The Golden Room

by Irving Wallace

  'How would you like a mount in the Derby?' Minna asked.

  'What do you mean?'

  'Bruce here brought a three-year-old thoroughbred up from the Bluegrass Region. He has him entered in the American Derby. Unfortunately, he hasn't found a jockey who'll ride for a percentage. Would you?'

  Snapper Garrison grinned again. 'That might be better than what I'm earning now. Still, I don't want to make a fool of myself.' He took in Bruce. 'Do you want to show me this colt of yours? What's his name?'

  'Frontier,' Bruce said.

  'All right, let me have a look at him,' said Garrison.

  Leading Garrison, Minna, and Karen, Bruce brought them to Frontier's stall and gestured Garrison inside.

  Garrison spent five minutes examining the horse before he emerged.

  'A nice horse, a sound one,' Garrison said. 'His only problem is that he's small.' Garrison's grin reappeared. 'Yet, so am I.'

  'You'll ride him?' said Bruce excitedly.

  'Oh, sure,' said Snapper Garrison. 'I'll ride him. But I'll tell you one thing. Unless there's hot weather – the hottest May weather – the day of the Derby, he won't have a chance.'

  'And if it's a hot day?'

  'He'll have a chance,' said Garrison enigmatically. 'I was peeking at my Farmer's Almanac last week. It says the day of the Derby will be a hot day. So let's wait and see.'

  Mayor Carter Harrison sat stiffly behind his desk in City Hall, still smarting from the unpleasant meeting he'd had two hours ago.

  The pressure for reform had become unbearable.

  Awaiting his next visitor, he mentally reviewed the high points of this morning's confrontation.

  The confrontation had been with the thin-lipped, dour Reverend John Stonehill, president of the Municipal Voters' League.

  'You know why I am here, Mayor,' Stonehill had begun, almost before being seated.

  Harrison had suspected the reason behind the reverend's request for a talk, but he had not been ready to admit it. 'To be truthful, I'm not certain why you wished to see me.'

  'Reform,' Stonehill had blurted. 'Your key campaign promise was that you would eliminate vice in this city, especially in the Levee, and you promised specifically that you would close down the Everleigh Club, which has come to symbolize the worst of Chicago, throughout the nation and the world. On the basis of your promise to instigate reform, the entire Municipal Voters' League stood behind you and elected you to office. Mr Mayor, we've waited patiently. We see not one single shred of evidence that cleanup has begun.'

  Harrison had cleared his throat. 'Reverend Stonehill, I assure you I have been most active in the area of reform, mainly in my effort to close down the Everleigh Club as an example and warning to all the other lesser houses of ill fame.'

  'I see no evidence of movement. I have information that the Everleigh Club is as wide open as ever.'

  'Not quite,' the mayor had insisted, 'not really. Fewer men are going there, and the Everleighs claim to be operating only a restaurant. Nevertheless, I too suspect a degree of illegal sexual activity still goes on there. To date I've been unable to prove it and I must have proof. However, I will confide in you that right now I have an undercover observer there who will bring me indisputable proof of illegal sexual acts. Once I have this proof my chief of police will be able to close the Club. The rest of the clubs will then see the handwriting on

  the wall. They'll also close down and move to other cities. Trust me, Reverend Stonehill.'

  'I trust your sincerity,' the Reverend Stonehill had said, 'but I distrust your competence in this matter.'

  'I can only say I have been handling this competently.'

  Stonehill had come to his feet. 'We shall see. We will wait another few weeks for affirmative results. If you still have not fulfilled your campaign promises, I shall – the entire League shall – petition for your resignation.'

  On that threat, the reverend had departed and the mayor had been left to stew over the matter.

  Presently, he had acted. Fearing that his own voice might be recognizable, he had ordered a member of his staff to telephone Calumet 412, the well-known Everleigh Club number. It was blatantly listed in the telephone directory under the name of Aida Everleigh. The aide had been told to get hold of Karen Grant personally and tell her to come to the mayor's office as soon as possible. She had said she would be there in an hour.

  That had been an hour ago, and Mayor Harrison was becoming increasingly restless when Karen Grant came into the room.

  Harrison wasted no time. 'Sit down, Karen. We've got to have a straight talk.'

  She sat down, but Harrison remained standing.

  'If you want to talk about the Everleigh Club I have nothing new to report.'

  'Indeed that is what I want to talk about. Before lunch I had Reverend Stonehill of the Municipal Voters' League in here. He's demanding I deliver on my campaign promise of reform. If I fail, he's going to have the League pressure me to resign.'

  'You can't do that -'

  'I won't have to,' Harrison said, 'if I can get faster results from you.'

  'I'm doing the best I can, Mayor.'

  'It's not enough.' He paced agitatedly. 'Have you seen or do you know of any sexual activity in the Everleigh Club? That's the question.'

  'I simply don't have an answer yet,' Karen pleaded. 'The sisters have only their restaurant open. I'm one of six hostesses. The other girls have been put up in neighbourhood hotels. The Club will remain closed this week and next until the Everleighs' niece is safely married and gone off on her honeymoon. When the Club reopens I can get the proof you're waiting for.'

  'That's too long to wait. Isn't there a nephew here, also?'

  'Yes, there is. Bruce Lester.'

  'What about him?' the mayor wanted to know. 'Maybe he'd give you some evidence that his aunts are really madams.'

  'Oh, him. God, no. Bruce thinks they're socialites with a big house. Forget about Bruce.'

  The mayor eyed Karen keenly. 'He's Bruce to you, I see. I gather you've become acquainted.'

  'Naturally. There are only a handful of us in the Club.'

  'Don't get too involved with this Bruce,' said the mayor. 'Don't be diverted by anyone. Concentrate on the other girls in the Club. They may be doing a little on the side for the Everleighs.'

  'I doubt it,' said Karen. 'I'd know.'

  'Just make sure, Karen. You're there to do a job. Your job is to get proof that the Everleighs are still running a house of ill fame. If – temporarily – they're not, then you must keep your word and let me know the first minute they give the go-ahead sign.'

  'I promise you I will.'

  'The important thing is that I've got to have that brothel closed down before the Municipal Voters' League tries to force me to resign – and certainly before the prince of Prussia turns up to see our fair city. Indeed, when he sees Chicago, I want to

  be sure it is the fairest city in America. It's up to you, Karen.'

  The next day, just after finishing their noon dinner, Karen led Cathleen and Bruce out to Minna's red Ford. Climbing up to the driver's seat, settling herself behind the wheel, Karen waited while Bruce helped his sister into the front seat and took the back seat for himself.

  While waiting, Karen recalled how this gathering had come about.

  Early in the morning, Edmund had come to Karen's bedroom.

  'Miss Grant,' he had said, 'if you are free right now, Miss Minna would like to see you in her office.'

  Wondering what this was all about, Karen had said, 'I'm perfectly free.'

  She had followed Edmund out of her doorway and downstairs, where she headed for Minna's office.

  In the office, Karen had found Minna standing beside her desk, staring off.

  'There's something I'd like you to do for me, Karen,' Minna had begun without any preliminaries.

  'Anything you wish, Minna.'

  'It has to do with my niece and nephew,' Minna had said.

  Karen had brightened at once. She
had enjoyed being with Bruce at the race course yesterday, and she welcomed any opportunity to be with him again.

  'I'd be delighted to do whatever you ask,' Karen had said.

  'My nephew Bruce has been pressing me to take him and Cathleen on a tour of Chicago. He wants to see something of the city before he goes back to Kentucky. I keep promising to show him the sights, but I'm really afraid to do so. Someone might recognize me and spill the truth about who I really am. I took a chance going to Washington Park yesterday, but I really had to wear a veil to keep from being recognized, and I'll do so again when the Derby is run. I can't take more chances. Anyway, Bruce told me he'd bumped into you somewhere and you'd offered to take him on a tour. So I thought of you, even though you're fairly new here. At least your face

  wouldn't be as familiar as that of one of the other girls. If you would show Bruce and Cathleen the highlights of this city – maybe a few hours – that would get him off my back. Would you consider doing it?'

  'Would I?' Karen had said ardently. 'I'd love to do it.'

  'Then set it up for this afternoon, and feel free to use my car. I'd appreciate that.'

  And so the tour had come to pass, and Bruce and Cathleen were in Minna's Ford with Karen as their guide.

  Thinking how to best go about the excursion, Karen decided that she would show Bruce and Cathleen the more expensive residential area first, then the leading major boulevards and parks. After that they would plunge into the downtown Loop.

  Karen drove the Ford from Dearborn to Michigan Avenue, and slowly through the green, quiet neighbourhoods of stone mansions owned by millionaires.

  'This is the rich residential area of Chicago,' she explained, recalling what she had seen with the mayor. 'There are plenty of poor in the city. But there are these wealthy people also. That brownstone you see, the one with towers, minarets, balconies, belongs to Potter Palmer, the hotel magnate. The rooms are all done in the French style, with Corots and Monets on the walls. There's a ballroom where he once hired the Russian ballet to perform for a party. Palmer's house has two private elevators, and twenty-seven servants. Look over there. That Gothic on the corner is a $60,000 house that belongs to Charles T. Yerkes, who owns the El trains – the elevateds – and the electric trolley cars. I'm told he sleeps in a bed that the king of Belgium used to own.'

  After pointing out the $200,000 mansions belonging to Marshall Field, Philip Armour, and George Pullman, Karen tired of all this splendour and turned on to Drexel Boulevard. Again slowing, she showed Cathleen and Bruce the main feature of this drive. It was a magnificent park, 200 feet wide, that paralleled the boulevard, a park thickly ornamented with

  walks that wound through trees, shrubbery, plants, and beds of yellow daffodils.

  'This leads to Washington Park,' Karen called over her shoulder to Bruce, 'where we went yesterday to see Frontier. I'm glad you're going to run him in the American Derby.'

  'Poor man's roulette,' murmured Bruce.

  'Maybe,' said Karen. 'Now let me show you some of the bigger buildings your aunts would want you to see, modern landmarks Chicagoans are proud of.'

  Twisting through the streets, stopping briefly now and then, Karen showed them the Palmer House Hotel, the sixteen-storey Monadnock Building, which filled an entire block, the Home Insurance Building, the Fine Arts Building in spacious Jackson Park, a park 1,500 acres in size with tennis courts and grazing sheep.

  'Now,' said Karen, 'let's see something more interesting – our downtown section known to natives as the Loop. We'll drive there, leave the car, and wander around on foot.'

  When they reached the Loop, it proved to be a beehive of humanity and moving vehicles. Above them, like a steel girdle, the tracks of the elevated trains circled the area, pouring almost three-quarters of a million shoppers into the streets daily. The Loop seethed with people dodging automobiles, horse-drawn trucks, buses, and electric streetcars. The din of people talking and walking and of machines whirring and banging was almost deafening.

  Karen inched the Ford along, searching and searching for a vacant parking place; at last she found one and eased the auto into it.

  Once safely parked, Karen urged Cathleen and Bruce to descend into the bedlam of the street. She told them to follow her. She seemed to have some kind of destination in mind. As they pushed and shoved along, Karen indicated the rumbling elevated that blocked out the sky above them.

  'The third elevated line to be installed in the country,' Karen explained. ' New York and Brooklyn had them first.

  We followed in time to create mass transportation for the World's Columbian Exposition. A year before the fair, the elevated consisted of a small steam locomotive hauling four wooden coaches. Each olive-green coach was forty-six feet long. Eventually, the Els were converted to electrically powered trains, essentially what you see up there at a second-storey level today.'

  Bruce made a mock gesture of covering his ears. 'As a country horseman, I don't know if I could stand all this thunder and confusion on a daily basis.'

  'Well, I'm going to show you that we have other diversions,' said Karen. She had come to a halt before a theatre. A sign identified it as the American Music Hall. 'Have either of you ever seen vaudeville?' Karen asked.

  'Many times in Louisville,' Cathleen replied.

  'Good,' said Karen, 'but today I want you to spend fifteen minutes seeing the best. Have you heard of Joe Cook?'

  Neither Cathleen nor Bruce had.

  'I've timed our arrival so we can see his performance today.'

  'Who is Joe Cook?' Bruce wanted to know.

  'A comedian,' said Karen, as she bought three tickets. 'He does what they call a nut act. He satirizes vaudeville. He's marvellous.'

  The three of them went into the darkened theatre, which was two-thirds full for the matinee.

  As they walked down the aisle and found their seats, a magician on stage was concluding his performance to applause.

  Karen whispered to Cathleen and Bruce, 'Now Joe Cook. He's going to do his Four Hawaiians number.'

  They watched as Joe Cook, carrying a mandolin, ambled out of the wings. A plain wooden chair had been set in the centre of the stage, and Joe Cook sat down, mandolin in his lap. He squinted out at the audience and began to speak.

  'I will give an imitation of four Hawaiians. This is one.'

  Cook whistled. 'This is another.' He tinkled the mandolin. 'And this is the third.' He marked time with his foot. Then he resumed speaking. 'I could imitate four Hawaiians just as easily but I will tell you the reason why I don't do it. You see, I bought a horse for fifty dollars and it turned out to be a running horse. I was offered $15,000 for him and I took it. I built a house with the $15,000, and when it was finished a neighbour offered me $100,000 for it. He said my house stood right where he wanted to dig a well. So I took the $100,000 to accommodate him. I invested the $100,000 in peanuts, and that year there was a peanut famine, so I sold the peanuts for $350,000. Now why should a man with $350,000 bother to imitate four Hawaiians?'

  Calmly, Cook picked up his chair and left the stage, while the audience burst into laughter, and Cathleen, Bruce, and Karen held their sides and joined in the merriment.

  Presently, after another number, the three of them left the theatre and made their way through the jostling crowds towards the parked car.

  Bruce shook his head. 'Joe Cook was wonderful.'

  Karen cast him a sidelong glance, pleased. 'I wanted you to know there was a lot of fun in Chicago too.'

  'What next?' Bruce wanted to know.

  'The afternoon is almost gone,' Karen said. 'I think your aunts will be expecting you.'

  They were in the Ford once more and wending their way out of the Loop.

  'I guess you've seen just about everything of importance,' said Karen.

  'Not quite,' said Bruce.

  'What do you mean?' said Karen, with surprise. 'If you mean we missed the Union Stockyards, I skipped that on purpose. I didn't think a potential vegetarian would
want to see that.'

  'I don't,' said Bruce. 'But there's something else I'd like to see – one more thing.'

  'What?' Karen wondered.

  'A place called the Levee,' said Bruce. 'I understand it's not far from our aunts' home.'

  'The Levee?' said Karen, brow furrowing. 'Are you sure? It's miserable. It's supposed to be the wickedest section of the city.'

  'I know,' Bruce agreed. 'I've heard about it. But I hoped to see Chicago completely, for better or for worse.'

  'If you insist,' said Karen, still troubled.

  Bruce was adamant. 'I insist.'

  Karen sighed. 'In that case, we'll return to your aunts' home, leave the car in front, and take a short walk through the Levee.'

  After they had returned to the Everleigh Club and parked Minna's car, Karen reluctantly led her charges into the heart of the Levee.

  'There's not too much to see,' Karen told Bruce. But then the mayor's reform statistics came to mind. 'The Levee itself is roughly four blocks by four blocks, with over 200 brothels, some of them small as a closet, but of these, thirty-seven are major bordellos. There are about 3,000 persons who inhabit the area. Most of these are hoodlums, drunkards, gamblers, opium dealers, criminals of every stripe. In a single day, usually at night, there's an average of five murders here, seven suicides, ten persons killed by bombings. Raping of women daring to walk through here is routine. Most of the rapes don't get into the press, but I was told that one time a socialite, Mrs Frank C. Hollister, was found in a garbage heap. She had been raped, strangled with copper wire, and then beaten to a pulp. That made the papers and provoked some police protection, but only briefly.'

  Cathleen shuddered. 'How can our aunts live near such a terrible neighbourhood?'

  Karen was uncertain what to say. She said what she could. 'I imagine they were taken by the idea of dwelling in a mansion, but couldn't afford one in a more respectable area.'

  Together, the three of them strolled past a brothel where painted young women, semi-clad, stood in the windows and beckoned to Bruce.

  Karen pointed to another brothel. 'It's called The California. There are dozens of prostitutes inside, wearing only flimsy chemises and colourful high-heeled shoes. The two men standing in front are cadets trying to lure customers inside.'