When I imagined my return to Canada, I’d often picture myself late at night in the Jazz Warehouse, fronting Joe’s powder-blue Steinway and casually playing a whole set of new blues numbers and a fair measure of really good gospel. It was all going to be very sweet, and my mom, who never ceased to worry about my being in the sinful gambling capital of America, and clearly still harboured hopes of a second doctor in the family, would stop worrying and see how happy and contented I was.
At the New Year’s Eve party, there were glum faces everywhere. Fortunately, Sammy and his two hoods had returned to their families in Chicago. Almost everyone at the party must have feared that, after the Flamingo fiasco, Bridgett was in a lot of trouble. That is, everyone except Bridgett. She seemed to be making a valiant attempt to be upbeat, assuring everyone that their jobs were safe. Those scheduled to go to the Firebird could rest easy, it wasn’t like the Flamingo, wasn’t behind schedule, wasn’t opening prematurely, was complete but for the smallest finishing touches, wasn’t over budget and, most important of all, wasn’t going to fail. In other words, we hadn’t suffered from the Bugsy Siegel factor, we hadn’t ‘done a Bugsy’ – the current euphemism for a complete balls-up.
At midnight we all valiantly attempted to cheer ourselves up and go through the motions with fireworks, whistles and church bells. As the old year rolled away and the new year arrived – 1947 – Bridgett had impulsively grabbed me and kissed me firmly on the mouth, and then immediately said in a flustered voice, ‘Oh dear. I think I may be a little drunk.’
I smiled down at her, still feeling the pressure of those delectable lips on mine, and wished, despite my childhood experiences with alcohol, that she would drink more often.
Lenny made an upbeat speech, then got riotously drunk. God knows how many double bourbons he’d downed, but by two in the morning he had finally collapsed on a couch in a corner of the Longhorn Room and was snoring loudly. Most of the staff had departed, no doubt speculating about what the new year would bring. Bridgett and I were settled on another couch not far from Lenny. I was acutely aware of her thigh touching mine along its length, and the soft pressure of her shoulder against my upper arm.
‘Well, Jack, you must be looking forward to your vacation,’ Bridgett began.
‘Sure, but perhaps not quite as much as I was before the Flamingo nosedived.’
Bridgett placed her hand over mine. ‘Jack, despite what’s happened with the Flamingo, they’ll recover. There’s much too much money at stake for them to fail. New York will persist in their attempts and we, down the highway, will benefit. We are not going to fail.’
‘Why? Why are you so sure, Bridgett?’
‘Jack, the vision persists. Also we’re better managers than they are and, besides, I’m personally determined to succeed.’
‘Well, yes, but is it entirely up to you?’
‘As a matter of fact, to a large extent, it is.’
I certainly hadn’t been expecting that, and wondered if she was more than a little drunk. It had been a fairly firm kiss, our lips parting and tongues almost touching . . . surely if she was sober, she wouldn’t have kissed me like that?
‘There’s something I don’t understand, Bridgett.’
‘What, Jack? What don’t you understand?’
‘Well, there’s obviously some sort of deal between you and Chicago. We all know that they were dead against opening on the highway. Lenny says Tony Accardo was adamant; more than that, he was certain such a project must fail. Yet, you persuaded him to change his mind.’
‘You mean, what precisely caused him to change his mind?’
I nodded. ‘The Mafia’s attitude to women in business is fairly well known . . .’
Bridgett laughed, nodding her head in agreement.
‘So, how come the switcheroo?’ I asked, hoping to inject a little levity.
Despite my feeble attempt, Bridgett’s demeanour grew serious. ‘Jack, are you worried about your job, is that it?’
I threw up my hands. ‘No, no, good God, not at all!’ I protested, adding, ‘You must know I get offers from other casinos almost every week.’ I hesitated, then said, ‘But I am worried, yes. Worried for you. What might happen to you if the Firebird goes the same way as the Flamingo?’
‘Why, thank you, Jack, that’s lovely.’
I ignored the fact that she might be patronising me and cut to the chase. ‘Bridgett, why do you tolerate those bastards in Chicago? I’ve only been here a short time, but people like Manny ‘Asshole’ de Costa, the frequent visits of gangsters from Chicago, the presence of that vile snot-nosed Sammy Schischka . . .’ I shrugged. ‘How do you tolerate it? Christ, you could work anywhere you liked! Bridgett, you’re a brilliant hotelier!’
‘Oh, Jack, I don’t think . . .’
‘No, please let me finish. You’re highly educated, beautiful, charming, totally professional and you ooze brains. People trust you instinctively. You know the hotel industry like the back of your hand. Staff, particularly coloured folk, adore you and trust you to take care of their interests. You’re not scared to make tough decisions – Lenny tells me you’ll stand up to Chicago if you need to. You’ve obviously got the godfather’s number. Anywhere in America, you’d earn an executive salary, be properly appreciated and have a secure and glittering future. Your contacts among the very wealthy are impeccable. Why then do you put up with these ingrates, these ignorant gangsters and murderers? You’re a real lady, you don’t have to work with these low-life hoodlums!’
Bridgett laughed softly. ‘Thanks, Jack, I believe that’s the nicest series of compliments I’ve ever been paid.’ She paused fractionally. ‘But, concerning my background, you’re completely off the mark. I was born in the heart of the Appalachian Mountains. My daddy was a coalminer, Luke Handleman Rooth. He and my mom were mountain folk who couldn’t read nor write, hillbillies who belonged to the Pentecostal snake-worshipping cult. I was baptised Bridgett “Baby” Rooth, not because I was the youngest of eight kids, but because my daddy was crazy about the baseball player Babe Ruth, who played for the Boston Red Sox and the New York Yankees.’
My head was swimming. It was unthinkable that this cultivated, elegant woman had ever set foot in a hillbilly hovel. ‘C’mon, Bridgett, they didn’t really worship snakes?’ I said, latching onto the most bizarre of her revelations.
Bridgett leaned back, half closed her eyes and began to speak in a solemn voice: ‘“And these signs shall follow them that believe: In my name shall they cast out devils: they shall speak with new tongues; They shall take up serpents: and if they drink any deadly thing, it shall not hurt them: they shall lay hands on the sick, and they shall recover.” Mark 16, verses 17 and 18.’
‘Jesus!’
‘Yes, he had a fair bit to do with it in the Pentecostal Church where I came from.’
‘I mean, did you actually handle the snakes?’ It was a long way from Mrs Henderson and the Apostolic Church of the Pentecost in Moose Jaw.
‘Of course! It’s in the gospels, in the Book of Mark and there’s more in the Book of Luke,’ she laughed. ‘But I only handled one once, when my mom said it would cure my measles.’
‘Did it?’
‘Of course not.’ She laughed again. ‘I infected the entire school. My mom said it must have been the Lord’s will and accepted no responsibility.’
‘Please go on,’ I cried, not having ever heard or imagined such a thing could happen to a child in the name of religion.
‘Well, at age fourteen I was considered to be educated. I could read and write, so my folks took me out of school and sent me to work.’
‘So, what happened? How did you get away?’
‘From the Appalachians? I guess it was some sort of vague ambition I probably thought was a sin. The Pentecostals don’t allow anything regarded as “worldly”. For instance, passing a men’s toilet without closing your eyes, going to a movie; that sort of thing was wicked and a way for the devil to tempt people to become sinners. Wearing make-u
p, dancing in public – even if you were husband and wife – were mortal sins, blasphemy. To imbibe strong drink was undoubtedly the greatest sin of all.’
‘You haven’t answered my question,’ I persisted.
‘Oh, yes; well, my fifteen-year-old cousin Virginia Grant and I moved to Bristol, Tennessee, to work in a small hotel as maids. The hotel, more a motel with cabins and single rooms, was owned by the family of the baker in our home town, who was also a lay preacher in our church, so my parents knew we’d be safe from the devil’s temptation. Well, one Saturday afternoon, filled with guilt and in fear that we’d be struck down by a bolt from heaven, we sneaked into the local movie house. The movie we saw was an old one with Clara Bow, called It. Clara played a shopgirl who wins the heart of the shop-owner’s son by means of her ‘it’ quality.’
I nodded. ‘Yes, of course, I remember – the movie was the source of the “It” girl idea,’ I said, ‘but we were only kids when it came out.’
Bridgett laughed, a deep infectious chuckle, which made her even more attractive. ‘Probably a rerun. But for me it was magical. A message from the Lord himself, not the devil. I realised there was a way out for me. I took the movie literally. If Clara Bow, a shopgirl, could marry a shop owner’s son and rise from rags to riches, then so could I, a hillbilly chamber maid.’
‘Which, I guess, brings us to the Mrs Fuller part?’
Bridgett smiled and shook her head. ‘Yes and no. Fourteen is still a bit young, even where I hail from. But I started to keep my eyes and ears open. I looked older than I was and men staying at the hotel, mainly commercial travellers, seemed to find me attractive, even though I never used make-up, of course, or showed any forbidden flesh. Nor did I allow them to touch me. But I sometimes found myself slapping more hands than making beds.
‘By this time, Virginia and I, under the pretence of attending Bible class, had become movie fanatics. We went to the cinema as often as we had money to pay for a ticket.’ Her eyes had taken on a remote look. ‘We must have been the only girls in Tennessee who sat clutching a Bible while they watched a movie. Anyhow, I learned later that Clara Bow had been raised in poverty, too, and that her mother, eventually declared insane, had tried to slit Clara’s throat to prevent her going into the movies. Such fanatical censure from Clara Bow’s mom wasn’t that far from the Pentecostals promising damnation if I indulged in “worldly” things. It all seemed to fit.
‘When I was fifteen, I thought I was practically grown up. Like Clara, I may have been poor and uneducated, but I could learn the ways of the world. I had my hair cut in a bob like hers, even though it was out of date. Using the Singer sewing machine the hotel laundry used for linen repairs I made a pretty dress from a torn yellow cabin curtain. And, most importantly, I began to observe the ways of men.’ She grinned. ‘I was hoping to come across a shop owner’s son. It never occurred to me to see men as romantic or sexual beings. A Pentecostal upbringing runs deep and, contrary to popular belief, mountain clansmen are not sex perverts. Not that I’d have known the meaning of such a horrible term at the time.’
‘But you eventually found Mr Fuller?’
Bridgett laughed softly. ‘Well, he wasn’t the shop owner’s son I was looking for, but – how shall I put it? – I guess you could say he was the result of a very careful selection process. Stephen Fuller was impotent, or rather sexually uninterested in women. Originally from New York State, he was an elocution teacher and an expert on etiquette. I realised even then that I needed my rough edges polished off, and so I married him in Nashville at the age of seventeen and we moved to New York City.’
‘Lenny told me he passed away.’
‘Yes, he died not long ago, of a heart attack. He was still quite young. He taught me everything he knew.’ Bridgett paused. ‘I’d discovered quite soon that he was a homosexual. That is, when I eventually realised there was such a thing as homosexuality. I thought it was something that only happened in the Bible in olden times. Leviticus 18 verse 22: “Thou shalt not lie with mankind as with womankind: it is an abomination,”’ she recited in her Bible voice. ‘Stephen and his friends taught me how to dress and walk and conduct an intelligent discussion. I also learned from magazines, took a part-time modelling class and, naturally, observed the manners and the ways of the educated and well-bred women who stayed at the hotel. I educated myself in business at night school while I worked in the hotel industry, eventually rising from waitress to restaurant manager.’
‘And the physical side of things? Your marriage, I mean. It must have been awkward for both of you.’
‘No, not really; I was growing up fast and eventually I found him a lover, not too difficult in New York when you work at the Algonquin Hotel. As the saying goes, he lived happily ever after, it’s just that “after” wasn’t very long, sadly. We parted ways when I was twenty, but never divorced. We remained good friends.’
‘I’d never, I mean, never ever, have believed it!’ I said, hugely impressed.
Bridgett gave a pretty little pout, glancing up at me from under her lashes. ‘So, what you see, Jack, is all a fiction. I’m a complete phoney.’ She touched her lips with a polished scarlet fingernail. ‘The well-rounded vowels are the result of years of practice.’ She grinned. ‘However, this has to be our little secret, Jack.’
I nodded, suddenly serious. Bridgett oozed class – as my mom would have said, ‘She’s old money’. Her story only served to increase my admiration, especially with my firsthand knowledge of the enormous distance between poor and rich. I’d travelled part way along that road myself, and it hadn’t been easy. ‘Of course. Allow me to tell you about Cabbagetown, Toronto, some day.’
She laughed again. ‘You’re not serious? Cabbage, like the vegetable?’
‘Uh-huh, though some of us managed to escape the vegetable patch. I was lucky from the start. A schoolteacher believed in me when I was still a very young kid, and I had a mother who loved and protected me from a drunken father.’
‘A drunken father doesn’t sound too lucky,’ she said, one eyebrow arched.
‘No, of course not. My mother was particularly unlucky. But here’s the paradox, and you’re a perfect example of this. It seems to me that happy families don’t have to do a lot of thinking and planning and scheming. They don’t have to leap at every opportunity that comes up. They don’t have to learn from their mistakes because there’s always someone to cover for them. But I grew up with a loving and determined mother fighting off a violent drunken husband, and having to support her son on a pittance from working as a night cleaner in an office block in downtown Toronto. That brings you into the real world fast, makes you realise it’s sink or swim and you have to grab every opportunity. But, of course, you’d know that.’
‘You’re right, Jack. I’d never thought of it in quite that way.’
‘Have you ever been back, to see your parents?’ I asked.
‘No,’ she said quietly.
There were several moments of silence between us before I dared ask the question now uppermost in my mind. I concluded that she’d never have told me all this if a cocktail or two too many hadn’t loosened her tongue, and I knew I’d never get a better opportunity. ‘Bridgett, I have one more question.’
‘Goodness, Jack, only one?’ she said with that gorgeous throaty laugh. ‘They say confession is good for the soul, but I’ve already told you more than I’ve ever told anyone else, except Stephen, of course. I won’t answer if I think it inappropriate,’ she said casually, but I knew she meant it.
‘Yes, of course.’
‘Well, then, Jack, what else do you wish to know?’
‘What have you got over Chicago?’ I blurted. Then, ‘Sorry, I mean, why did they agree to build the Firebird?’
Bridgett looked momentarily bemused. ‘Oh, so you know about that.’ She paused. ‘No, don’t tell me, Lenny would have told you.’
‘Yes, but he doesn’t know why. And after the disaster of the Flamingo —’
‘The Fire
bird will succeed, Jack, but you’re right, there’s another reason Chicago agreed.’ Bridgett paused again and I waited for what seemed like an eternity before she sighed and said, ‘Jack, it’s all in the paperwork.’
‘You mean a contract?’
Bridgett smiled. ‘No, Jack, it’s a special kind of paperwork. I was very disappointed when Mr Accardo said he wouldn’t consider opening on the highway. I knew we had to expand, to offer more to our clients. The El Marinero was never going to be enough.’ She hesitated, then said, ‘I suppose this was the opportunity I’d been waiting for all my life.’
‘What? Running a bigger, more luxurious gambling casino in Las Vegas?’
‘No, of course not, Jack! It was my opportunity to secure my future, to own a share of something really big. Not just savings after a lifetime of hard work. I’ve seen how the rich live and make their money, and it isn’t by opening a savings account in a bank. I wanted the same. I guess we’re different, Jack; you’ve got talent and you’ll always be safe. With my background, security is everything. Put simply, I want to be rich. Filthy rich! So, I went to Chicago to attempt to persuade them to open on Highway 91.’
‘But wasn’t that always going to be a gamble? Especially with Bugsy Siegel making such a mess of things with the Flamingo.’
‘No, I didn’t, and still don’t, believe so. Meyer Lansky isn’t a fool; he wouldn’t have invested so much in Billy Wilkerson’s Flamingo unless he was pretty certain it was going to work.’
‘But getting Bugsy Siegel to build the Flamingo was not exactly a shrewd move,’ I countered.
Bridgett fixed her green eyes on me. ‘You’re probably right, Jack. But if I had the money and the opportunity, even with all that’s happened, I’d still invest in the Flamingo.’
Jack of Diamonds Page 50