“Just look at you: neatly groomed, impeccably attired, elegantly turned out in every wise and all respects. Who else could you be but—Dave the Dude?”
I wasn’t sure if I liked that, and told him so.
“Aw, give a fella a break, why don’t you? Wait till you get a load of the story. It’ll kill you. You know that old crippled dame you always give a quarter for luck to, the one down on Times Square?”
“Apple Annie?”
“You mean Miss Osborne,” interjected my sister. “I hear she used to really be somebody. A great beauty too.”
“That’s what drink’ll do to you,” I said. “Just look at George here—he used to be mistaken for Georgie Ranft all the time.”
The big lug looked up from his patience game, I think it was Canfield. “Lay off,” he said. May laughed and kissed him on the cheek.
“Not Apple Annie—her name’s Madame la Gimp.”
“La what?”
“Mother of a Spanish princess-in-law, or something like that. I haven’t worked it all out yet.”
“Let me know when you do.” I signaled for the waiter to refill his glass. “Who else?”
“Gee, thanks,” he said, swallowing it whole. “How about this one: Regret.”
I looked at George, who’d won three in a row at Canfield. How he did it without cheating the talon I’ll never know. “What kind of a moniker is that?” he asked, switching Napoleon at St. Helena, which I preferred to call Forty Thieves.
Runyon was about to answer and then I seen his eyes get a faraway and over-the-rainbow look in ’em.
“Why don’t you ask him yourself?” he said, jumping to his feet and making his own regrets.
The band struck up some new number—I think it was “The Best Things in Life Are Free”—but my mind wasn’t on the music, or even on Damon anymore. Instead it was on three gorillas in tuxes and a dame dressed to kill waltzing across my dance floor and makin’ a beeline for my very own table. It was 1927, and my life was about to change again.
Chapter Forty-Three
They were a funny-looking lot. The guy in the lead wore his monkey suit like he was born in it; it fit him so well that only my practiced eye could pick out the heater under his left armpit and inside his left ankle.
The second mook couldn’t have been more different. He was short and round and bald; he looked like a beach ball that had been invited to Cinderella’s ball, except that he didn’t have nothing to wear and so pulled the first rag he could find out of the closet.
Bringing up the rear was a little fella, about my size. Like me, he was trim and well built, but unlike me, he was manifestly a slob. I could see the stains on his bow tie from halfway across the room and I would have laid you dollars to donuts that his socks didn’t match. No matter what duds you draped over him, this guy would always come up lookin’ like he’d slept in them, not to mention dined in them.
The great Dutch Schultz, in all his fleshly glory.
The two mugs with him, I knew from reputation, were his triggerman, the sleek Bo Weinberg, and his portly abacus, Otto Berman, who some folks called Abbadabba and Runyon called Regret, on account of his sad brown eyes. He reminded me a little of Rosenthal, Joe’s doomed dead uncle.
The dame took me one whole second to spot. Mary Frances Blackwell, done up to the nines, yet in this environment still as anonymous as all get-out…In my clubs every broad was beautiful.
“Hello, Dutch,” I said. “Been looking forward to this powwow for a while.” The trio started to sit down, but I held up my hand. “Pat ’em down, George, all except the dame.” For a big man, Frenchy was plenty fast: before Schultz could utter a word, George’s big mitts had run up and down his legs and armpits. “Shirtwaist .45 is all. Nothin’ too dangerous.”
Dutch was all smiles, no hard feelings, he’d do the same to me in one of his clubs.
“Otto don’t carry,” said Bo—whose Christian name, pardon my French, was Abe—flashing open his jacket to show what he was packing, twin .45s. Bo was very good, all class, and I found myself wishing he worked for me. “For ten thousand smackers a week he’s brains, not brawn.”
“Sit down, boys. You too, miss.”
Waiters came running without being called. Berman and Weinberg both eyeballed May and took off their hats. My topper was already off, but I rose half out of my seat as Mary Frances sat down, and got a quick look into her eyes. Recognition, definitely. Reproach, possibly. Regret, absolutely.
I woulda said something and maybe she would have too, except it was Dutch, naturally, who opened his beak first. “What the fuck’s with you Irishers anyway, for crying out loud?”
Silence all around for the nonce. Bo and Berman were used to their boss’s famous crudity, but I knew for a fact that my sister wasn’t and neither I hoped was Mary Frances.
“Watch your mouth, Dutch, we’re all friends here.”
“And tryin’ to stay that way,” said Abbadabba, leaning over with a stage whisper.
“I’m not Irish,” said Frenchy.
“Which leaves me you must be talkin’ about and I was born in England,” says I.
That’s how angry Dutch was, so mad he didn’t notice May right off, the way most blokes did. “Yeah, well, I was born in the city but everybody thinks I’m from the Bronx, so that don’t prove—holy cow, introduce me to the tomato, why don’t ya?”
Dutch looked at May. I looked at Mary Frances. Bo looked at the colored girls on the dance floor. Frenchy looked at his tableau. Otto looked at his chewed nails. May looked into space. The band played “My Heart Stood Still.”
I caught the whole show. She was a brave girl, my sister, not afraid of hard guys. Dutch may have been a bum, but dolls went for him. Then again, dolls go for pretty much everything in pants, so maybe that doesn’t prove anything. I spied his glance Maywards and didn’t like it much. “I thought you liked blondes. It was in all the papers.”
Mary Frances flinched a little. She was going bottle-blond, but she wasn’t quite there yet.
Dutch couldn’t take his eyes off my sister. “Yeah, well, you can’t eat at Childs every night, can you?”
“Except she ain’t no tomato.”
“Nor an onion either,” says May, offering her hand. “I’m May Madden.”
At this point we had ourselves a right regular comedy, because I wasn’t sure whether Mary Frances could distinguish between my wife and my sister, and neither could the Dutchman.
He looked at me with a little confusion on his hound-dog puss. “I thought your wife was…you know…upstate.”
“His sister,” said May. “You heard of sisters?”
The Dutchman pushed himself back in his chair and finally took off his hat. “Hoboe and Poboe, two peas in a pod,” he said. “You Englishmen, you are a type.”
“May, why don’t you and Mary Frances go powder your noses for a while?” I said.
“You know her?” asked May and Dutch, both more or less at the same time.
“I know all the girls named Mary,” I told my sister, kissing her as innocently as I could.
“I don’t have to powder my nose,” said May.
“Then go fix your hair.”
“Her hair’s fine,” said Dutch. He gave Bo a shot in the ribs, to redirect his attention. “Ain’t her hair fine?”
“Fine,” said Bo, wandering back to the colored girls.
“I think our mother’s calling you,” I said.
More glances, too numerous to mention. At last, May and Mary Frances rose. “We’ll be back later, boys,” said May. “Try not to talk about us while we’re gone.”
“Count on it, sister,” said Dutch, leaning back in his chair and stretching out his short legs.
May took Dutch’s hand for a moment—what a diplomat my sister was—and then moved off with Mary Frances.
“Sister or no sister, that is some tomato,” said Dutch.
“She’s not for you, Dutch,” I said.
Something in my tone must have caught
even his tin ear. “Who’re you saving her for, Madden?” he sneered.
“She’s not for anybody.” Even though it was plenty warm in the club, and getting warmer by the minute, I could feel myself growing very cold.
“This is a sensitive subject, Mr. Schultz,” said Frenchy.
“Must be a Catholic thing, huh, Bo?” said Schultz to Weinberg. “Jeez, these Catholics—no wonder nobody likes ’em.”
“Arthur,” said Otto Berman, “we’re here to discuss business, not sex or religion.”
“Those are the fun things,” said Dutch.
“I promised my father a long time ago I’d take care of her, and a deathbed promise is more than a promise—it’s an oath,” I said.
“And you think keeping her virginal is protecting her?”
“Owen thinks what he thinks, and I think that what he thinks, whatever he thinks, is right,” said Frenchy.
Dutch finally decided to lay off, which was the healthy course of action. “You don’t have to get sore about it.”
“You wanted to see me?” I asked Dutch.
He finally got down to brass tacks. “I mean, I’m up here in coontown, minding my own business, getting the whole place under control, keepin’ the chimney sweeps happy with the policy rackets, and all of a sudden you’d think it was St. Fucking Patrick’s Day.” He wasn’t mad, but he wasn’t exactly brimming with bonhomie neither.
“What seems to be the problem?”
“This Diamond guy is giving me fits, and now this fuckin’ Coll, Jesus, I do these micks a favor, give ’em a break, and this is how they repay me, jackin’ my trucks, sticking up my bagmen. Gloryoski, where’s the goddamn honor?”
That wasn’t a question I was prepared to answer but luckily I didn’t have to because at that moment two things happened. First, the girls came back from wherever girls come back from, and second, a wave of applause rippled through the crowd.
I rose in honor of the ladies and looked to see what’s the ruckus all about.
Now, there are ripples and there are ripples. There’s a ripple when a doll walks through a room. A lapping little wave when a doll who’s also a dame sashays through a room. There’s a splish-splash when a mug who’s nobody strolls through a room. And a wave when a mug who’s somebody cock-walks through a room.
And there’s the tidal wave that crashes through a joint when a dame who’s not quite a doll but everybody thinks she is, and a mook who’s not quite a mug but everybody thinks he is, ramble down the alleyway, all eyes upon ’em, and well-deserved too.
The stud looks like two million bucks as he canters in, if his kraut-wop folks could only see him now, and on his arm he’s got a babe that every bozo in the joint not only recognizes but has humped in his dreams.
Of course I’m talking about Georgie Ranft, my old pal, and the dame du jour, the one and only Miss Mae West. Come to pay their respects to the Duke.
“Hello, Owney,” says Georgie, pretending he almost knows me.
There’s something about a broad who’s already so famous, so famous for being sexy, that freezes every other woman in the place. I couldn’t swear in a court of law that Mae West was the most gorgeous piece of girl I ever laid my peepers or paws upon, but she sure made you think she was.
“Mae West, Owney Madden.”
Mae and I eyeballed each other for a moment. “So you’re the famous Owney Madden.”
I was already up on my feet, reaching to shake, but instead she caressed one hand across my face, like I was a little kid. “So sweet…”
May and Mary Frances watched me like I was a movie star or something.
“Yeah?” I said.
Mae’s hand paused in the vicinity of my nose, then slapped me hard. “And so vicious.”
That stung, but so what? “Loved you in Sex.”
“Everybody does.” Another slap. “Say somethin’ original.”
I took it and I liked it. “You ever need a backer…”
She stopped slapping and started laughing. “I’m okay on my back. It’s the front I’m looking for help with.” She swung her porch around plenty so we all could get a good look. “Ain’t we all, girls?”
“Would you like a drink, Miss West?” asked Frenchy, coming to my rescue.
So here was the situation: Me, I was flanked by my sister, May, my former girlfriend Mary Frances and my friends Georgie and George. Dutch was partnered by Otto and Bo, with his eyes roaming from Mae’s poitrine to May’s to Mary’s, in descending order. And each and every one of us males at that moment with a loaded roscoe.
“What took you so long?” said Mae.
I noticed that Mayor Walker, Beau James himself, was leading the applause, just beamin’ at her, which was pretty funny considering that he was the guy who indirectly put her on ice at Blackwell’s Island for a stretch, but that’s politics and strange bedfellows for you. I made a motion that meant: send another bucket of champagne over to the Mayor.
Which got my focus back ’round to Mary Frances, who, half-blond, looked better to me than ever, even though Dutch had his hand halfway up her skirt.
The thing about me is I’m not jealous of dames once I’ve finished with ’em. But I wasn’t sure in my own mind whether I was finished with Mary Frances or just getting started, so I wasn’t crazy neither about Dutch’s familiarity with her nor about his evident prurience as far as my own dear sister was concerned.
Mae gives Beau James the fisheye and gives me the look—you know, that look of hers. “I hear we got somethin’ in common, sweetie,” she says with a smile. “We both done time.” You couldn’t beat Mae’s timing.
Jimmy Walker, only the little worse for wear, stands up. The dame not his wife with him discreetly kept her seat. One of our waiters refilled Hizzoner’s empty glass before he knew it was empty. New York had Mayors in them days.
“A toast,” he toasted, nodding in our direction, “to the first lady of New York.” He might have been referring to Mrs. Walker, but he wasn’t. “Whose pulchritudinousness, whose fecundity, whose sheer—”
“Spit it out, Jimmy,” chimed some drunk.
“—benefidence,” sputtered Walker, “has made our fair city happier, our happy city fairer and, dare I say”—he took a gulp—“holier.”
“Than thou,” completed the lush.
Walker turned toward the heckler. “Than you,” he topped. “Schmuck.”
The crowd roared. The waiter filled his glass once more as I signaled to the orchestra to play a quick fanfare.
Mae looked around the room. “All I gotta say is,” says she, “if this is the way the Mayor of New York treats his ex-convicts…”
All ears and eyes on Mae.
“—it’s a wonder he ain’t got more of ’em!”
Jimmy Walker laughed out loud, and it was a while later that Mae told me privately she’d adapted that line from Oscar Wilde, but I think we were in bed at the time and I didn’t much care one way or the other.
Sleek little Georgie piped up. “Well, we gotta be going…makin’ the rounds, you know.”
Truth to tell, I was glad to see Georgie go. He was one fella I could never compete with when it came to dolls, and the looks he was dartin’ at Mary Frances and my sister were making me uncomfortable.
“George,” I said to Big Frenchy, “make sure Miss West’s next show has our full financial backing.” I turned to Mae. “What’s it going to be?”
She thought half a second. “A little number I call Diamond Lil,” she said.
“Put me down for one hundred percent.”
A little smile crossed those notorious lips. “In exchange for…?”
“Fifty percent of the box and six pairs of ducats a night.”
“I guess I can share.” She touched Georgie on the arm. “Come on, big boy, let me show you a good time.”
All the men stood, even Dutch. “So long, mugs—be seein’ ya in the funny papers.”
Georgie raised an eyebrow and then he sailed away, trailing along in the magni
ficent wake of Miss Mae West. I signaled once more to the band, and they struck up “June Night” or some favorite as we sat back down to business.
“Jeez, what a fat ugly broad.”
“Arthur,” started up Berman, but Bo cut him off.
“There’s gonna come a time when they won’t make women like that anymore,” he said. “I just hope I don’t live to see it.”
“Anything can be arranged, Bo,” said Dutch, who hated being contradicted.
I looked over at May, to see if maybe she and Mary Frances had to go visit the loo again, but this time she just ignored the hint, and I didn’t feel like making a federal case out of it, so I let her sit there and pretend not to listen.
“Let’s see if we can help each other out here, like friends and neighbors.” I hailed another waiter, who brought over several bottles of Madden’s No. 1.
Dutch looked at his without drinking it. “This is one of the things giving me tsuris,” he said.
“You call this tsuris, I call it business. It’s not my fault if my beer’s better than yours. I thought you wanted to talk about Jack Diamond.”
“Legs,” said Dutch, “is out of control.”
“Didn’t you used to work with Jack?” I asked.
“Way back when,” said the Dutchman. “But now Joey Noe and me got a good thing going in the Bronx, and I don’t need Legs no more. In fact, what I need is for him to disappear. Permanently.”
“I don’t like Diamond any more’n you do,” I said. “His clubs are down in the 50s, like the Hotsy-Totsy. My old turf. He’s more of a pain to me than he is to you.”
I turned to George. “We doing business with Legs these days?”
Frenchy yanked one of the ledger books out of his pocket and consulted it. “You could call it that. He still owes us for the last few beer shipments. Guess he’s too busy chasing skirts to take care of his books.”
“That’s just it!” said Dutch loudly, and I could see a couple of police captains glance our way, to see if I needed any help. “The fuckin’ guy is chasin’ so many skirts minus stockings that he don’t have time to tend to business, so he’s gotta steal from honest businessmen like you and me. Only guy I know gets as much trim as Legs is Bo here, but I can count on Bo to give me an honest day’s work for an honest day’s pay. Ain’t that right, Bo?”
And All the Saints Page 27