by Paul French
Cashed up and hungry for action, Jack is a millionaire now and doesn’t care who knows it. The newspapers claim Jack is earning more than twelve thousand American dollars every month, just in Frenchtown. The SMP have estimated that the total annual income from slot machines in the Settlement is in excess of a million Chinese bucks. Jack owns them all, plus more up in Chinese Chapei and now, of course, in the Badlands. He’s personally pulling in twice what the SMP think, and then there’s the Manhattan, the hastily rebuilt Bamboo Hut with a whiff of smoke mixed in with the fresh paint job, the DD’s chain, of course—and don’t forget what’s left of the Velvet Sweet Shop dope cash. Nazedha has taken the DD’s business in hand and upped the profits at the other branches—DD’s Russian Restaurant on Bubbling Well Road is pushing out blini and zakuski, DD’s Cafe nearby is a popular after-work cocktails joint, while DD’s Downtown gets the bachelor crowd as the Russian barmaids shake dice with the griffins for drinks. Jack’s a rich, rich man and dresses like it in tailor-made suits and imported leather shoes. He calls a fancy plum-voiced English broker in an office on the Bund and tells him to buy more Shanghai Power Company shares, telephone company, gas too. Why not? The bourse is just gambling for the 400. DD’s is legit money, so he can spend it legit too, on the stock exchange. Don’t look too long, and the Slots King might seem kind of respectable these days.
Of course, he’s still Lucky Jack, solid bucko mate, beloved of the Fourth Marines. These are the same men who feed his slots and play in the local league against his Town baseball team of Friends and nightlife diehards. The Town team is captained by Demon Hyde from the Del Monte, who played a mean game back in his San Joaquin Valley days, with Mickey O’Brien as their slugger. Jack loves to bat, and he’ll take shortstop if required, but mostly he likes to pitch, and the Lucky Jack legend grows thanks to his jackrabbit ball. It’s brought out when things look bad, and whizzes past the stunned batters unprepared for a freakily good pitch. The marines laugh at the Town team—men in ‘Shanghai’ embroidered shirts, with nightclub pallor, thick waists, and slicked-back hair, longtime expats, still woozy after a night running the myriad clubs and bars of Shanghai. But thanks to Demon, Mickey, and Jack’s rabbit ball, the marines lose as many games as they win.
Since the Japanese invasion and the subsequent U.S. and British troop reinforcements, Blood Alley is packed, the Settlement is hopping, the Marines Club overflowing with new arrivals. Securing the Settlement from Japanese attack means lots more leathernecks shipped in from Manila and squaddies brought up from Hong Kong. The Badlands is off-limits to soldier boys, it’s outside the SMP and Little Nicky’s turf, beyond their jurisdiction, and it’s where the big gambling action is, less than a mile from DD’s on the Avenue Joffre. Jack can’t stop thinking about how that strip would be perfect for a joint with class acts and well-greased roulette wheels.
Jack still wants serious wheels action from the swells; he wants Badlands coin too—moving up from copper and brass to silver and gold. Shanghai may be surrounded by killing and war, but the SMP, on point of long established principle, is determined to never allow roulette wheels in the Settlement, and only the most clandestine will survive the Anti-Gambling Squad raids. But the Kempeitai and their Chinese puppets in the Badlands couldn’t give a shit as long as they extract their taxes. Jack needs a Badlands in, a swank venue. There’s no getting around it for him—that means Joe Farren. Dapper Joe still runs the best floor shows, with queues round the block for the Canidrome and the Paramount—repeat that trick with roulette wheels and ‘gold mine’ doesn’t even come close: it’s more like a mint, and you’ve got a licence to print money. But he and Joe are still mad as hell at each other. The air needs to be cleared, and Jack knows he has to do the clearing.
* * *
The Municipal Council has announced a ten p.m. curfew on all nightlife due to the ‘emergency’, and the Frenchtown bosses have followed suit. Joe’s day starts early now, with ‘tea dances’ from five-thirty to nine-thirty p.m. to cater to the straights who need to scramble home before curfew hour. But plenty want more—Jack has moved his floor show to ten at DD’s, as has Victor Sassoon at Ciro’s. Joe moves the Canidrome and Paramount floor shows to ten to lock in the after-curfew crowd. The Canidrome has moved the dog races earlier and the boxing’s gone early too, so you don’t have to miss anything. Tea-dance away your afternoon, catch the dogs or the fights late afternoon/early evening, and then move on to a nightclub and stay settled till morning and curfew’s end around sunup.
Chapei and the Badlands offer the best deal of all—no curfew and no closing till dawn, with the Del Monte still firing on till long after the sun has risen. But it’s getting tough running dance halls. Before Bloody Saturday the foreign places charged a dollar for two, maybe three dances; then overnight it went to a buck for seven twirls. Go to the predominantly Chinese joints, like the Flying Swallow or the Moon Palace, and it’s a dollar for eight, nine, sometimes ten taxi dance turns a night. Profits are slashed. The money’s now in gambling … and gambling in the new Shanghai of the Badlands means roulette. The spinning wheel is the real big earner.
Joe is still running nightly between the Canidrome, the Del Monte, and the Paramount—Frenchtown to Siccawei to Settlement. The Follies, the Peaches, the Blondes, and the Natasha chorus lines up in smouldering Hongkew all require his magic touch too. And now he’s got to help out Sam Levy, who’s relocated his firebombed Venus Café to Frenchtown’s border with the Badlands. Sam has persuaded Joe to run a chorus line in the new place. It’s a stretch, but it’s tough saying no to a man whose place got bombed to shit.
Joe’s got a stash, thanks to the Red Rose dope ring, and knows the all-night, no-rules Badlands is the place to invest—Chinese developers are throwing up big wooden shacks that, if draped in neon at night, might be mighty swell joints. Joe knows that where he goes the punters will follow. Nellie’s not so sure; the Badlands means bad people and bad alliances, and she’s deadset against any involvement with Jack Riley. But any Badlands joint would need a casino, and Joe knows nobody else has got the gelt and the knowhow to fund one right now except Riley. The Portuguese won’t work with any but their own; Russians are the same way; the old-time criminals like Stuart Price, who ran casinos before the Great War, are wise counsel but out of the game these days. Veteran clandestine roulette-wheel operator Bill Hawkins up at the Burlington Hotel is solid, but too old-fashioned in his ways to pull in the level of punters Joe wants. And Joe’s not working with the Japanese, so it’s Jack or nobody. Truth is, Jack’s got the flair and, despite being a loose cannon, people love the slippery gonef. Joe tells Nellie it’s a new era and that means new deals; it’s time to let bygones be bygones. Nellie says Jack’s crazy, it’ll end badly. Joe just shrugs and says he can handle it.
Still, nobody here’s an idiot. Nellie’s right—Joe knows you can’t trust Jack, but it’s Shanghai—you can’t trust anyone! Sure, Jack is combustible, explosive, ready with his fists—Yang Pat prizefight champ, cellblock bruiser, Venus door muscle. That shit Jack pulled with Buck and the Harlem Gentlemen at the Canidrome was a royal pain in the arse. But Jack has sent apologies, got Nazedha to reach out to Nellie, and, at the end of the day, it was Tung and Vong trying to cut the wage bill and extract maximum profit from the joint that started all the bullshit. Jack knows that in the Badlands he’s outside his comfort zone of Fourth Marine Friends and Blood Alley buddies. Joe’s got more pull—Louis Bouvier and Carlos Garcia are backing him, there are Al Israel and Demon down the road at the Del Monte, and Albert Rosenbaum as Joe’s right-hand man.
Nellie meets up with Nazedha for kaffee und kuchen at the Astoria Bakery in a booth right next to an E. T. Riley slot machine. Nazedha says Jack is serious these days—it can all be copacetic as long as the money rolls in. Nellie doubts that, but stays schtum. Joe heads over to the Del Monte and sits in Al Israel’s office sipping stengahs and getting advice. Al reminds Joe that Jack needs him more than Joe needs Jack. Albert Rosenbaum shrugs and says, ‘L
et the American run the wheels, and if he starts trouble we’ll dump the cocksucker in the Soochow Creek and start over.’
21
Courtesy of Gallic banker and Frenchtown fixer Louis Bouvier’s connections, Joe’s still got a shot at the joint on the Great Western Road he had his eye on before the bust-up with Jack. It’s a big warehouse of a place with three floors, on the boulevard that runs straight out of the Settlement into the Badlands, a ten-minute drive from Bubbling Well. Joe is legit, never been busted, never been in a courtroom. Now he’s got a licence from the Municipal Council; it says ‘entertainment only’ and no gambling, but that’s something to worry about later, or maybe never. But he still needs someone to bank the wheels and run the casino, someone who’s got pull with the Japs and puppets and can finesse the taxes and other associated bribes to manageable limits. Jack is the only candidate.
Nellie and Nazedha set up a double date for all to make nice officially at the Canidrome Gardens for the boxing. Jack tells Joe to bet on the Russian boy, with a grin, wink, and flick of the thumb on the side of his nose. It’s an offering, an apology, a new start.
The Monday night fights at the Canidrome consist of four bouts, starting at five-thirty p.m. The first three are warm-ups for the main event, which tonight, August 1, 1938, is Harbin-born, Shanghai-based Andre Shelaeff, the ladies’ favourite. He’s got movie-star looks, he’s the Welterweight Champion of the Orient, and he’s defending his championship belt against the Filipino Lucio ‘Young’ Alde. It’s a grudge match, and Shanghai is betting right down the middle—the KO champ the ‘Russian Hammer’ versus the more experienced Manilaman carrying an additional nine pounds in punching power. Alde is still smarting from his last fight with Shelaeff in Singapore a few months back, when he got booed out of the stadium accused of taking a dive. Those allegations of fight rigging didn’t go away, and Alde got a three-month suspension. Then he demanded a rematch, a final fight before retiring and a last big purse. The Canidrome was it.
Back in the blinding arc lights of the Canidrome, Riley, Farren, and their respective crews are in attendance. Jack has block-booked a stand to give them some space. He’s got Mickey in tow, Nazedha on one arm and Babe on the other. But tonight that’s it—no Friends or hanger-on Marines, no intimation of a gang fight. Joe is in the stand with Nellie. She’s looking relaxed in the evening heat in wide-bottomed blue linen trousers, a white mess jacket, and a red kerchief. Albert Rosenbaum fans himself with a newspaper, eyeing Jack warily. Nellie and Rosenbaum are on board for Joe’s sake, but they still both advise against this joint venture.
Outside their stand the stadium is packed: plenty of chain-smoking local hoods from Frenchtown and the Badlands are betting heavily on their boy Shelaeff; not so many would have gambled on Joe and Jack’s happy reunion. Seemingly every White Russian in town has scraped up a few dollars to put on the Hammer. The White Russian drinking dens—Sasha Vertinsky’s Gardenia, the Hungaria, Yar—are all empty tonight. Look around, and it’s a rogues’ gallery—Fat Tony Perpetuo of the 37427 gambling joint on Bubbling Well Road; José Bothelo and his Portuguese mob, who run the Silver Palace casino; old Bill Hawkins and Stuart Price, who’ve operated floating roulette wheels across the Settlement since the turn of the century; Swiss thief Elly Widler and his crew; Al Israel and Demon Hyde from the Del Monte sitting with Sam Levy and the Venus Café girls; Sasha Vertinsky and his squeeze Boobee taking a night off from the Gardenia; the Russians who run high-end, high-stakes card games at the Broadway Mansions, the Route Voyron gypsy clan huddling tight. And Shanghai’s Filipino community of musicians, gigolos, and croupiers is out in strength to see their boy take his belt, and his reputation, back.
Nine p.m. on the dot and the two men enter the ring with their seconds. Shelaeff’s manager, Harry Seelig, is ringside as ever, and nodding to Jack. A thousand wolf whistles greet a Natasha in a tight dress who walks round the ring holding up a big card with a number one on it. The ref brings the two men to the centre of the canvas and makes them touch gloves for a clean fight. The bell rings, and round one is on. Unsurprisingly, Alde puts up a tough fight and doesn’t back away from the punch, landing a series of thunderous left jabs that send the Manilamen contingent in the Canidrome wild. Shelaeff is clearly still feeling the bruises and the aches from his fight with the big Shanghai-based Ukrainian hitter George Levchenko two weeks before. Levchenko had gone down, but not before landing some painful jabs to Shelaeff’s upper body that left dark black-and-blue marks.
Alde can go the ten rounds, but Shelaeff is younger, hungrier, faster. Both boxers are soon drained—the hot, humid August night leaves them gasping in the sultry air, their chests heaving, the perspiration running into their eyes, a salty, stinging tang. The floor of the ring is stained dark with their sweat and blood, and both men take a lot of punishment.
Shelaeff is forced to use precious energy blocking Alde’s trademark swings. Alde misses and puts himself momentarily off balance, open to the legendary Shelaeff hammer punch, but the Harbin boy fails to land one sufficient to put his opponent down. His senses are off, maybe, or his tired arms too sluggish for the final blow. Uncharacteristically, Shelaeff has to go in and work two-handed barrages to Alde’s body, gruelling up-close work that leads to some inevitable head-butting. Fierce, repetitive jabs are aimed at Alde’s kidneys, but they’re never quite enough to force him back onto the ropes to finish him off with that famous right hook.
Shelaeff takes a tough punch to the solar plexus, between his exposed diaphragm and his navel, which debilitates him momentarily, and Alde puts him on the ropes. But Shelaeff fights back. The crowd screams itself hoarse. Nazedha and Nellie laugh loudly as Babe jumps on the wooden benches and screams at the Russian to hit harder, hit fucking harder!
In the final round both men are exhausted. Alde pushes Shelaeff onto the ropes, scrapping, holding, and pushing again, fully using his nine-pound weight advantage. Shelaeff battles out of his grip, looking for space to swing, but Alde moves back in quickly, head down to avoid a lethal chin shot, for successive body blows. Shelaeff keeps working to avoid head butts that could open up an eyebrow, leaving him blood-blind and vulnerable. The crowd is now on its feet, willing a KO from one or the other fighter, Frenchtown fixated on what just might be the greatest night’s boxing the Canidrome has ever seen. Shelaeff, who has only ever had a few fights go to the second round, has a real opponent for once. Both men collapse in their corners as the bell clangs and it finally ends.
Perspiring profusely, the white-shirted referee takes the microphone and announces a draw to slow handclapping, boos, and hisses. Bottles and coins rain down from the stands into the ring, and the ref has to duck for cover. Joe starts to stand up, looks at Jack and shrugs a What the fuck? Jack winks and motions for him to sit back down, mouthing Trust me. More booing, more hissing, more coins and EWO beer bottle caps rain down into the ring.
Two minutes later and the ref is back as the crowd start to file out. He mumbles into the mic that he’s added up the numbers wrong; Shelaeff has won on points, and the championship belt stays his. The partisan Canidrome crowd goes wild and floods back to the bookies to get their winnings—the surge nearly tips over the bookies’ stands. Shelaeff is cheered to the rafters, the Manilamen in the crowd booing loudly but drowned out by the local roar. An exhausted Shelaeff is carried out of the ring suspended above the arms of his fans; Alde looks devastated and confused by what’s just happened. Joe and Jack walk back to collect their winnings. By the bookies’ stand Joe passes half to Nellie, the other half to Rosenbaum, and shakes Jack Riley’s hand. The deal is on.
Jack and Joe make their way up to the members’ bar in the tower overlooking the dog track and the boxing arena. Carlos Garcia welcomes them and shows the party to a table right up front by the window, pulling out chairs for Nellie and Nazedha, chilled champagne at the ready. Carlos puts his arms round Joe’s and Jack’s shoulders and wishes them both luck; he bends down and kisses the girls on the cheeks. Louis Bouvier moves in w
ith the paperwork for Farren’s Inc.—registration, licence, all signed and sealed. Albert Rosenbaum and Mickey O’Brien start talking logistics, getting this show on the road. Joe and Jack shake on it again, and Joe leans in to Jack’s ear as they hug for the onlookers—no sidelines this time, Jack. Jack nods like he really means it. And just like that the Badlands gets Farren’s, the biggest, fanciest, richest nightclub and casino Shanghai has ever seen.
From the top of the Canidrome Shanghai looks staggering. You can see clear downtown, across Frenchtown to the river and the line of grey battleships—British, American, Japanese, French—moored along the Whangpoo; across to the Avenue Eddy and the skyscrapers of the International Settlement; back behind them to their new home, the money-making machine of the Badlands. Lights twinkle, a thousand wisps of smoke rise from the chimneys of the laneways, army searchlights sweep the skies north towards Hongkew and Chapei. The men look like kings; the women like queens. Jack and Joe think it’s the start of something beautiful. The deal is done, for better or worse.
22
It’s five a.m., two days after the Farren’s deal. Al Israel’s in his office above the dance floor at the Del Monte stashing the take in his strongbox. Al’s wife, Bertha, is sleeping in their apartment on the top floor. Demon is downstairs in the casino supervising the early-morning cleanup of the joint after a busy night. Demon hears two shots from upstairs, grabs his pistol from behind the bar and heads up to Al’s office. Bertha, asleep, is woken by the shots, and runs down to Al’s office in her nightdress. Together they find Al slumped over his desk in his Chinese dressing gown, the office trashed, signs of a struggle, the strongbox emptied. Al has been shot through the back of the head, execution-style; the bullets exited through, and just above, his right eye and lodged in the teak wood of his desk. The SMP investigate, and they even arrest Demon, thinking he might have shot Al over control of the club. But that’s a nonstarter. They kick him loose; the investigation goes nowhere fast. Little Nicky digs around, thinking maybe this is still dope-related business being sorted out eighteen months after the Wiengarten killing, but the assassins are long gone.