment? Why didn’t she just bow out gracefully and become his friend?
He placed his hands firmly on Bee’s big white ass and squeezed, “Wakey, wakey,” She rolled over to face him, large nippled breasts giving him ideas. “Go put your hair up,” he demanded.
Chances Page 31