As Time Goes By

by Michael Walsh

  “Hello, Rick,” she breathed. Her breath was like the finest perfume. He could have inhaled it all night.

  “Champagne for two,” she told Karl.

  “Are you expecting someone?” Rick asked her.

  “You wouldn't let a girl drink alone, would you?”

  “Not if I know what's good for me,” he said, sitting down.

  “Maybe I’m what's good for you,” she said.

  “I used to think so,” he said as Sam came on.

  The lights dimmed, and then the spotlight hit the piano. The club could have afforded the best Astoria Steinway, but for some reason Sam preferred his old beat-up upright.“She's my baby, boss,” he would explain whenever Rick would offer to buy him a new one, which was practically weekly.“I ain't going to leave her and run off with some other gal.” Rick didn't see why not, but he kept his mouth shut. Sam's love life was his own business.

  Sam started to play his signature tune, and the crowd applauded. The tinkling of the ivories was the only sound in the joint. Nobody was allowed to talk when Sam Waters played. Especially when he played“As Time Goes By.”

  “Isn't it beautiful?” asked Lois when Sam had finished. Rick agreed that it was.“It reminds me of the old days. Just after my father put you in charge of the club. How I miss those days. We were so young then.” She squeezed his hand under the table.“Have some more champagne. I feel like celebrating!”

  Sam was playing a Gershwin tune,“The Man I Love.”

  “Rick, he's a monster,” she said after they had toasted something or other.

  “No, he's a politician,” corrected Rick; he didn't have to ask who“he” was.“At least, that's what I read in the papers.” He sipped his champagne.“Is he cheating on you?”

  She nodded her head slowly.

  “Why should you be any different? He cheats on all his constituents.”

  In just a couple of years the last vestiges of his youth had been sloughed off, and Rick Baline looked at the world purely as an angle to be played and a profit to be made. In this he was a true son of Solomon Horowitz, who had taught him everything; but he was taking his mentor's cynicism to a higher level. Did Solly care about widows and orphans? Rick didn't. Did Solomon sometimes distribute money to the neighborhood children, who laughed and called him“Mr. Solly”? Rick didn't. Did Solomon keep his home in Harlem, even now that Harlem had changed? Rick didn't. It was nothing personal. It was just his way. In fact, he was thinking about moving the Tootsie-Wootsie downtown, closer to cafÉ society, like the rest of the surviving clubs.

  He had many acquaintances, some of them female, but only one friend: Sam Waters. Having a black friend wasn't easy, but it wasn't easy for Sam, either.

  Sam was the best fisherman Rick had ever met. A New York City kid didn't meet many great fishermen, but Sam had grown up not far from the Ozarks, and if there was one thing everybody did in the Missouri Ozarks, it was catch and eat catfish. Sam could smell a catfish resting at the bottom of the lake, and he had the patience of a saint.“Ol’ Mister Cat gonna get hungry real soon, boss,” he would say to Rick from the back of a rowboat, his hat pulled down over his eyes to keep out the sun.“And when he do, we be right here waitin’ for him.” A few minutes later the catfish would be reeled in, scaled, filleted, and put into the salt, there to rest until that evening's dinner. Sam knew at least fifty ways to cook a catfish, all of them delicious.

  Fishing with Sam was one of Rick's few luxuries. The rest of his life was devoted to work. Officially the club opened at four P and closed at four A.M., but that was a fiction. Rick was the first in the door at ten o'clock in the morning, to make sure everything had been properly cleaned up overnight, to work on the books, and to start planning the evening's menu with the chef. He was also the last one out at night, sometimes not getting back to his place until the sun was coming up. He didn't need much sleep, and when he felt the urge he could stop by Polly Adler's bordello and visit with one or two of his favorite girls. Polly and he had a reciprocal relationship. She and the best looking of her girls were always welcome in his place, and everything was always on the house. It was good for business to have some of the prettiest women in New York sitting unescorted at several prominent tables. Even the homeliest chump could hope to get lucky, for a price. In return, Rick was welcome at Polly's any time; except for his drinks, he paid as he went. He preferred it that way. So it was not unusual to see a beautiful woman walk through the door of his gin joint. Usually he was glad to see them. About this one, though, he was not so sure.

  “Rick, I don't love him anymore,” Lois was saying.

  “When did you ever?” he asked. He was trying to keep one eye on the house, the way he always did, but wasn't having much luck.

  “Rick, darling, what shall I do?”

  “Oh, so now it's ‘Rick darling,’ huh?” he said. Karl swooped by to pour some more champagne. Karl was professionally deaf.“You should have thought of that when you ran off with him.”

  “I didn't run off with him—he ran off with me!” she said.“He swept me off my feet. You know that.”

  “I sure do,” said Rick,“I was there. In fact, I was trying to do the same thing and not making a very good job of it.” He lit her cigarette for her and popped one of his own in his mouth.

  She inhaled deeply, as if the cigarette might save her life.“Daddy wanted it to happen, you know that. He wanted his little girl to be somebody, and look at me now!”

  “Yeah,” Rick agreed.“Look at you. You're not somebody, Lois—you're married to somebody. Can't you see that?”

  “Now he's thinking about running for governor.”

  “He'll never beat Lehman,” said Rick.

  “He thinks he can,” said Lois.

  “I think I can fish, but I can't.”

  “Oh, Rick,” she said, and began to cry.

  Crying women were not unheard of at Rick's place, but he didn't like them crying at his table. He helped her to her feet.“Come on,” he said,“let's go back to my office.”

  Karl saw Rick make a brusque downward motion of the chin that signaled to him to take over.

  They went into Rick's private office and shut the door. Lois promptly collapsed on the couch that Rick used from time to time as a daybed.

  “What am I going to do?” she sobbed.“I can't leave him—it would ruin his career. It would break Daddy's heart.”

  “You should have thought about that before you married him,” said Rick.“You're a big girl now.”

  She smoothed back her hair, which had fallen from its pinnings and now spilled across her shoulders.

  “Can't you help me?” She unfastened the diamond brooch and placed it on a table.“I hate this thing,” she said.

  “So do I,” he said.

  He wanted to stop himself, but he couldn't. She didn't want to stop herself, and she didn't. Lois was always stronger than he was, Rick remembered as he fell into her arms.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE

  New York, October 1935

  The affair was two months old when Robert Meredith found out about it. Rick knew this day had to come. He and Lois had been as discreet as possible, but this was New York City, the worst place in the world to have an affair. Some unwritten law stipulated that no matter what you were doing, someone who knew you would hear about it. Maybe it was because the city was so big: a town of eight million blabbermouths, each one living on top of his neighbor.

  He had told himself their affair was wrong: not only morally—although that, he felt, was questionable—but professionally. Even with Repeal, Meredith could still make a great deal of trouble for him with the state liquor authority should he so wish, and how Solomon Horowitz would react to adultery between Rick and his daughter could only be guessed. As Rick was well aware, the union between Lois and Meredith was not only a marriage but a peace treaty, any disruption of which could mean a resumption of hostilities on a scale larger than before.

  That was a war he and Horowitz would both lose, for Solly
no longer had any taste for the hard end of the business. That was pretty much Tick-Tock Schapiro's private preserve these days. A couple of rival black numbers gangs had sprung up recently in open defiance of his covenant with Lilly DeLaurentien; the way Rick heard it, the Voodoo Queen herself was behind at least one of them. The Mad Russian, however, didn't seem to care, or at least he didn't make it a point of pride to punish the miscreants personally, the way he would have in the old days.“It's their neighborhood now, Ricky,” he said when Rick broached the subject one afternoon.“Let them have their turn.”

  If Solly was slipping, Salucci remained lean and hungry. Weinberg, sitting at his adding machine and toting up the profits, was making him ever greedier with thoughts of citywide domination. Unlike Horowitz, the ferret-faced Sicilian would have no compunction about restoring white rule to Harlem as brutally as possible, at least as far as vice went. Where O'Hanlon fit into this picture Rick was not sure, but Dion was far too smart to step in front of a Horowitz-Salucci feud. If anybody knew how to play the angles, it was O'Hanlon; there wasn't a card that was played, a roulette wheel that was spun, or a pair of dice that was rolled in a crap game he didn't already know the outcome of.

  Of course, it was O'Hanlon who told Meredith about the affair.

  The date was October 22, 1935. When the phone buzzed softly in his office that morning, Rick picked it up on the first ring. Very few people had his private number; still, he was not surprised to hear the Irishman's lilting voice at the other end of the wire.

  “Mr. Baline?” said the voice. O'Hanlon never called him“Rick.”

  “Who wants to know?” said Rick.

  “A word of friendly warning to you, my boy,” said O'Hanlon.“I very much fear that Senator Meredith is on his way down from Albany to pay you what I expect will be a most unpleasant visit.”

  Rick didn't have to ask what the visit was about.“What it's to you?” he asked.

  “Oh, nothing at all,” said the Irish gangster.“It's just that I hate to see a young fellow like you come to grief over a woman, even one as attractive as Mrs. Meredith. Women are such a waste of time, don't you think? Especially when there's business to be conducted.”

  Rick didn't drink, but he let O'Hanlon go on.

  “They practically grow on trees, and yet each one of them can make us feel that she's the only one in the world: the most precious, valuable commodity on earth. They want us to think that someday they're going to be scarce, like liquor under the Volstead Act. When, in fact, they're a glut on the market, if only a man chooses to see them in the proper light.”

  “How much do you know?” snapped Rick.

  “All that I need to.”

  He might be bluffing.“What makes you so sure that Meredith is gunning for me?” Rick asked.

  “I thought a bright lad like you would have figured it out by now,” said Dion.“For sure, didn't I tell him my own good self?”

  Rick's blood ran cold.“What did you do that for?”

  O'Hanlon let out a low laugh“Let's just say that an unsatisfactory status quo is makin’ me a bit bored and uncomfortable, and I thought it was high time someone stirred the pot a bit.”

  “Let's talk.”

  “Dion O'Hanlon, at your service. This is, after all, a business matter for both of us.”

  “How soon can you get here?”

  “Not the club. Your place. I’m already there. You'd better hurry if you know what's good for you.”

  Rick didn't have to be told twice. The thought crossed his mind that O'Hanlon's request for a meeting could be a setup, a hit—but why would either O'Hanlon or Salucci want him dead? Killing him wouldn't get them any closer to taking over Solly's other Harlem rackets and would only ignite the very gang war they were all trying to avoid. Solomon Horowitz might be getting older, but he wasn't getting any nicer. He still could do some serious damage to both Salucci and O'Hanlon should they take him on, even if they eventually took him out.

  Thoughts racing, Rick drove downtown. He was alone. Abie Cohen wanted to come, as he was under standing orders from Solly to do, but Rick had waved him off.“It's my mother,” he shouted as he drove off. Abie shrugged and, for the tenth day running, tried to do the crossword puzzle. Even though he was cheating (the puzzle was yesterday's, and he had the answers in front of him), the going was still tough.

  Rick pulled up in front of the San Remo in ten minutes flat. He left the car parked in front of the building for Mike the doorman to keep an eye on. The elevator operator greeted him as he entered.“You have a visitor, Mr. Baline,” he told him.

  O'Hanlon was standing politely in front of his door, clutching the brim of his hat in one hand and reading the sports pages of the Daily News with the other.“Mr. Baline,” he said.“How splendid of you to offer the hospitality of your home to a friend in the middle of a busy day like this.”

  “Whaddaya want?” Rick asked brusquely, unlocking the door. He didn't feel like standing on ceremony and sure as hell didn't feel like offering O'Hanlon a drink, although that didn't stop him from pouring one for himself.“What do you mean, you told Meredith about Lois and me? What the hell for?”

  O'Hanlon was perched in one of Rick's easy chairs, his bird face shiny and scrubbed, his legs crossed at the ankles, his double-breasted suit cut so well that even when he sat the buttoned jacket didn't bunch up. If Rick's rudeness bothered him, he didn't show it.

  “Mr. Baline,” he began,“I have a confession to make.” Rick looked surprised. O'Hanlon forged ahead.“You should feel flattered. Not even Padre Flynn down at Saint Mike's has heard Dion O'Hanlon's confession for more than a full month of Sundays.

  “My confession is this: I have a terrible character flaw. For don't I always tell the truth to my friends, even when it hurts other of my friends? As it appears I have in this instance. But Senator Meredith asked me point-blank last evening whether the rumors he was hearing in Albany were true, and I had to admit that, insofar as I myself was privy to any trustworthy information at all, they were—distressing though such knowledge might be to all and sundry.”

  “Now he's on his way here,” said Rick.“What's he going to do? Shoot me?”

  “Surely you don't expect an esteemed public official such as Senator Meredith to kill a man in cold blood?” O'Hanlon shook his head in disbelief.“I believe he has people for that sort of thing. Lorenzo Salucci, for instance. He and Salucci have been doing business together for some time. I introduced them, of course, and have profited handsomely from the arrangement. A friend in the state legislature is almost as good as having the mayor of New York on the payroll. Who, of course, I also have.”

  “Of course,” said Rick. Nobody could work both sides of the street like Dion O'Hanlon.

  O'Hanlon dropped his voice to a deadly whisper.“Now listen, and listen carefully, to what I’m about to say, boy. Your boss is finished. And do you know why?” He leaned forward as if to impart some great secret, which forced Rick to draw a little nearer to him.

  “He's finished because he doesn't listen,” hissed the gangster.“He doesn't heed warnings, either from his friends or, worse, from his enemies. No, he simply goes his own way, the same way he has gone before, secure in what he supposes is his puissance but is in reality merely his arrogance and his ignorance.”

  O'Hanlon straightened up.“Salucci is too strong now,” he said evenly.“Believe me when I tell you that Weinberg has already organized a hit team from Murder Incorporated—one of whom, I regret to inform you, is a member of what you suppose is your own gang—to finish the job begun by those poor boys from Sicily so long ago. If Solomon is finished, then you're finished, too, because your rabbi has been sadly neglecting his flock, and he just can't muster a minyan anymore.”

  O'Hanlon examined his fingernails, which were perfect.“In twenty-four hours,” he said,“the Mad Russian will be history.”

  “What about me?” asked Rick.

  “Oh, I would be more than happy to find a place for a man of your indisputable
talents in my own organization,” O'Hanlon replied,“but alas, I’m giving it up.”

  That was a surprise.

  “I’m quitting. Retiring. I’ve got enough money stashed away to take care of my family unto the generations. America's a great country, boy, and how thankful I am to it for taking a poor immigrant lad like myself and transforming him into a millionaire many times over. It's time for me to take my winnings, cash out of the casino, and head for home. Therefore, in the grand tradition of the magnificently corrupt Richard Croker of Tammany Hall, I have purchased myself a wee estate in County Mayo, there to enjoy the fruits of my old age in peace and plentitude.”

  “That doesn't explain why you've ratted me out,” objected Rick.

  “Oh, but it does, lad,” O'Hanlon said.“I like things nice and neat, and I cannot abide the thought that after I’m gone a messy turf war for control of the rackets will break out in my beloved adopted city of New York. Your boss is a hothead, and New York is no longer any place for hotheads. We're businessmen now, Mr. Baline, and we've got businesses to run. We're not just gangsters anymore, we're public servants, and we've got to start acting like it.”

  Rick looked at his unwelcome guest.“So why tell me this? Why not let Meredith's men finish us off and let Salucci run the whole show?”

  “Why not is because I like you,” replied O'Hanlon.“I admire your moxie, boy. Why not is that you run the best saloon in town, so good it put my own darlin’ Boll Weevil out of business—you and the regrettable end of the Noble Experiment, which brought such good fortune to us all. Why not is that you're cool under pressure. In fact, Mr. Baline, you remind me very much of me, which is the highest compliment I can pay you.

  “You know that I am something of a connoisseur of the fight game,” continued O'Hanlon,“and I’d like to see you have a fighting chance in this little contest.” He reached for his hat, which was never farther away than his outstretched arm could reach. O'Hanlon was vain about his hats.“Well. I’ve said what I’ve come to say, and now I feel as shriven as if I’d made a clean breast of everything to Father Flynn. Full disclosure is a grand thing—except, of course, in a court of law.”