by Craig Rice
“What’s the difference?” said the matron and finished, “… itution.”
La Verne was next in line and her screams added to mine made a healthy racket. There was some purpose to her noise. She demanded a telephone. One of the policemen led her to a pay booth at the end of the room. She turned and winked at me.
“Louie’ll fix these tin-badge coppers,” she said. “Let them put down what they want to. The more they put down the more he’ll shove …”
The cop interrupted her. “Did you want to telephone?”
“… the more he’ll shove down their throats,” La Verne finished triumphantly.
The mention of threats reminded me of mine. While La Verne dialed her number I told the matron about the arresting officer choking me.
“If I hadn’t screamed,” I said, “she would have strangled me.”
“Move along,” the matron said indifferently. “Next.”
A policeman approached the matron and whispered in her ear. She frowned at him, then she went through the cards and began scratching something out of each one with her pen. When she wrote on mine I saw that she put “Producing an obscene play” in place of “Prostitution.” I’d won my point, but I didn’t feel any better about it.
In the meantime La Verne had reached Louie on the phone. She left the door of the booth open and I heard her say, “But, Sugar, I was sure you could fix it.” Her scowl deepened as she waited. From her expression I had a good idea of what Sugar was saying and I knew it was nothing about fixing anything. Now, if it had been a nice, gory murder, Louie and his lawyers might have been some help, but a little thing like a raid was beneath their dignity.
“… But, baby, they were so mean to us.” La Verne’s silky voice wasn’t fooling me and I doubt if it had any more effect on Louie.
I could visualize him on the other end of the phone. He was probably in his office at the back of the saloon. His feet, in their sharp-toed shoes, would be on the ornate desk, a cigar clenched in his yellow teeth and his mouth turned up in that horrible grin.
Louie was certainly no beauty boy. The grin alone made him hideous; when you add squinty eyes and black oily hair to the top of the face you get something you wouldn’t want to run into in an alley, especially if it was broad daylight.
His last name, Grindero, might account for his nickname, “The Grin,” but I think it dates back to the time he was in a street fight and someone tore his entire jaw loose. The doctor who fixed it must have been in a hurry—I’m sure some thug had a gun at his back when he operated—anyway, he sewed Louie’s mouth up at the corners. Maybe he thought a perpetual smile would help the personality. Two thin scars pointed from Louie’s mouth to the cheek-bones. When he was angry the scars turned red. I thought they might have been red at that moment. No one likes to be called a clown-faced baboon, which was the least original description La Verne was using.
“If I stay in this clink overnight you’ll be damned sorry,” she shouted and slammed the receiver on the hook.
The night-court audience was having a wonderful time; between listening to La Verne and watching Dolly, it was a good show. Dolly was pulling her girdle down and her stockings up. She gave them a flash of leg before she went to the desk. La Verne sauntered out to the wooden railing where I was standing.
“Get a load of the make-up on Dolly,” she whispered.
I hadn’t noticed anything unusual about Dolly’s appearance until La Verne called my attention to it. One look and I understood her amazement. Dolly not only had put on horn-rimmed glasses, but she had splashed lipstick from ear to ear! Her hair was pushed up under her hat and one eye was jumping, as though she had a tic.
Even her voice was different. When the matron asked her name she said, “Margaret Morgan.”
La Verne nudged me. “She can’t get away with that. They’ll give her ten years for perjury.” She smiled with a hint of satisfaction. “Ten years added to forty-some-odd will make it just dandy for her when she gets out.”
A policeman was telling Biff that the men could leave. Biff was more surprised than pleased.
“Say, if you got any pull around here,” he said confidentially to the cop, “I’ll make it worth your while to see that the women aren’t put in a cell with a lot of cokies.”
“Put us in a cell!” His words made me forget about Dolly. I hadn’t thought of what was coming later. It seemed bad enough to be standing in the courtroom having all those people stare at me with all my clothes on. But a cell!
And cell it was! There might have been worse cells in the jail but ours certainly wasn’t the bridal suite. The five women who were in ahead of us had taken most of the bed space, if you could call those unglorified boards beds.
There was an unpleasant odor in the small room that grew thicker and thicker. One of the women swayed in my direction. If I hadn’t seen her move I’d swear she’d been dead for years.
“What are you in for?” the zombie asked.
I was in no mood for girlish confidences but Gee Gee spoke up, “Mopery.”
“Ah, they can’t put you in for that,” said the woman with a beery smile. “Now take me f’rinstance …”
But Gee Gee had taken enough. One good whiff did it. She moved hastily away.
Two of the other women were playing pinochle on one of the cots. “Get one of your friends,” said the thin-faced Negress who was playing, “and we’ll play four-handed.” She had sores on her face and neck; as she spoke she scratched her face with her cards.
“What about you, girlie?” the other woman said, beckoning to me. I tried to answer but could only shake my head. The stench and the close air had me reeling.
I put my face as close to the bars as I could, and breathed deeply. Dolly stood next to me at the cell door with her hands clutching the bars. I hoped there might be a window open somewhere and if there was a breath of clean air I wanted to get it before it hit the room.
“Stinks, doesn’t it?” Dolly spoke calmly, but I saw that her knuckles were white from their stranglehold on the bars. She was right about the odor; the corridor was almost as bad as the cell.
“How’d you like to spend ten days in a place like this?”
“Don’t think about it,” I said with more confidence than I felt. “Moss said he’d get us out in an hour and he usually keeps his word.”
Dolly was silent. The only light came from a green-shaded globe at the far end of the hall. As it filtered through the cell the bars made long shadows on her face. A strand of pinkish hair had fallen from under her hat.
“I wish I’d had sense enough to give a false name, too,” I said.
Dolly stared straight ahead. “Are you kiddin’?” she asked tonelessly.
“No, I mean … well, if you give a false name the newspapers …”
“You’re a dope. Why don’t you shut up,” Dolly said.
I started to walk away from her but she put her hand on my arm. “Wait a minute, Gyp. I didn’t mean to snap at ya but … dammit, I’m afraid.”
That was obvious, but I still wasn’t mollified.
“I think that dame at the desk recognized me,” Dolly whispered. She looked quickly to see if La Verne was listening. The Prima Donna was talking to Gee Gee; Dolly went on: “She’s the same one that sentenced me two years ago. Gave me ten days at hard labor. If she ever gets wise to who I am it’s curtains … it’s my third time up and they told me the last time to leave town and never come back. Leave town? Hell’s bells, I gotta make a livin’. Where else can I go? I’m played out on Moss’ circuit and I ain’t even known in the West.”
“She didn’t look at you like she recognized you,” I said.
“You don’t know that dame,” Dolly replied wearily. “She’d be dirty enough to string me along. Of all the guys on the police force I gotta run into her.”
She was silent for a moment. I tried to say something but the words wouldn’t come. That same feeling of pity I always had for Dolly seemed to choke me.
“Oh, i
t ain’t the ten days I worry so much about,” she said slowly. “It’s Moss. If the cops get a conviction he’ll lose his license sure as hell.”
“What do you mean?” I asked quickly. “They can’t do anything to him for what you do.”
“Maybe not, ordinarily. But this new license commissioner has been waitin’ for a crack at the Old Opera since he got in office. Reform ticket or something. All he needs is a verdict of ‘guilty’ and he cancels the license. Why do you think Moss spends all that dough to get warnings when the censors are in the joint? Do you think he shells out to every cop on the beat because he wants ’em to have the finer things in life?”
“He must have slipped up on a payment,” I said, “because we didn’t get any warning this time.”
Dolly wasn’t listening to me. She looked at the bars in front of her.
“When they say hard labor they ain’t kiddin’,” she said. “They put me in the laundry. I stood over a tub scrubbin’ heavy sheets and filthy rags for ten days. They gave me soap that was so damned strong it took all the skin off my hands. Even when they was bleedin’, the matron wouldn’t give me anything to put on ’em. Gawdawmighty, they were sore. My back was damn near broken from bendin’ over and I got that neuritis that still bothers me from standin’ in a puddle of stinkin’ water from six to six.”
She laughed, a mirthless laugh. “Dolly Baxter,” she said. “Tub eight, American Family soap.”
It was almost like a music cue; when she stopped talking I heard the sound of running water. Then Sandra’s voice: “Look, ain’t they considerate? We got a sink and everything.”
I could just see her outline in the corner of the dark cell. She was taking off her dress and slip. When she got down to her undies, she took off her brassière and began rinsing it.
The card players stared at her with their mouths open.
“What in hell are ya doing?” one of them asked.
Sandra put on the dripping brassière, the water must have been cold because her teeth chattered and there were goose bumps on her legs and arms.
“Best thing in the world to keep your breasts from falling,” she said. “Do it every night of my life.”
A bundle of rags detached itself from the farthest corner. A tiny head emerged and stared at Sandra. It was like one of those heads the Indians prepare when they take all the bones out and fill the skull with clay; shrinking the head and making the skin look like tanned leather.
“There are devils in your body.” The mouth snapped shut as though it were wired.
Sandra screamed and ran to the barred door.
The face spoke again: “I will drive the devils from your body. I will save you from a life of sin.”
A policewoman peered into the cell. “Stop this noise.” The rags collapsed and were still, then the policewoman laughed. “She’ll be all right until morning.” Her heavy footsteps echoed down the corridor while I got Sandra over to a cot where Gee Gee and Jannine were sitting. I threw my coat over her but she still shivered. We made room for La Verne and Dolly, and the six of us sat there, silent and miserable.
One of the other women spoke: “It’ll go tough on me this time.” She was a big blonde and she wore a red sweater that emphasized every line of her lumpy body. “Yep. They caught me with the stuff right on me. Third offense, too.”
She sucked a tooth noisily and I wondered what she meant by “stuff.” Dope, I decided.
“What did they get you dames on?” she asked.
La Verne spoke up. “They booked us on prostitution but …”
“That’s what they got Flossie on.” The blonde tossed a thumb in the Negress’ direction.
“Well, I know my rights,” La Verne snapped. “They changed it or they woulda had a nice case on their hands. … I’da sued ’em for false arrest or something.”
“Yeah.” The blonde found something in another tooth. “Who ya gonna sue? City Hall? Hell of a lotta good that’ll do you. What are ya in for?”
“They pinched a theater I’m working in, a burlesque theater.”
“You mean you’re a burlesque dame?” Her voice was suddenly hostile. “These others, too?”
Dolly nodded.
The blonde moved away. “There’s two things I hate,” she said. “One’s a baby killer, the other’s a dame that strips down naked for a bunch of morons.” She spat on the cement floor.
The Negress looked up from her cards. “It’s bitches like you that are ruining my business.”
Luckily, at this point the matron unlocked the door. “The six of you that came in last, walk out. One at a time.”
We filed out without looking back. The blonde’s angry voice followed us down the corridor right into the anteroom where Moss was waiting. The familiar smile was still there, his manner as courtly as ever.
“I said an hour, didn’t I?”
He looked gravely at his thick gold watch. “Well, it’s been exactly one hour and ten minutes. To celebrate … I, H. I. Moss, invite you all to Moore’s for a snack. Steaks and champagne.”
At the door someone grabbed my arm. I felt a quick panic. It was the policewoman whose furry hand I had bitten. She gave me a long searching look.
“I’m sorry I had to meet you under such circumstances,” she said. “You know, if things had been different, we could have had a lot of fun together.”
H. I. Moss had reserved the entire second floor of Moore’s restaurant for his celebration party. A long table was already set when we arrived. Ferns and carnations made a decorative centerpiece and gleaming champagne buckets separated every other chair. The waiters stood at attention as we made our boisterous entrance. We had picked up the men at the bar downstairs where they had been waiting. It was evident they hadn’t been idly waiting.
“What in hell were you celebrating?” Dolly asked Russell Rogers. He had a death grip on a chair and it was the only thing that kept him from falling flat on his face.
“Wassh it to you?” he asked. Dolly didn’t have time to answer him because La Verne had come between them and was smiling up into Russell’s bleary eyes.
“We’ll sit over here, Sugar,” she said, leading him to a place near the head of the table.
“I hope she gets diabetes, with all that sugar,” Gee Gee whispered to me. Russell leaned over and kissed the Prima Donna’s ear.
Dolly turned her head away from them, then she pulled out a chair and sank into it. Moss had taken his place at the head of the table. “Everybody find seats and sit in them. I have a short announcement to make.”
When the scuffling was over I found that I was sitting between Biff and Gee Gee. Mandy, the second comic, and Joey, his partner, were next. Farther down, Phil, the tenor, was helping Jannine with her coat. Sandra had put her blouse on inside out; she was still too dazed to realize it. Her mascara had run and she was rubbing her cheek with the wet end of a napkin.
Moss raised a hand and the commanding gesture had its effect. We all looked at him attentively.
“For me to apologize for what has happened,” he said, “would be like apologizing because a mountain moved, making an avalanche.” The attention he was getting seemed to please him; he let a smile cross his face.
“Nor do I expect apologies from any of you,” he said. “I was watching the show from out front, not one actor did anything that would warrant such a … a ignoble act as that raid. Believe me, the stigma will be erased from your names.”
There was a subdued round of applause, then Moss beckoned to a waiter and the champagne began to flow. Moss had remained standing and when the last glass had been filled he spoke.
“I drink a toast to my actors!” He drained his glass. The actors still looked at him; no one spoke and no one moved to drink. It was as though we waited for a royal command. Moss gazed with appreciation at his glass before he placed it carefully on the table. He didn’t seem to notice that none of us drank. With a half smile he took a cigar from his pocket and held a match to the end of it. Before speaking he let his
eyes rest on each one of us.
“Some people must think that I’m non compos mentis, some people must think I’m a dope,” he said slowly. “They must think the Old Opera is run by such a loony that he doesn’t know what’s what. I’m saying right now, and these four walls are my witness, not one thing goes on in any of my theaters that I don’t know about. I know almost what you eat for breakfast. I know everything! For instance, number one.” He held up his pudgy hand and turned down his thumb. “I know that there are inside forces that would like to see the Old Opera closed! Number two,” he turned down another finger, “I know why! There is room for only one behind in the manager’s chair and that behind is mine! Some people don’t like that, they got ideas, big ideas. They want I should make a little room for them so they can move in. But they can’t because I, H. I. Moss, am no dope. I own the controlling interest in the theater stock and what I say is the law.”
He made a fist and pounded it on the table with such force that his glasses slipped down on his nose. As he adjusted them he looked again at the silent actors. He waited just long enough for his next statement.
“Someone in my theater is responsible for the raid! Someone in my theater deliberately phoned in a complaint to the Purity League. Then they called the police. They deliberately kept the light from flashing in the footlights. I wasn’t notified until it was too late to contact my friends in the station and settle the beef amicably. Yes: someone thinks they are smarter than H. I. Moss. How do I know these things, you ask? Because I got friends, that’s why. I got friends that warn me of such schlemihls. This is my answer to such a dog.”
He beckoned to a waiter. “Bring me the brief case I left at the desk.”
In a moment the waiter returned carrying a black leather case. Moss took it from him and unhooked the catch, opened the two leather straps, and emptied the contents of the brief case on the table. A sheaf of papers fell out, legal-looking papers, folded three times and clipped together at the ends. Moss picked up one of them and held it for La Verne to look at.
Her mouth fell open. “Why it’s a …”
Moss interrupted her. “Yes, it’s a share of stock for the Old Opera theater. My personal stock. To each and every one of my actors I give free and without cost one paid-in-full share.” He called to Mandy who walked to the head of the table. Moss patted him on the shoulder and handed him the paper. “This is my answer to the schlemihl who thinks he can close the backbone of the burlesque industry.”