by P. N. Elrod
We walked down the length of the tables, through another door into the back hall, then upstairs to Gordy’s office, or rather his new office. It had been his dead boss’s bedroom once upon a time, and Bobbi had had her own bedroom within the suite. All the sumptuous sleep furnishings had been removed from both, replaced by sumptuous office furnishings. The kind of people Gordy dealt with were impressed by the silent language of expensive trappings, so he had the decorator pull out the stops. The effect was rich, but not too gaudy, in some ways overwhelming, in others almost homey. All trace of his predecessor was gone; Bobbi’s small room had been converted into an accounting office.
“Have a seat,” he said, gesturing at a leather-upholstered monster that wasn’t designed for sitting so much as wallowing. He made himself a drink, knowing better than to offer me anything, and eased onto the oversized sofa across from me.
“Looks good,” I said, with a nod to the surroundings.
He grunted a thanks. “Yeah, you haven’t been up here since the last raid.”
The club had been turned upside down by the feds following the dance-hall deaths. Some of the gangsters involved had been seen at the Nightcrawler shortly before their demise, so it was a matter of guilt by association. The club had already been raided and everything reduced to a shambles, so Gordy kept his hands in his pockets, his poker face unchanged, and let them wreck what was left in their search for anything incriminating. In vain. All that had long been moved elsewhere. When the dust settled, he repaired the damage and opened for business as usual.
“I’ve seen the backstage area, though. Quite an improvement.”
He crinkled the corners of his eyes. “That’s Bobbi’s doing. She said if she was to come back, she wanted showers and heaters in the dressing rooms. The builder thought I was nuts.”
“Is it paid off yet?”
“It took care of itself the first week of running the casino. That’s where the real money is.”
“But if you didn’t have the casino, how long before it paid out?”
“Maybe eighteen months, call it two years to be safe. That includes the fact that not every night’s a sellout. Why you want to know?”
I took a moment before answering, savoring the anticipation. Until now I’d kept my ideas to myself. “This is for this room only, not even Bobbi knows what I’m planning yet.”
His brows twitched ever so slightly. Raging curiosity for him.
I took in half a breath, then plunged ahead. “I was thinking of opening my own place. Smaller, though, and no gambling.”
Gordy gave nothing away, but I could tell he was surprised and thinking hard. “What sort of place? How small?”
“About a thirty-foot stage, tables for three fifty, four hundred, dance floor, bar, a kitchen to make hors d’oeuvres. Maybe expand it later to do dinners.” Small compared to the Nightcrawler, but with the right trappings just as impressive. The main reason the Nightcrawler got hit so often was the casino. Every cop in Chicago knew about it, and not a few of the city and state politicians were its regular customers. The idea was for my place not to be such a conspicuous target. I’d have less profit without slot machines, but would get to keep it rather than plow it back in the business with repair work and rising bribes.
“I figured you for a tavern with peanut shells on the floor,” he said after a long moment.
I spread my hands to indicate my new clothes. “Thought I’d move myself up a bit.”
“That’s a hell of a big stage for that size an audience.”
“Not for the performers.” Too many times I’d seen bands stuffed like an afterthought into a spare corner with hardly enough room to play in.
“Where’s the money coming from?”
“Call it an inheritance.” Which was close enough, since the gangster who stole it in the first place was dead.
He gave me a look to indicate he knew better, but wouldn’t press. “How much can you put up?”
“Twenty-five grand.”
“The wiseguys in town will want their cut for letting you operate.”
“I’m figuring it in along with the taxes, permits, and licenses.”
A slow nod. “You just might bring it in for that, but six outta ten places go bust the first year.”
“Then I make sure this one doesn’t.”
“How?”
I had a specific idea on that, but didn’t feel like sharing just yet, if ever. “By hiring in good acts.”
“Like Bobbi?”
“You got it.”
“She won’t be around forever, y’know.”
“What d’you mean by that?”
“She’s moving up, too. Tonight’s a big step for her. She’s bound to get noticed.”
“I hope she does, but she knows fame and fortune are as hard to find as a lightning strike.” We’d had a lot of midnight talks about her dreams. She was realistic about her chances.
“Unless you’re sitting on a flagpole,” he said, looking mildly smug.
“What do you know I don’t?”
“You’ll see.”
He wasn’t the sort to give away a secret until he was ready, so I’d have to wait it out.
He drained away half his drink. I got the impression it was to cover an honest-to-God smile. If so, then he was in a hell of a good mood. “Ike LaCelle,” he said.
“What about him?”
“You want to open a club, you should talk to Ike. He knows all the show people. He can introduce you around.”
“Great, more wiseguys.”
He spread one hand, palm up, unoffended. “It’s how we do business in this burg, kid.”
“What’s he do?”
“He arranges things.”
“That could mean anything from setting up a crap game to taking someone for a long ride off a short pier. What’s his specialty?”
“More in the line of crap games and doing favors. He makes sure the right people get together at the right time, then takes a cut of the action. Mostly he’s starstruck. Likes to make friends with actors, showbiz types, then show them off to impress others. Think of him as a middleman who don’t know he’s a middleman. Once you’ve met the talent, you can deal with their agents. For my money I’d rather deal with the wiseguys, they’re not so dangerous.”
Coming from him that meant something, but I quelled the tiny, rising doubt about my ability to make the club happen. Of course anything could go wrong and knock my plans flat, but if I could make enough things go right . . .
I’d been researching the idea of owning a nightclub since acquiring my windfall of cash. Though I’d have taken Bobbi out on dates regardless, for the last two months we never went to the same place twice unless there was something about it that appealed to me. Then I made a lot of mental notes to figure out what it had that I liked and how I could reproduce it, only better.
“I thought you wanted to be a writer,” said Gordy, drawing me reluctantly back to the present.
“I do—that is, I am. I am a writer. I just haven’t found a publisher yet who agrees with me about it.”
“Don’t you become a writer only after you sell something?”
“Already did that when I worked for the papers, but even without a sale I’m a writer because I picked up a pencil and started scribbling.” It was something I’d read somewhere and fervently hoped was true. “That includes everyone from speechwriters to bathroom-wall poets.”
He didn’t look convinced, but made no arguments. “How’s this club you want to start fit in with that, then?”
“It could take me years to get self-supporting as a writer, if ever. I like working with Charles, but the agency is his business, not mine. I want a place of my own, something for myself.” Something that would provide me with a fairly steady income for decades on end and yet be interesting enough to hold my attention. It’s a fever that runs in my family. My dad had never been content working at a hardware store until he was able to buy it and be his own boss. He had to work three times
as hard, but never complained, he was too busy enjoying himself.
Gordy must have seen more than a hint of the need on my face. He nodded without comment. “I hope you can do it. If I can help . . . ”
“I’d appreciate a word of advice now and then.”
“That you can get right now: make sure the location ain’t too close to this joint.”
He got a laugh from me for that one, but I knew he was serious. Even if his place had been paying off like a triple bonanza, he wouldn’t welcome any nearby competition. “You can make book on it.” There was a big silver and black clock on the wall behind him, very modern, with symbols shaped like arrowheads where the numbers should be. “It’s nearly show time. We oughta get downstairs.”
“We oughta,” he agreed. “Ike LaCelle’s supposed to be here tonight. I’ll introduce you. Make friends with him.”
I took that to be more advice and resolved to do so.
We returned to the club proper again by way of the casino, skirting the whole backstage area. From what I heard coming through the walls, mostly voices of the chorus girls, it was barely controlled pandemonium there. They sounded more excited than panicked, though, a good sign.
Gordy had the best table, right in the center front of the stage off the dance floor. Some other people that I recognized as regulars were already seated and greeted us with louder-than-normal good cheer. They’d apparently kept the drinks flowing free for some time now. I squeezed in between Cathy Bloom, the buxom wife of Gordy’s lawyer, and a guy with buckteeth and blank eyes who was supposed to be an enforcer.
Ted Drew’s Melodians had taken a short break, allowing the dance floor to clear. A guy I recognized as the stage manager emerged from the wings to check the area and exchange a few words with Ted, then ducked back again as the orchestra took their places and tuned up. Mrs. Bloom began telling me some story about Bobbi, so I lost track of things until the lights went down.
At Ted’s cue, the Melodians’ horn section crashed into a mournful minor-key overture. The audience hushed, except for a noisy drunk in the back who was wandering from table to table. His evening clothes were the worse for wear, and he had a three-day growth of beard. I wondered how he’d gotten past the bouncers out front, but figured the ones inside would take care of him pretty quick.
“You seen ’er?” he groggily asked some grinning patrons. He didn’t wait for a reply, but staggered to another group to put the same question to them. “You seen ’er? Anybody here seen my Lil?”
He tottered all the way down to our tier of the horseshoe without getting caught. I glanced at Gordy, but he stayed in place without so much as a nod toward any of his people to take care of the problem.
The drunk made it nearly to the dance floor and stopped at the last table, leaning heavily on it. His hand groped for a customer’s glass, and he raised and drank from it before anyone could react.
“Hey, you lush!” complained a man at the table. He grabbed the glass away, but it was empty.
“You seen ’er?” asked the drunk piteously. “You seen my Lil?”
The man got an unpleasant smile on his face and flashed it at his friends. “Yeah, I was with her last night. She was one hot pippin.”
“Why, you . . . !” The drunk took a wild punch at him.
Gordy still wasn’t doing anything, just watching. Everyone was watching, some were even laughing, including the bouncers.
The man ducked the punch, grabbed the drunk by the shirtfront, and swung him roughly around. He hauled back for a right cross and let fly, but from my angle it looked like he missed by a handbreadth. Still, the drunk went reeling back, down two steps to sprawl in an ignominious heap on the dance floor. To add to the humiliation some bozo in the lighting booth aimed a merciless white spot on him.
That’s when the music came up in another plaintive crash and died down. The drunk on the floor wearily found his feet, squinted bleary-eyed at the audience, and began to sing.
Oh. He’s part of the show.
I was very glad that light wasn’t on me, because I felt myself going red. I’d been had. The hook, line, sinker, caught, hauled ashore, gutted, and scaled for dinner kind of had. It was a blessing I’d held off from attempting to do anything about the man before realization set in. Dammit, but I’d have to pay more attention to Bobbi when she talked about her work. I had a dim memory of her mentioning the prelude to the show.
The drunk turned out to be a sailor named Bill who had jumped ship to look for his girlfriend, Shanghai Lil, which also happened to be the name of the song he was singing. The plot sort of followed the specialty number that was in the Cagney film a few years ago, but without the fantastic set pieces or endless lines of chorus girls and other extras.
The Nightcrawler did a respectable salute to it, though. A line of about ten joss-house girls, complete with black bobbed wigs and exaggerated makeup to suggest slanting, mysterious eyes, emerged from the wings, dragging canvas flats painted to depict shabby buildings. They transformed the dance floor into a Shanghai street. The girls arranged themselves around the stage for Bill to inspect, but none of them was his beloved Lil. Their bright satin costumes were tight-fitting Chinese dresses, but with side slits all the way up the leg allowing them freedom to dance. You could also see the tops of their stockings and garter straps.
Not a bad show at all. And this was just the beginning.
Bill faded to the background while the girls swept around the floor with mincing little steps, waving painted fans and bowing. They took up the song, echoing Bill’s words about his search for Shanghai Lil.
He wandered from one end of the canvas flats to the other and mimed knocking on doors, still looking, while the girls tried to interest him in their stunning charms. Bill tried a few dance steps with them, but at the last minute resisted temptation and got away from them. Ten more girls, costumed like American sailors, emerged from the doors and paired off to dance with their joss-house sisters, and was that ever an interesting sight.
Bill was still without a partner and drew a gun from his pocket. Just as he was about to end his lonely misery something like a shot went off, followed by several more in very rapid succession, like a miniature machine gun.
I sneaked a quick look at Gordy, but he was intently watching the show, unmoved by the noise. It was just part of the act. In this place that was reassuring to know.
The gunshots turned out to be fireworks. The girls, both dancers and sailors, scattered, screaming in mock terror as a bloodred Chinese dragon lurched onto the stage. It snaked this way and that and ended up by circling Bill, its head shaking and hinged mouth flapping up and down as though from laughter. This annoyed the hell out of Bill, who finally lost patience and lifted the head off the person who had been controlling it.
The puppeteer inside turned out to be Shanghai Lil, and Bobbi never looked so good. She beamed at the audience and threw her arms wide, as though to catch their wave of applause. Bill embraced her and somehow her red satin pajamas got ripped away to reveal a brief scarlet jacket and pants so short they might have well started as a bathing suit. She wore red tap shoes and stockings that went all the way up into the pants with no garters showing at all, which I thought to be a good trick. Topping her head was a black wig like the rest of the girls, but sporting red bows on either side of her face. She was also made up like a Chinese doll, managing to look virginal despite her joss-house past.
She and Bill sang the greeting part of the number to each other, then broke into a tap routine. Bobbi had not been wasting her time with all those dance lessons. She told me the key to selling a number was to make it seem easy while at the same time looking like you’re enjoying yourself. She accomplished both goals so far as I could judge, and the audience seemed to agree with me and started applauding again before she’d quite finished.
Bill faded again, allowing Bobbi to do a solo dance, then she joined him so the chorus could come forward. The “sailors” did a respectable hornpipe, which led to a medley of m
ilitary type songs, like “Over There” and “Columbia the Gem of the Ocean,” which got cheers from the veterans. Then the other girls joined in for several fast-moving bars of solid American swing that quickly turned into a jitterbug. I never saw so many legs moving so wild and fast. You sure as hell couldn’t see anything like it in a movie now, not since Willie Hays had been called in to spoil everyone’s fun.
The dance interlude was to allow Bobbi to catch her breath so she could belt out the closing of the number with Bill. They returned to the stage riding in a rickshaw pulled by four girls from the joss house, sang their piece, then rolled off in triumph, waving to the cheering audience.
The response was every performer’s dream, not only a standing ovation, but one that started before the singers even came back for their bows. I yelled with the rest for an encore, and Bobbi must have picked my voice out of the crowd, for she looked in my direction, flashing the special smile she reserved only for me. I felt a lurch in my chest like my heart suddenly decided to start beating again, and had to sit down. God, what an effect she had on me.
Cathy Bloom looked in my direction. “It must be love,” she wryly observed.
I couldn’t deny it if I wanted to, and I sure as hell wasn’t about to do that. I applauded until my hands stung.
The chorus and Bill vanished backstage and the lights brightened as Bobbi stepped up to a microphone near the Melodians so she could get her cue from Ted. They led off with a sprightly introduction, and she sang “Chinatown, My Chinatown.” Not a real showcase for her voice, which was just beautiful, but it allowed her to work the personality angle. She really looked like she was having fun. Only I knew better. She was absolutely having the time of her life.
She bowed and hurried backstage while the applause was still strong and the Melodians’ resident crooner took her place for a couple of songs. It also gave her a chance to change costumes. When she appeared a second time, she wore a delicately flowing set of pajamas in pale blue satin and held matching fans in each hand. Topping her black wig was a silly-looking hat shaped like a cup sitting on a saucer.