by Michelle Cox
Oddly, she had thought again of her father as she had climbed the steps to the apartment last night, the inspector barely saying goodbye as he had hurried off down the street, eager, she assumed, to get back to Katie waiting for him at home. Would her father have approved of what she had made of her life so far? He had told her to “take care of them,” and hadn’t she done that? Still, she had to admit to herself that she had lost her way a bit. If she were honest, she knew that a part of what Ma was always going on about was true. She was unnaturally attracted to risqué situations, relying on her looks to get along or not get along, as the case had been with certain restaurant owners with wandering hands. And now she had agreed to this green door operation; in fact, it had been her idea! She had mostly done it to impress the inspector, but it hadn’t seemed to have worked and it was too late now to get out of it. She gripped her tray tighter as more men poured in, joking and shouting to each other, many already drunk, as they found their seats. She promised God there and then, in silent desperation, that if she made it through this night she would change her life. That she would look for some sort of honest, respectable job that Ma, that she, would be proud of. She looked down at her bare chest, her breasts barely covered by the lace trim running across the bosom of the dress, and promised that there would be no more disguises, no more lying after tonight. She sighed, saying a final silent prayer and touched the feather one last time as she saw that Jenks was signaling her to get in position in her station.
As she walked slowly down the aisle, she searched the crowd for Charlie and tried not to panic when she didn’t spot him. Naturally, he needed to be a bit late, she supposed. He wouldn’t want to appear too eager. Still, she speculated, she would feel better once he arrived. Ruby caught her eye from the nearby station and scowled at her. Not knowing what else to do, Henrietta busied herself with taking orders and hurried back up the aisle toward the bar. As she looked up, however, she gasped to see none other than Neptune staring at her from behind the bar!
He was dressed all in black and stood near the little escape door she had gone through with Larry. He had his arms folded casually across his chest and leaned against the doorway in a relaxed attitude, a small, cruel smile on his face as he watched her, his black eyes following her wherever she went.
She averted her eyes from his, panic nearly paralyzing her, though she forced herself to assume a position of casual indifference as she waited behind the other girls crowding at the bar now to get their orders as soon as possible. As it turned out, Ruby was standing in front of her. “Think you’re something don’t you?” she sneered under her breath. “We all know you’re a fake,” she continued in a low voice. Without thinking, Henrietta glanced up to see if Neptune had heard her, but he had vanished. He was nowhere near the vicinity of the bar, though Henrietta noticed that the door to the tunnels was slightly ajar. She hadn’t noticed if it had been that way just a few moments ago or not. “You won’t last long!” Ruby was saying.
“Yes, yes, Ruby, I daresay you’re right,” she said irritably, pushing past her, eager to get back to the front rows.
As she delivered her first round of drinks, a wave of relief filled her when she finally spotted Charlie in the third row near the end. He winked at her once, but otherwise did not look at her. Still, it made her feel so much better now that he was here.
Within minutes the house lights dimmed, and the band began its opening number, the stage curtains being pulled aside to reveal the dancers in their first act. Henrietta was surprised by how different the show looked from such close range and how much louder it was. She nervously looked over at Jenks, who had told her she would give her a signal when she wanted her, but hadn’t said exactly what that would be. She noticed several men give a nod and a look to Jenks, and by the second number she saw several girls leave the floor through the side curtain near Jenks. She looked at Charlie for some direction, but he was only looking at the stage. Jenks had reappeared from behind the curtains but did not catch her eye. Perhaps she was misreading the signal?
Stan sat nervously in the back row of the Marlowe, watching Henrietta’s every move. He had had to dip into his savings that he kept in a coffee can under his bed to afford even this cheap seat. He nervously patted the mustache he had made by cutting his own hair and gluing it to a piece of old canvas, which he had in turn glued to his lip with model airplane glue. He tried not to touch it too often, as he wasn’t sure how secure it really was. He had made it in secret in his bedroom at the little desk he had once used for his schoolwork but had since outgrown. He had had to make several before he was satisfied with the result. He had carefully glued it to his upper lip earlier tonight, his own facial hair too thin yet to be convincing. He wasn’t sure how he was going to get it off, but he would worry about that later. He had taken his father’s fedora as well and found a big overcoat. So far so good. He had been able to make it past the ticket booth with no trouble at all. They hadn’t asked him for any identification to prove that he was eighteen. Either his disguise was very convincing, or they didn’t really care how old he was so long as he paid. Stanley hoped it was the former.
He could see Henrietta down near the front, close to the stage. She was skillfully weaving down the aisles, quickly hurrying between the seats and the bar. It made him sick to see how the men stared at her, shifting themselves in their seats and sometimes elbowing each other as they pointed to some part of her body. He had to admit, however, that when he saw Henrietta dressed in such a low-cut, short dress, with fishnet stockings and high heels, he had had to swallow hard himself. Out of respect for her, he wanted to avert his eyes, but he couldn’t help letting them stray every once in awhile and felt his breath grow shallow when he did. Oh, Hen! he despaired. Why had she gotten caught up in all this? She had said she was in love with that inspector, but he never saw her with him. Despite what he had told her, he had still tried to follow her, but he was usually stopped now by those pesky undercover police. Still, he seemed to have evaded them tonight, he reflected proudly. Somehow it didn’t add up, though. Was Henrietta really in love with the inspector or had she just told him that to put him off following her? If so, it had worked— at least initially. He had begun to see Elsie, at first just to appease Henrietta, but he had found over time that he actually enjoyed Elsie’s company. She was nothing like Henrietta, of course, but he liked the fact that she looked up to him instead of treating him like a little boy the way Hen did. His feelings were all discombobulated now. He felt a true warmth, a true friendship with Elsie, but unfortunately he found his blood still stirred whenever he was around Henrietta. Still, he was beginning to value Elsie’s tried-and-true domesticity over Henrietta’s vivaciousness. After all, he concluded, what good would that do in making a home? No, Stan definitely had an eye on the future, and he couldn’t see Henrietta making a good wife and mother. That’s what he needed. At least that’s what his mother always told him. “Beauty fades,” she always chided him, not being particularly fond of Henrietta Von Harmon herself. “Marriage is more than what happens in the bedroom, you know,” she would say, shaking a wooden spoon at Stanley as he felt his face redden. “The lights is usually off anyway!”
“Ma!” he would say in reply, hoping to end the conversation there, but in truth it had given him something to think about. So after the obligatory library date, he had asked Elsie out again and found her to be more than willing to accept. They had fallen into a routine of taking a walk in the beautiful Victorian Humboldt Park after mass each Sunday, sometimes stopping for a cup of coffee afterward at the boathouse. Stanley had once surreptitiously asked Elsie if Henrietta seemed to mind their stepping out, but Elsie had exclaimed, “Oh, no! She’s quite happy when we walk out together!”—a comment which had oddly reassured him. Sometimes they spent part of the afternoon discussing Henrietta’s strange lifestyle, among other things, until Elsie would eventually change the subject.
Strangely, he had just this morning been contemplating a way of asking Elsie out on
a “real” date, wondering where he should take her, possibly the Aragon, when she had shown up, crying, at his house. His mother, with a very disapproving look, had shown her into the parlor and had shockingly left them alone (no doubt listening on the other side of the door) while Elsie had hurriedly told him what had happened between her and Henrietta just this morning. Stan had had a bit of trouble piecing together all of Elsie’s bursts of information between her bouts of crying but had finally gotten what he perceived to be an accurate picture of the distressing situation. Something about Henrietta waking this morning desperate to find something, though at first she wouldn’t tell Elsie what it was. Not dreaming at first that it was the little white feather she had found on the pillow between them in the morning, Elsie had finally dug it out of her pocket and held it out to Henrietta, asking if this was the thing she was missing. Elsie had been shocked by how quickly Henrietta had grabbed it up, saying she mustn’t play around with her things, as if Elsie were a child and was in the habit of playing with things, especially feathers! Elsie had guessed, judging from Henrietta’s strange reaction, that the feather must be a token from her date with Clive. Stan had listened astutely to this part, especially when Henrietta had said that yes, that was what it was. But then later, just before Hen had left for work, she had pulled Elsie aside, and—after another bout of crying—Elsie related to Stan how Henrietta had confided that it wasn’t really a love token, that it was part of a . . . a costume of sorts. Then Hen had told her the horrible truth—“Oh, Stanley!”—of how Hen was actually an usherette at the Marlowe and that she was posing tonight as a . . . a lady of the night—the fact that she could not even bring herself to say the word prostitute endeared her all the more to Stan—to help the police catch some criminal. She had told Elsie, she said, so that in case anything went wrong, then at least they would know what had happened.
Elsie had fully broken down then and had thrown herself at him, and not noticing at first, Stan had almost missed catching her. When he did so, however, he was surprised by the electricity he felt coursing through him to have Elsie in his arms, and further resolved, if not for any love of Henrietta, then for his deepening feelings for Elsie and her current state of distress, to stop Henrietta in this mad scheme before she got hurt, or worse. It was bad enough when she had insisted on traipsing around the World’s Fair in a Dutch girl costume or working as a twenty-six girl or even a taxi dancer, but this . . . this was going too far—hadn’t he said so at the very beginning? He had promised Elsie then that he would get to the bottom of it, taking her back home and daring to kiss her on the cheek as a way of comforting her, which had caused her instead to blush profusely, notwithstanding any comfort she may indeed have garnered from it. Immediately he had dashed back home and had begun to fashion his disguise, the whole time cursing Inspector Howard for taking advantage where Stan knew he knew better. He should never have trusted him! Not only was he not protecting Henrietta, but he was positively putting her in harm’s way!
He sat now in the back row, tilting his fedora toward Henrietta so that she wouldn’t notice him. He sat watching, nervously jiggling his leg, waiting for exactly what he wasn’t sure. He tried to assume an air of indifference or to focus on the rather shocking dance routine on stage, in which he saw more of a woman’s body than he ever had before. He hated the fact that he was aroused by what he saw and tried instead to think of Elsie. He forced himself to look away and to locate Henrietta again.
For one wretched moment he was afraid he was too late as he couldn’t see her anywhere. He almost stood up in fear to get a better look—why was it so darned dark in here?—when he spotted her. She was standing by a tall, stout woman that he assumed was this Mrs. Jenkins Elsie had mentioned. She was looking pointedly at Henrietta and indicated with a nod down the aisle at a man in a tight brown suit, standing, his hands in his pockets, grinning at her. Stanley saw Henrietta nervously set her silver tray down, leaning it carefully against the wall, and smooth down her skirt. She was looking at the floor. God, she must be frightened! Stanley despaired, and he had to fight the adrenaline surging through his body. This must be her first customer, the bastard! He watched as Henrietta disappeared through the curtain and the man advanced to stand beside Mrs. Jenkins, discreetly handing her something, probably cash, from his pocket as he did so, the annoying grin never leaving his face. The woman motioned for him to wait and disappeared behind the curtain as well. Stan looked around anxiously for the police, but no one appeared. Where were they? Desperate, he realized that it was up to him now. This was his chance! He had come here tonight not knowing exactly what he was going to do, but getting rid of Henrietta’s first “customer” seemed like the logical thing at the moment.
He quickly stood up and made his way across the row, having to squeeze past the other men sitting alongside him, annoyed by his interruption as they twisted around him trying to still watch what was happening on stage and telling him to sit down. Ignoring them, Stan made his way across the back of the theater and started down the aisle toward the man in the brown suit, his anger rising and his pace quickening as he did so. When he finally reached him, he wasn’t sure what to do next, but in the end settled for roughly poking him on the shoulder. The man, for his part, turned around quickly, obviously annoyed at having been poked, but Stanley was ready for him with a solid punch to the jaw, noticing as he hit him that up close he somehow looked familiar.
Charlie, taken aback for a moment, grabbed Stanley by the lapels of his big overcoat and was about to punch him back, when he suddenly recognized Stanley. “What are you doin’ here?” he asked Stanley, mystified.
Stanley still could not place him. “I . . . ” was all he got to say before both of them were grabbed from behind by two bouncers. “Hey!” Stanley tried to protest, “I—”
“Shut up, kid,” Charlie said to him as the bouncers hauled them out of the theater. “Don’t blow it.”
“But I . . . hey!” he said trying to twist from the tight grasp of the bouncer, who merely shook him in response. “I’m just here to save . . . Ow!” he shouted as Charlie kicked him in the shin, despite being held by a bouncer himself.
“You two wanna fight?” said one of the bouncers. “Then fight outside!” The doorman held the door for the bouncers, who shoved Charlie and Stan out, both of them falling roughly to the ground. “Stay out, or we’ll call the cops!” shouted one of the bouncers before they disappeared back inside the theater.
“Nice goin’, idiot!” Charlie said as he wiped the blood dripping from his split lip with the back of his hand.
“Well, at least I stopped you from . . . from being with her,” Stan said, picking himself up, still not recognizing how he knew him.
“I’m from the fucking police, you idiot! You’ve just blown the sting!”
“The sting?”
“Yeah, it was a setup. Now she’s in there by herself. I was supposed to protect her.”
“Oh, God!” Stanley almost cried.
“Come on,” Charlie grunted as he slowly stood up. “Let’s go tell the boss. He ain’t gonna be happy, I can tell you that.”
CHAPTER 15
Henrietta stood waiting for Jenks on the other side of the curtain for what seemed like an eternity. She tried again and again to calm herself down. Nothing was going to happen, she told herself for the hundredth time. She had seen Charlie in the audience, and he had annoyingly winked at her. The inspector had instructed her to go with Charlie to whatever room they would be led to and wait for the raid, if it came to that. She reassured herself that she could handle those easy instructions, though she hoped Charlie wouldn’t try anything in the meantime. There was something about the way Charlie always looked at her that she decidedly didn’t like.
She tensed now when she saw Jenks come through the curtain and looked behind her to catch what she hoped would be an ironically comforting glimpse of Charlie, but he was nowhere to be seen. Jenks’s brow was creased, and she seemed to frown more than usual. “Come with m
e,” she said curtly, moving past Henrietta toward the labyrinth of hallways that led to the green door.
“Is . . . is there something wrong?” Henrietta asked nervously as she hurried to keep up.
“There’s been a change of plan. Neptune’s decided he wants you tonight. I knew that was going to happen. I shoulda put money on it,” she said as they clipped along. “Anyway, I’m to take you to him. It’s quite an honor really, but don’t say I didn’t warn you.” They had reached the green door now, and Jenks bent to unlock it, saying, “Now we’ll find out what you’re really made of.”
“But . . . but what about my first customer? The one with the brown suit?”
“Him? He got in a fight and got himself thrown out. Not my problem he’s lost the money he paid for you. Anyway, it doesn’t matter; there’ll be others. But we’ll see what shape you’re in when Neptune’s through with you.”
“But I . . . ” Henrietta said, trying to keep the hysteria from her voice.
Jenks opened the door and gestured her through. “I tried to tell you. Don’t worry, though,” she said with a grin. “You’ll get used to it. Just remember, the nicer you are to me,” she said, rubbing Henrietta’s breast as she passed her in the doorway, “the nicer the clients you get. Tit for tat, as it were,” she said, amused by her own attempt at a joke.
Henrietta had no choice but to follow Jenks down the long corridor where she could hear other people already being entertained. Her heart caught in her throat, though, when she saw Jenks slow near the little door that led down to the tunnels. “Where—where are we going?”