The most conspicuous display is put on by Ganna Walska, who has a box on the north—the unfashionable—side. Wearing emeralds as large as limes, she is rococo in dress and demeanor and is usually attended by minor diplomats and her latest husband. She never made society, though she married one millionaire and two multi-multimillionaires. The first, which was her second, was an elderly New York physician to whom she went because she thought a growth in her throat interfered with her ambition to be a diva. He didn't cure her throat, but he married her, conveniently died and left her a home and her first million. This girl, who had sung in mid-European cabarets, was soon pursued by Harold McCormick (then married to the daughter of John D. Rockefeller); and Alexander Smith Cochran, even wealthier, the Yonkers carpet king.
Ganna decided to take a trip to Europe and both her suitors made the boat. McCormick was still married, so she took Cochran, who spent a fortune on repeated efforts here and abroad to make her a prima donna. When he failed, she blew him for McCormick, who had gotten his divorce and taken time out for a monkey-gland operation. McCormick was the foremost subsidizer and patron of the Chicago Opera Company, oneof the principal heirs to the McCormick harvester fortune. But he couldn't get her in that troupe and she soon waltzed out on him. (She was born with some unpronounceable Polish name and was nicknamed "Walska," meaning "waltzer," because she sang waltz songs to the accompaniment of a gypsy fiddler in Budapest.)
When last heard from, she was being sued for alimony by her sixth husband, a yoga practitioner who told her that his mysterious powers would bring forth her voice. She said she had been persuaded to believe that while she stood on her head.
First nights of old brought forth beautiful Mrs. George Gould, the former Edith Kingdon, and her friends. Now the lobbies are jammed with cigarette smokers overflowing to the sidewalks, and police reporters recognize more patrons than can the society reporters.
A recent première saw raffish exhibitionism that would have shamed Whitechapel fishwives.
Betty Henderson, a dowager past 70, in the opera bar, planted a leg on a table, showing more than plenty, and shouted, "What has Dietrich got that I haven't got?" She was probably plastered and she is a Newport top-drawer hostess, worth dozens of millions.
Another elderly jewel-rack walked the balcony during intermission, puffing a big, black cigar. Maybe she was trying to smoke herself sober.
One matron arrived with two bodyguards, who stalked and sat on either side of her, making even moreconspicuous her cables of pearls and her movie-marquee display of diamonds.
But the upper crust still exists.
The great private ballrooms are no more, so the fashionables give dances and receptions at the Colony Club (not to be confused with the Colony Restaurant). For women only, this is one of the last stands of exclusiveness—so snazzy that non-members, guests, must enter by the side door. Only those who belong may use the Park Avenue portal or the main elevator within.
The Union and Knickerbocker Clubs are as snooty as the day they were founded. To increase income they instituted ladies' nights, when members may invite wives, daughters and guests to dine. The Metropolitan Club, founded by the first J.P. Morgan for the rich but outré rejected by the Union, has let down its bars, as have other smart clubs.
The Horse Show was another brilliant event in the golden age, but blue-blooded humans don't patronize it as enthusiastically as before. Fashionable women who do now affect sports togs. Those who cling to dressy traditions are stared at curiously.
In the eras of rubberneck wagons, visitors got their money's worth. Men shouted through megaphones untruthful descriptions of famous mansions. Provincials thrilled when they reached Fifth Avenue and 57th Street. The four corners were sites of baronial citadels.
On the northwest corner stood the great château of Cornelius Vanderbilt, with its iron-grilled garden in the rear. On the northeast was the white marble residence of Mrs. Hermann Oelrichs. On the southeastwas the somber castle of Collis P. Huntington, and on the southwest the Moorish-windowed retreat of William C. Whitney. Today, commercial buildings have replaced them all.
The great double mansion of Mrs. William Astor and her son, John Jacob, dominated upper Fifth Avenue at 65th Street. Its walls beheld entertainments that rivaled those of oriental potentates. Its most luxurious feature was a huge bathtub, carved from a single block of Carrara marble, with gold spigots shaped like dolphins' heads. Mrs. Jack Astor, née Ava Willing, America's most celebrated society beauty, now Lady Ribblesdale, laved herself there in eau de cologne. The architecturally impressive Temple Emanu-el now stands where all this was.
The white mansion of Mrs. Oliver Belmont, at 51st Street and Madison Avenue, is now the Administration Building of the Catholic Archdiocese. The brownstone Jay Gould town house, at Fifth Avenue and 47th Street, where shouting thousands clamored for the life of the Wall Street operator on historic Black Friday, is a furniture store. The famous Bertie Goelet home, a block away, was recently razed.
The largest private residence in the city, the brownstone palace at 640 Fifth Avenue, where Mr. Cornelius Vanderbilt entertained royalty and the other elect, was sold to the English Astors and has since been demolished. Its famed marble mantelpieces and interior decorations were auctioned to Hollywood producers. An office building was erected on its site. Mrs. Vanderbilt, undaunted, carries on in a smaller house at 1048 Fifth Avenue.
On the upper stretch of this boulevard are the magnificent ménages of Mrs. Mary Duke Biddle, Dr. A. Hamilton Rice, Mrs. Hamilton McTwombly, Mrs. William Hayward, Julia Berwind, Mrs. W. Watts Sherman, and the garden-enclosed, garishly grandiose show-place of the late Andrew Carnegie. The Carnegies are not gregarious and few fashionables have seen the interior. Set in between them, in a regal mansion once owned by Whitney Warren, a society architect, and designer of Grand Central Terminal, was an all-night "bottle club" that dispensed liquid refreshment after closing time to a favored few.
On Riverside Drive, the gingerbread château of the late Charles M. Schwab which long stood empty has also been torn down. The Schwabs were not social, but musical. Their Sunday afternoon concerts when Melba, Tetrazzini and other prima donnas sang, were discussed even in Europe.
At 1 East 78th Street, on the corner of Fifth Avenue, is the white marble palace of Mrs. James B. Duke, mother of Doris. This great house has a magnificent collection of 18th century English paintings and drawings.
The Harrison Williamses live at 1130 Fifth Avenue. The beautiful Mona entertains there against a distinguished background of paneled rooms, her portrait by Dali, and several Goyas.
The Byron Foys live at 60 East 93rd Street, in one of the finest houses in the city. Built by Mrs. Graham FairVanderbilt, it has the most beautiful French 18th century paneling. On its walls are portraits by great masters as well as family portraits painted by Simon Elwes.
But most socialites live in vast apartment houses or hotels. To see them in the flesh, one can peep in several restaurants. Tops is the Colony, on East 61st Street, just off Madison. It serves wonderful food at wonderful prices. Strangers find it difficult to get reservations. If one does, he will be far back, in the main room. Many regulars prefer it there, though, and you may land next to Winthrop Rockefeller, Baron Maurice de Rothschild, Clark Gable, or, while she was here, you might have encountered Princess Martha of Norway.
Table No. 1, at the right of the entrance, was long reserved for the William K. Vanderbilts. After his death, his widow never returned. Now one is apt to find at this spot the Duke and Duchess of Windsor, Mme. Frances, the Alfred Sloanes or young Lord Lascelles. Table No. 21 is bachelor-girl Beth Leary's hangout. At No. 14, Mrs. George U. Harris and her charming daughter, Lucille, are on view. No. 34 is where Elsa Maxwell, Clare Boothe Luce or Dorothy Thompson sit, but not together. Table No. 4b is given to the Vincent Astors, to Lady Furness, or to society reporters.
Voisin is smart, but far more conservative, and none of the faces would mean anything to the uninitiated.
To El Morocco goes the International Set.
The remaining few aristocrats bide their time, believing and hoping for a revival which will never come. But they are curious. Mrs. Cornelius Vanderbilt visited the Stork Club once. Mrs. Hamilton McK. Twombly went to dinner at the Monte CarloONCE. And that vital nonagenarian, Colonel Creighton Webb, has been to a night clubtwice.
Society departments still appear in the newspapers, a habit the editors fear to shake off. But their content is mostly betrothals and weddings of people few know—no charity balls, no formal functions, no musical soirées, no tally-ho outings, polo or fox hunts in season.
In another year or two, a new superior set may arise—composed of union labor leaders, rising reds and affluent Africans.
Until then, Society will go like the gallant G.A.R.—doomed by the toll of time.
25. HOODLUMS' HIERARCHY
When thischapter first appeared in print in 1948, they said we were nuts. The following year, when we wroteChicago Confidential,we expanded on the subject of the organized underworld. That made our critics hysterical.
But the findings of the Kefauver Committee, which got its original inspiration from these books, proved how right we were. In fact, the Senate Crime Committee's final report was practically a plagiarism ofChicago Confidential,andWashington Confidential.
The rattle of the sawed-off tommy-gun, the whining whistle of the leaden slug and the thud of its impact against flesh and bone no longer are the sound effects in the orchestration of the gangsters' theme song.
In the last decade an extraordinary metamorphosis has come over the characters who saw their big years of glamor and of terror during Prohibition and for a spell after repeal.
In truth, there are no gangsters, and there are no mobs. Yet, today's underworld figures cast a far wider shadow and wield an incalculably greater influence on the life of the nation and its principal city.
Except for a few shabby neighborhood ruffians in squabbles about penny-ante rackets, such as fish-peddling, shakedowns of storekeepers, enforcing collections for double sawbuck loan sharks and similar bagatelles, the old and happy habits of killing each other have evaporated.
Everything is now organized into an institution a hundred times the proportion of any outfit dramatized by Raft and Robinson, including the empire of Al Capone, which is represented as a minor element in the set-up that grew out of it all.
Today we have the Syndicate!
Let it not be supposed that the hoodlums have gone straight. The Syndicate is almost entirely bossed by ex-convicts whose roots are in the lowest and most violent soil, where originated malignant morasses of the dirty trades that made America notorious around the world.
But they have grown up. They are fat and rich, they have wives who belong to clubs and children going to the best colleges. And they have brains.
These brains are like none other, because they combine the shrewdness and unscrupulous ruthlessness of high-powered criminals with the hired skill and concentration of first-line lawyers, accountants, business sharks and tax specialists.
Their operations and their holdings now run into the multimillions. And they range from the filthy numbers swindle in the Negro sections of most large cities to chains of America's finest and biggest hotels, a building of their own in the heart of Wall Street, distilleries, breweries, real estate worth up to $5,000 a front foot, blue-chip stocks and bonds galore, night clubs and restaurants and the structures that house them.
At the same time, they juggle the Italian lottery, a gold mine which has had comparatively little publicity, and which flourishes in every city that has slums; call-girl vice, the last survivor of the woman traffic in NewYork and a prolific source of profit; the international narcotics trade, with a world-wide organization for supply abroad and distribution in the United States, which probably turns over more than $1,000,000 a day here; almost complete monopoly of American bookmaking, the slot-machine business where they can put on the fix, and the lion's share of the gambling in Florida and Saratoga in season, in Nevada all the time and in various large centers where and when they can operate with comparative safety through political connections.
This strange hybrid of respectability and lawless monopoly was really born of Al Capone's conviction on income-tax frauds.
It shocked the mobsters, who had thought themselves immune, into a realization that any one of them, without an hour's notice, could be tapped for Alcatraz. Capone's defense was childish and completely without preparation for a man who had proven himself not only big and bold, but crafty and cautious, when he had weighed the odds for and against himself.
There was in plain relief a record of big expenditures which he could not controvert and against which he could not prove income—that is, income which he had reported—and this was no trial for bootlegging or murder, but strictly a tax-evasion indictment.
It is an axiom accepted by thieves that you can't do business with Uncle Whiskers.
There were a number of meetings, in Chicago, New York and elsewhere, and the principal subject was:
"How can we beat that Treasury rap?"
The government does not usually prosecute where there is a confusion or a possible one as to tax liability. It reviews a return, examines books, asks questions, snoops around and notifies the subject that his questionnaire was faulty and that he owes so and so much on such and such findings. He then pays up, or sometimes settles and is even given a leeway of time to make restitution. The worst that happens to him is that he kicks in.
These conferees represented leading mobsters from New York and Brooklyn, Newark, Philadelphia, Miami, New Orleans, Chicago, Detroit, Los Angeles, San Francisco and other points which do not seem important, but for strategic or geographical reasons developed gang personalities.
It was then and there decided that, instead of jamming their thousand- and ten-thousand-dollar bills into strong boxes, they would form a pool and invest in sound enterprises. In these they got actual, tangible, negotiable securities. They engaged the best management, often retaining the executives of properties they bought.
Then came the war and everything flourished and multiplied—everything honest and dishonest.
Their assets snowballed. Now they run into incalculable figures.
Every member has his exact "piece"—from the take of a prostitute summoned in the night, to the income on Park Avenue, State Street and Hollywood Boulevard frontage.
Any man who owns 2 per cent is a millionaire. Theprincipal participant is said to own 7½ per cent and he is now the richest man in Italy. He is, of course, Charles "Lucky" Luciano.
When Luciano, a swarthy Sicilian with a drooping eye, who had been a pickpocket, a pimp, a collector, a gun-toter for his betters and in time the top racketeer of the United States, was convicted by District Attorney Tom Dewey, it was said that he was railroaded and that he was guilty of everything except what he was convicted for—peddling women.
He was guilty of them all and that, too. But Dewey, with his eye looking far ahead, realized that this was the most spectacular path and he took it and followed it through.
It was the same Dewey, as governor, who shortened Luciano's sentence at Dannemora under circumstances never plausibly explained. It was published that Luciano had provided the government, then at war, with priceless information about the Italian underworld, which had helped us in the invasion. It was even bruited that he would get a medal of honor. This was all pure hokum, invented by the paid press agent of the syndicate in New York, which maintains a year-round public-relations employe who earns his $300 a week if he manages to get in one choice item, such as the above, in a year.
It was no political deal, which also was intimated, but which is as erroneous as the balderdash about Luciano's service to his adopted country.
Luciano got an excessive sentence, running up to 30 years. It was not contemplated that he would ever sitout all of that. The Italians, who are rapidly overtaking the Irish as the leading power in Tammany and in Republican councils as well, had put on heavy pressure to get amnesty for the little mug, who was the head of the Sicilian Society in the United States, a branch of the ancient Mafia.
After Luciano was deported, he turned up in Havana.
This was kept out of the newspapers for a while, but the entire syndicate was notified and there was a concentration in the Cuban capital, where 36 rooms had been engaged in Havana's leading hotel.
Meanwhile, the FBI and Federal Bureau of Narcotics tapped his phone-calls to the mainland and definitely established that he was still in undisputed command of the multifarious and nefarious operations of the infamous Unione Siciliano.
Columnist Robert Ruark sprung the story in a column which appeared in the second section of his newspaper and was treated as minor information. But the fact that he had seen Luciano holding court in the Havana Casino, surrounded by glamor gals, underworld and Hollywood celebrities, including Ralph Capone, the Fischetti Brothers and Frank Sinatra caused a national sensation, as a result of which the United States government formally complained to the Cuban government that Luciano's presence on the nearby island meant a big development in the dope business of the United States. Washington had the goods.
Cuba thereupon deported him back to Sicily, where at this writing he is dispensing charity and undoubtedly buying and scheming great influence in public affairs.
During his incarceration, his dividends as well as his crooked profits were meticulously deposited to his credit. There was some difficulty transferring money to him in Italy during the last year of the war, and in that period some $2,000,000 accrued to him; that sum was brought to him in cash on a Pan-American clipper from Miami to Havana and carried in the hand of a well-known crooner of Italian extraction, with underworld connections past and present, guarded by two of the Fischettis, cousins of Al Capone.
The New York manipulator for Lucky, who visited him while he was held at Ellis Island for deportation, is Frank Costello. He is now the mightiest of the syndicate personnel, with an uncanny genius for mixing into highly important affairs with bigwigs in various spheres.
Costello also was born in Sicily, came to New York in his youth, had some juvenile delinquency troubles and did a stretch before he was out of his teens. He was part and parcel of gangster developments in a small way until his talents brought him to the top.
He was engaged in the slot-machine business in New York until the late Fiorello LaGuardia had his one-armed bandits smashed by police axes. Costello, teaming with "Dandy Phil" Kastel, who also had counted the bars on a cell, took a trial trip to Louisiana, then the one-man dominion of Huey Long.
They say a million dollars passed into the hands of the Huey Long inner group—and not a bad investment, for the first year's profits, reported for Federal taxes, exceeded $1,200,000. Anyway, the Louisiana legislature voted a bill legalizing slot machines, and Costello and Kastel organized several inter-involved corporations with innocent names to run them. There was practically no competition—and very little shooting; Long simply passed the word around that the concession belonged to these two gentlemen from New York.
As a concrete example of how the tax situation is manipulated by intricate items of overlaying accounts, it was shown when Costello was hauled up for taxes apparently due, that the slot machines belonged to one corporation, that they were operated by a second, which rented the locations from a third.
Costello eventually settled for $600,000 cash. Among other little entries about which the government inquired were payments of $200,000 a year to each of his wife's two brothers, as salaries in different slot-machine corporations. This transparent cover-up was laughable—but it was judged not criminal. Costello pleaded that he had been misadvised—excuse it, please—and he wrote a check.
This is only a ripple on the ocean of hundreds, probably thousands, of holding companies organized in various states and under various directorships and local laws, through which flow the vast garnerings of the syndicate from coast to coast, with an accounting system which in any emergency can explain and make good any entry, and thus avoid the peril of the penitentiary.
There is an intercommunicating liaison among the lawyers, many of whom are engaged for their exclusive services by the year, and all supervising the main channels and watching hawklike to guard against letting their employers become involved in actionable tax delinquencies.
As for all other matters, they can be handled locally. The syndicate owns plenty of judges, strong men in both parties and great fluid assets. It is no secret that money can square anything in the United States.
Luciano was no peanut when Dewey ruined him. But there are few Deweys. And Luciano had not yet learned to cover his tracks. The money came in so fast and his drag was so good, he felt immune, but Tom Dewey wanted to be President of the United States, and Lucky hadn't thought of that.
Luciano had been taken for a ride in the orthodox manner, between two executioners, and had come out alive. They left him for dead in a lonely spot, but he beat it.
After that he felt that nothing could break him.
Like Samson, he was betrayed by infatuation for a doll. She was Gay Orlova, a fabulously beautiful, but plump, blonde White Russian refugee, who had come to Broadway and Earl Carroll's choruses by way of Turkey.
Said by Carroll to be "the sexiest gal who ever worked for me," Gay quickly found a protector in the late Theus Munds, rich and elderly Wall Street broker, who went whole hog with diamonds, furs and limousines.
During the Florida season of 1935, Gay appeared as a featured show girl in the floor show Carroll presented in the flamboyant Palm Island Casino, then operated by Bill Dwyer, a Prohibition-time big-shot rumrunner, on Al Capone's private island.
There she met Luciano. Lucky, who had had the pick of girls, never had had one so glamorous—or amorous. He moved right in.
Gay was proud of her conquest. When asked by one of your reporters, "What about Munds?" she replied, "Oh, Theus is O.K. But all he's got is money. Lucky, he's sinister!"
When that was printed, it was the first intimation Dewey's detectives had of the romance. When Gay returned to New York, they tapped her wires, and thereby traced Luciano to Hot Springs, Arkansas, where he was hiding out.
After Lucky's conviction, Uncle Sam deported Gay as an undesirable alien. When last heard of she was a Paris mannequin, still beautiful, still in love with Luciano, still bitter at your reporters—and trying to get a passport to Italy.
His conviction was another lesson to his kind. It showed them that, with all their accumulated power, they were not sure of their liberty.
Luciano had conducted his vice operations from a duplex suite in the Waldorf Towers. These activities were traced right into his two manicured hands. The syndicate came to the conclusion that that, too, must be changed.
Now the important stockholders delegate everythingillegal. In one season the outfit netted $6,000,000 in Miami gambling houses. But these were all run by stooges, few of whom knew to whom the money eventually went, and none of whom knew how or where it went—into corporations with strange and remote names, into sinking funds, reserves, depreciation allocations and undivided profits.
Corporations can be sued and can be taken, but they cannot be locked in a prison.
That, briefly, is the story of the gangsters' progress, one of the biggest-monied combinations in the nation. That is the reason why the shootings have stopped and top men are no longer put on the spot.
"Bugsy" Siegel and Binaggio, slain after this chapter first appeared in print, were exceptions. Benny, who got his nickname because the boys said he was "nuts," had threatened to blow the whistle on the syndicate when Luciano refused to bail him out of his $6,500,000 white-elephant gambling casino-hotel in Las Vegas, Nevada.
He was put on the spot because he refused to be "organized"; preferred old-fashioned gang methods learned when he was the No. 1 torpedo for Murder, Inc. Binaggio, too, double-crossed the boys.
No independent operator can scratch the surface. Competition isn't even a hearty joke. The boys have everything so tightly tied up, they work so far ahead and have so many trained eyes and ears, that they can take long vacations, enjoy a hangover as well as the next man and sleep in reasonable security under silk canopies in silk pajamas.
26. HELLO SUCKER!
Three differentmovie outfits, at three different times, took the trouble to consult with Jack Lait about authentic incidents in the life of Texas Guinan. He gave freely and at great length in response. We later saw "Incendiary Blonde," supposed to be based on her life. It wasn't a bad picture. But it wasn't a good Guinan.
Tex was hardly incendiary, and wasn't even a blonde by nature. The only three men in her life were—first, a quiet New England artist; second, a sedate California writer; and third, in later days, a bookkeeper, no less, who used to beat her up and who scrammed with a lot of her assets.
Texas and Lait were good friends back in 1913, when she was making two-reel, two-gun westerns. That's when she acquired the "Texas" handle. Her name was Mamie. She had a little house near Hollywood, with Lottie Pickford and Mabel Normand. Lew Cody, Paul Armstrong and Lait would drive out there to play stud poker. Texas came east to join a musical show. Abe Erlanger, king of the legit, went soft for a little pug nose in the chorus and took Texas' song away and gave it to the youngster. To make it worse, he wanted Texas to support her with an obligato. Lait stood on the stage of the Illinois Theatre, Chicago, when Tex told Erlanger off pretty in the presence of the entire troupe.
She was fired instanter and barred from every branch of theatricals except vaudeville. Lait wrote her an act, with four people and a horse. At the climax, Tex on the horse leaped in through the window and saved the post office from being robbed. Her name wasn't good enough for the big time, and she played the Loew circuit. Transportation ate up most of the salary. So Tex got a job as a hostess in the Beaux Arts, New York, opposite Bryant Park, high up by elevator, sort of a secluded spot after the uptown speaks were emptied. There her personality caught on.
Larry Fay, the sentimental gangster, had gone mad over a lovely little ingénue whose name shall not be mentioned, because it might embarrass her and it wasn't her fault. Larry pestered her so, she ran away to Florida and took a cheap night club engagement. This gave Larry a big idea, which made Texas Guinan, quite inadvertently.
The Friars Club, about to open its own building, was moving out of its temporary quarters on 45th Street, near Sixth Avenue. Fay leased the building for five years. His plan was to set up a magnificent club which he thought would lure back to New York the gal he was nuts about, if he offered her star billing and a big salary. He hired Tex as emcee, with a heavy guarantee. He called it the El Fey Club so it could be identified with him and still not carry his name, which was on record where it wouldn't help. He began frantically telephoning the girl in Florida. She turned him down and after the first call refused to answer. So here hewas, stuck with a five-year lease on a five-story building and a contract with Guinan.
Here comes the most interesting incident, which has never been truly told and which has been untruly told for years everywhere.
As each show went on, Larry would stand in the extreme rear, where it was dark and where he—always in plain blue serge suit, white silk shirt and black windsor tie—was inconspicuous. As Texas would mount her chair (that was how she worked) she would look across the long room at him. And, thinking of the lease, her pay, the flop of his romantic objective, she would cast a glance right over the heads of the audience and call out—to him—"Hello, sucker!"
Through some phenomenal human quirk, every other sucker in between thought it was addressed to him. And, as strangely, every man liked it. It became her trademark. Long after Larry passed out of her picture and was killed on a New Year's morning, she still featured it—his only monument.
Texas played to a strange conglomeration—Wall Street, the world of art and letters, the Blue Book lorgnette set, New York's usual concentration of out-of-town buyers, plus never-failing underworlders. These were all paying guests. There was very little passed out on the cuff in any of her deadfalls. There were very few beefs about atrociously phony "champagne" at $35 a bottle, and some of the bootleggers who made her Scotch and gin at perhaps $1 a quart came to her dives and paid $15 a quart for their own hogwash.
There was something in that "Hello, sucker!" which softened up a man and made him what she called him. She always had a flock of lovely young girls, but no customer ever got closer to them than seeing them on the floor. It was no place to pick up one on short notice. Texas watched over her kids like Diana guarded the doves on Olympus. Many a contented matron, perhaps now turning 40, may remember what a demon chaperon she was.
"Give the little girl a great big hand!" But that was all. Not a great big car; not even a sandwich.
She never got rich. She lived in a little flat on Eighth Street, which looked like a Chinese second-hand furniture store, where she had one servant. She certainly left no great sum. She dropped a wad in the stock market crash and had to hock her "ice," in which she had sunk a bucket of bucks. She had thieves and thugs for partners and, though regarded as a shrewd operator, she was taken like Armour takes a sheep. From the moment she came to work at night, until daylight, she was on her job and had no time even to look at accounts. She could well have said "Hello, sucker!" talking to herself.
But she was dynamite as a drawing card. The sappos began laughing before they came in. They greased headwaiters heavily for ringside seats in front, and a few minutes later saw tables moved in front of them. The best act she ever put on was George Raft, doing a Charleston, which lasted a minute. Ruby Keeler broke through the barrier with her beauty and tap-dancing.Beyond this, there were practically no principals, except Guinan.
Yet, when the band struck up "I'll See You in My Dreams," her theme song, and the spotlight caught her scintillant smile and she shouted "Hello, sucker!" her customers were electrified, ecstatic. We have never known an exclamation from any person to carry the wallop that this impertinent quip packed when Guinan let go with it.
It is generally believed she got it from Wilson Mizner. Truth is, Bill Mizner got it from her!
27. NO PAIN, NO FUN
The hotelhustler, age-old character more or less tolerated in the best institutions, making her hunting habitat in midtown lobbies and the various "peacock alley" passages, has become a police problem on grounds other than protection of morals.
In the main hotel sectors, she spurns the wage of service. She is generally a cold, calculating crook.
Her equipment is a small bottle of white crystals, chloral hydrate, a powerful concentrated hypnotic which will knock a man completely out in 15 minutes and keep him unconscious for some dozen hours.
This method requires that she be in the man's room. She cannot take him to her own or to a neutral one, as he will wake up in due time, robbed of every nickel, his watch and ring, sometimes even some haberdashery.
A complaint, were the victim to regain consciousness anywhere but in his pro tem quarters, would set the dicks waiting for the lady to come home, if it were her place, or would convict a place that rented rooms to her as an assignation house, which in New York means lifting the license for keeps.
But, where traveling men, convention gatherers, visiting buyers and occasional migrants have accommodations, she combines in comparative safety the lure of her charms and the modus operandi of her larceny.
The flirtation is simple enough. The proposition comes in due course, usually in the cocktail lounge orcafé of the hotel. The acceptance is at first hesitant—she isn't that kind, shouldn't stay out long, but she has taken a fancy to the stranger (after she has worked out of him the information that he is stopping at the hotel and isn't a permanent guest) and so, yes, she will go to his room—unaccustomed as she is to unconventional adventure—for a little while. He doesn't dream how little time.
His room is not only her objective, but there is no other retreat.
Should he want to lead her somewhere else, he is stymied. All hotels are full up. Even if he got a handbag and tried to get into another haven with her, he would be asked for his reservation.
There are no more loose hotels specializing in such twosomes. In 1940, there were hundreds. Now there isn't one. The war rush, the military police, the high rates for legitimate rentals turned them all respectable. They found that more profitable and kept it up.
Because of her system, she cannot take him to her abode or to any other which he can identify after his long snooze, even if she, a wise New York cookie, does know some side-street bed-house where a cheating clerk holds out a cubicle or two for quick turnovers.
So she plays quite helpless. She lives with her folks. Unless they go to his place—well, where else?
He takes the standard precautions of the seasoned wayfarer. He goes up alone, tells her to follow in five minutes and walk right in.
With few exceptions, the dreaded "Get that woman out of your room!" has gone the way of the one-buckblue plate. Guests are still protected, but not against their own peccadillos. The simp has pushed the little plunger so the knob will turn from the outside. The tough trollop, acting nervous and timid, but irresistibly tempted, enters.
He makes a grab. Oh—he mustn't be so impulsive, so impatient. She is jittery and fluttery—natch, since she is doing what her breeding and better nature tell her she should never have yielded to.
A drink—one little drink to settle the nerves—and then—
He calls room service, even if he has a bottle in his bag. If he has seltzer, she can drink it only with ginger ale, or vice versa. When the waiter is called, she steps into the bathroom on his knock, and the cluck giggles and says he always takes two about that time of day. The waiter says lots of customers do, it's getting to be a national habit. For that he gets a bill instead of a coin.
She has taken her purse into the bathroom with her, and when she can safely return she has the knockout dose held between the thumb and the palm of her gloved hand—she keeps the gloves on; no fingerprints.
She sits, then remembers she has left her handkerchief on the washstand—would he please get it? As he turns his back, she drops the tasteless, colorless grains into his drink, which dissolves them instantly.
They raise glasses. Here's to crime! Skoal!
If he comes over for a grab right away, she holds him off. She wants to know—is he really married? Oh, dear, all attractive men are! She is a grass widow. Yes, she made a mistake, but what does a girl know when she's18, and unworldly? How about a cigarette? Is he sure the door is locked now? He makes sure.
By this time his eyes are heavy, his hands more so. He can't understand—it's been a hard day, of course, and last night—zowie! He'll snap out of it in a minute. But he doesn't.
She has stalled until a debilitating lethargy overcomes him. He sinks back, limp. She waits a few more minutes. She pokes him. No reaction. Then she goes to work. He may still see and know what she is doing. But he is paralyzed.
She goes through him, even taking off his shoes and socks, for she has learned that many a cautious cluck hides currency there. She frisks his trousers, vest and coat. Then she scrams.
Quite a number of official beefs to the cops have completely established every move. Though only an infinitesimal percentage of the total go to the police, these average a dozen a week, mostly at East 51st Street police station, which is in the district of most top-grade hotels.
The dicks often can name the dame on description. But, if they collar her, she gives them the horselaugh. No corroboration.
After a touch in one hotel, hustlers usually move on to others, to avoid running into the victim, though when they do, little can be done about it.
Time and again, when arrests are made, the bottle of chloral hydrate is found in the suspect's handbag. That still isn't convicting evidence.
Most of the saps, of course, really are married. And they are people of some standing back home. They willlie to avoid prosecution, which would invite publicity, even when the thieving broad is caught with their watches which have their full names engraved on the cases.
The drug, without which the entire clockwork would stand still, is not too difficult to get. Chloral hydrate is a recognized and respectable anodyne, in the pharmacopoeia, prescribed for quick insensibility when a patient has convulsions, and in drastic cases as a painkiller. It cannot be had ethically except on a physician's prescription, but there are underworld druggists as there are underworld medics, and both serve out the stuff knowing how it will be used.
An overdose can be fatal, and women who feel secure in mulcting men do not want to chance a murder rap, which would set the bulls working in full cry. So they often have the powder put up in capsules with just the right dose, and they open the gelatinous envelope, spill the contents into the hand and drop the container into the drain.
All this gives you some idea of the intensive forethought and preparation expended to turn the ancient and never-too-honorable calling from whoring to robbery.
While the two have long been associated, only of late has it become the custom not only to give the sucker no even break, but no break at all. A glib grifter in this streamlined system could work it indefinitely and retain her virtue.
Newspapers continually dig up new versions of the "meanest thief." We nominate this one!
PART THREETHE LOWDOWN(Confidential!)
28. BUT YOU'VE GOT TO GET HERE FIRST
The troublewith most books about New York is that their authors seem to think you are already here, before you begin to read the first page.
Though this is the atomic age, with transport planes winging through the air at 400 miles an hour, no one has yet materialized a magic carpet.
We take it for granted you plan to travel by one of the conventional means: train, plane, bus, ship or car. Allowances also will be made for hitchhikers and those who ride the rods. New York is no place for those who come by motorcycle or camel or trailer. There are no trailer parks or motels or roadside rooming houses in or near the city.
At this stage of the game, we will not inquire into your motives, though later on we expect you to do a bit of soul searching—confidential—to discover in which category you fit.
If you are attracted by the glimmer of the lights or the gold of the markets, it's all the same to us. But first you've got to get here.
Choice space on de luxe trains, planes and ships will always be at a premium. It was so before the war and it is now. We assume you are coming here first class. And, coming for business or pleasure, we strongly recommend it.
If for the former, there's nothing like putting on afront. It also helps you feel important to yourself. If for the latter, why not have all the conveniences?
If traveling by plane (and it's your first flight) try to go nonstop. You will find that once aloft, you have no sensation of flying; it's the landings and take-offs that jitter the tyro.
If you're coming by train, try to get a private bedroom. Never take anything smaller than a drawing room for two people. (Most experienced travelers demand a compartment for one.)
(INSIDE STUFF: But the prettiest gals usually travel in coach trains or on the cheaper Pullmans. Passengers on extra-fare trains are almost entirely businessmen and some couples. It is difficult to make friends on such trains as the 20th Century and the Super Chief, because most passengers keep to their rooms for the entire trip. On the other hand, those who ride the more moderately priced trains are friendlier and easier to talk to. Travel etiquette does not prevent you from talking to the sweet sister in the next seat. But if you do, you are expected to invite her into the diner and pick up her check.)
Federal and many state laws make it illegal to offer a premium for plane or train reservations. But it is no crime, of course, to tip a hotel porter liberally for securing same.
Railroad and airline employes are forbidden to accept gratuities for tickets. But, during the war, experienced travelers found a legal joker which they are still using.
If you have difficulty getting a reservation to New York, go up to your local ticket agent and say to him, "I bet you $20 you can't get me a compartment on the Century tomorrow."
He doubtless will take you up.
And, strangely enough, he will win.
Neither railroads nor inland steamship lines are curious about the lady who accompanies you into your berth, compartment or drawing room.
If you pay for and buy your ticket for two, in advance, no questions are asked, nor does the line have authority to eject you if you forgot to buy her a wedding ring.
(INSIDE STUFF: Though Pullman employes may request the lady you met on the train to leave your room, they seldom do.)
(INSIDE STUFF: It is a felony to transport females across state lines for immoral purposes.)
(INSIDE STUFF: Adultery is a felony in New York State. But there hasn't been a prosecution in more than 100 years.)
Experienced travelers carry as little baggage as possible. Furthermore (especially if you're female) you'll want to buy most of your clothes in New York.
Domestic airlines limit you to 40 pounds of luggage per person with a stiff surcharge for extras.
Tipping is not permitted on airlines and your stewardess will be insulted if you offer her one. But you are expected to remunerate the red cap porters who carry your luggage from cab to plane or airport bus.
On the contrary, your every move by train requires you to shell out.
Though most amateur travelers know they are supposed to tip red caps, Pullman porters and dining-car waiters, few realize the importance of slipping the diner steward a few bucks, five at least for a couple is usual if there are several meals.
Unless you have ridden with him before and he knows you give, you should hand him his as soon as you enter the diner for your first meal.
At a cost of a few dollars you will change your trip, especially a long one, from an experience in inferiority to one that's at least tolerable.
The non-tipper stands in line for a table, eats only what's on the menu (if still in stock) and gets the general pushing around he deserves.
But for the tall tipper, the steward turns the car inside out, whispers of steaks, mountain trout, and front-riding seats and tables from which the parsimonious will be barred.
The warning given all prospective voyagers in naïve old days, to beware of gamblers on trains, is no longer believed generally necessary. Human nature hasn't changed, but trains have.
As already pointed out, passengers in de luxe cars keep to their rooms, whereas those who mix more are in the cheaper coach trains and therefore probably not considered bait by the predatory.
But watch your luggage in stations, especially for the old switch racket, in which the operator substitutes a bag resembling yours, stuffed with old telephone books, for your own valuable belongings.
At this writing, liquor is not sold or served to stock passengers on domestic planes except Northwest Airlines and it is against rules to tote your own hip pocket flask to drink while aloft. But no one cares if you do.
Most through trains carry club cars, in which excellent hooch is sold at moderate prices. Liquor is not sold in club cars or diners while traveling through dry states (such as Kansas) or on Sunday in many wet states (such as Pennsylvania, Ohio and Indiana).
If you can't do without your firewater, consult the ticket agent before boarding the train. Most club cars stop serving at 11P.M., but if you tip the porter he'll provide you in advance with sufficient individual drink bottles and set-ups to keep you happy all the way.
Club cars, incidentally, are the only ones in which you can meet people on de luxe trains. If you fancy a gal sitting in one, etiquette permits you to offer a drink.
Dolls who don't want such overtures shouldn't sit in club cars alone.
Of all travelers, the bus passenger finds himself at once in the most congenial crowd and the most uncomfortable surroundings. But, for the young or the adventurous, it holds prospects seldom found in planes or trains.
Before you've gone 100 miles you are addressing the person next to you by the first name. If it should be anovernight trip, and she is cute and young, the odds are you'll be cuddling to keep warm after the lights are dimmed and the others drop off.
If it's a two-day trip, you'll be engaged to marry before you reach the Hudson, and probably will have to.
The experts on such things tell us you find the prettiest girls (and handsomest men) on buses.
The dolls from the far, small places, who come to Gotham for gold and glory, to be chorines or models, seldom have more than a few dollars, which must be stretched to the limit. The bus is the economy way.
Joe Russell, a New York press agent, has achieved some local fame for usually being the first to escort the latest young innocent beaut in town.
We investigated to find out how he got them and learned that he made a practice of haunting the bus terminals and talking to the pretty ones who alighted.
He asked them if they came to get in show business and usually got an affirmative answer. Then he offered to help them, and sometimes did, but not before he had a chance to show them off before the wolves at the hot spots.
Many of these gals advanced; a few are stars.
When the others discovered his racket, some of them, too, began haunting bus stations. Our enterprising friend again jumped the gun.
He began going to Philadelphia, where he boarded a northbound bus from the deep south. It's 100 miles from Philly to New York. Joe is a fast worker. Before the bus reached Newark, he had the names of all the likely squabs.
O.K. So you're in New York now. If you came by plane, the airline limousine will transport you to the center of the city. Smart guys take a cab from the airport. It's faster, and it's as cheap or cheaper if two or more are riding. But if you arrived by train, you'll face your first major problem trying to get a cab at Grand Central or Pennsylvania Terminal.
(INSIDE STUFF: New York cabs are permitted to carry no more than one party and no more than six passengers.)
Your redcap will be of great assistance, but you must let him know in advance that you'll take care of him liberally if he puts you in a cab.
(The railroad exacts a charge of 25 cents for each unit carried. The redcap doesn't get this. If you want him to get you a cab, promise him at least $1 for two bags.)
You may stand for an hour at the regular station loading platform. In Grand Central, smarties duck upstairs to Vanderbilt Avenue. At Pennsylvania, they go to the unloading platform instead of the loading one, for the same reason.
It is hoped you made your hotel reservation in advance, before leaving home, and got a wire confirming. New York has the worst housing shortage in history and no building program can overcome it before 1955.
But if you are an optimist and didn't make arrangements, don't ask strangers in stations to recommend a hotel or rooming house.
And never take a cab driver's advice.
The Travelers' Aid Society maintains a desk at allterminals where such information is free. Or else step into a phone booth and call the Hotel Association of New York.
Young people, especially girls, who do not know their way around, are especially invited to make use of the Travelers' Aid facilities. It's no disgrace, no confession of weakness. It's protection. The public supports it.
Girls are warned not to talk to strangers who mosey up to them in stations.
If you know what hotel you're bound for, do not allow the redcap or cab driver to steer you elsewhere.
If the cabbie argues, call a cop, or tell the driver to take you to a police station.
(INSIDE STUFF: Gotham's hack drivers are an honest, intelligent lot, carefully investigated by the police before being given licenses, and seldom involved in crime. A bad one slips in only now and then.)
29. ROOM WITH ADJOINING BLONDE
There are"family" hotels in New York, where any woman is your wife. That just goes to show you the variety of accommodations in the Metropolis.
But try to get a room.
It is estimated that Gotham's hostelries can sleep 200,000 guests. But we have a million daily visitors.
When the cab brings you to your hotel, try to look important. We realize that for many that's not easy.
But if you flash big bills while paying the driver and give him a generous tip in view of the doorman, word will precede you before you reach the desk.
(INSIDE STUFF: New York cabbies spit on dime tippers. A quarter is legit, even for a quarter haul.)
You will now stand in front of the awesome functionary known as the room-clerk. Do not quail. Do not quake. Radiate confidence.
If there are no eavesdroppers, try the "I betcha" gag outlined for railroad tickets in the previous chapter.
Say "I betcha 20 bucks you can't give me a room and bath."
But if you think you'll be overheard by others, try this stunt.
Palm a $20 bill in your hand. Reach out to the clerk, shake his flipper and say, "Hi ya, glad to see you again. You've got that reservation for Jones, haven't you?"
For that 20, he will.
In normal times you can be choosey about your hotel, picking the one that suits your tastes and wallet. But now, thank high heaven if you get in a flop joint.
Generally speaking, the kind of yokels we spell with a capital "Y" prefer inns in the Times Square district. The tariffs are moderate and the location ideal for gawkers.
But smart visitors come over to Fifth, Madison, Park and Lexington Avenues. Businessmen quite often check in at hotels near the two rail terminals.
New York's huge needle trade industry is centered around Penn Station. The printing trades cluster around Grand Central.
The chief hotels for women only are the Barbizon, the Allerton and the Martha Washington.[1]At the Henry Hudson and others there are floors entirely reserved for women. The Y.W.C.A. provides less luxurious but comfortable accommodations.
Invariably, these hotels refuse to permit male visitors in guests' rooms, but in case of illness, physicians are, of course, allowed to visit patients.
Until the management got wise, the favorite ruse of lovelorn couples pleasure bent was for the doll to notify the desk that she was ill and expecting her doctor.
Soon the pseudo-medico would arrive, carrying a black bag. Some gals got away with it ... but no more. Now, when they say their doctor is coming, the hotelnurse remains in the room with the patient all through the "examination."
Most hotels will not rent rooms to ladies and gents who check in without baggage, even though they offer to pay in advance.
(INSIDE STUFF: But practically every hotel lobby contains a drug or novelty store that sells paper-backed overnight bags, as low as 99 cents. Buy one, fill it with a dozen magazines, and you're set.)
Hotels, of course, have no legal right to demand to see your wedding license. Suspicious couples are brushed off with the usual, "Sorry, no rooms."
But if you call first, and are given a reservation by phone, then the hotel must accommodate you.
One large and famous New York hostelry was recently stuck for a huge settlement when a perfectly respectable married couple from the suburbs, caught in town over night, phoned for a room.
They were told to come right over. When the room clerk saw no baggage, he refused to permit them to register, though they offered to pay in advance. The irate husband insisted the lady was his wife, but the clerk turned up his nose.
Later, the guests' attorneys proved to the management that it was costly to make such mistakes.
Before the war, many hotels operated OVERNIGHT CLUBS for their special guests, and by the time this appears in print, may be doing so again.
The privileges of these clubs included the right to check in at any hour of the day or night, with or without your wife, and without questions if you possessed no baggage other than the girl.
In that event, the hotel supplied pajamas, toothbrush, Kleenex, razor blades, etc., as well as feminine requisites, even intimate ones. Among the hotels with Overnight Clubs were the Waldorf, the Lexington, the Piccadilly, Plymouth and some branches of the Knott Chain.
Membership in these clubs was obtained by advance reference that could be checked or by being recommended by other members.
Application to hotel credit managers will enable you to open a charge account at most hotels and have bills sent to your home or office, in or out of town. You can cash checks, too.
(INSIDE STUFF: It is a specific crime to obtain lodging or food in a hotel with intent to defraud.... But hotels are obligated by common and statute laws to serve all comers to their capacity.... Guests may not be barred because of race or creed or the cut of their clothes.... But hotels are not required to cater to intoxicated or disorderly persons.... Their Association will spend a fortune to track down anyone who swindles them out of a few dollars.)
Most New York inns are liberal, adult in their attitude toward visitors of the opposite sex, even at night.
So long as you are quiet and orderly, and don't shout or keep your radio on too loud, the house dick probably won't bother you.
There is even some doubt among legal experts here whether New York hotels have the right to throw customers out into the street for the mere offense of entertaining gals or guys—as the case may be—in their rooms, because they failed to stop off at Niagara Falls.
(INSIDE STUFF: If you permit someone—even of the same sex—to occupy your room all night, without first registering him or her in at the desk, the hotel can prosecute you for defrauding it of the extra tariff charged for two in a room.)
In 1945, the house detective of a West Side hotel catering to tourists and the family trade, busted into a room occupied by a female guest—redheaded—because he saw a soldier enter it.
He found the couple in an embarrassing state of negligee.
The gal covered herself as well as she could, told the dick the man she was entertaining was her husband.
"Lady, I've heard that one before," replied the flat-foot.
But here's the pay-off: Theyweremarried. He was en route through town from one camp to another, had four hours between trains. It was in the afternoon, so she didn't bother to check him in.
Both sued the hotel for fabulous sums. His was thrown out because he wasn't a registered guest. But the courts awarded the gal a heavy judgment.
Hotels are, of course, required by law to provide every possible protection for the property and persons of guests. The innkeeper is not responsible for the loss of portable valuables such as jewels or money, unless checked or in safe-deposit boxes, furnished free on request.
When leaving your room, always double lock the door from the outside. While this precaution will not prevent a sneak thief from entering, it will enable police to determine, from the condition of the lock, whether it was an outside job or an inside one with a passkey.
Hotel lobbies are convenient places for lonesome people of either sex to find someone to help them forget their loneliness. But if you are NOT looking for adventure DO NOT talk to strangers in lobbies.
It's wise not to mention your room number to strangers whom you meet in lobbies, and don't answer a knock on your room door unless the visitor has first announced himself on the house phone.
Many a gal has been konked on the head and raped, and many a man has found himself knocked out and his valuables gone because they opened to a tap.
If you hear a disturbance in another room, don't get helpful and join in. Phone the desk, or forget it.
(INSIDE STUFF: Switchboard operators at most hotels have been instructed by the management to listen in on your calls and report pertinent things they hear.
That's how they get wise, even in the biggest hotels, when you have a visitor in your room, often before the visitor arrives.)
New York hotels are not set up for kids or dogs. Many will not accept guests with animals. Find out if yours will before bringing the mutt from home.
A show girl we know recently told us that only dumb girls prefer musicians. She said smart gals chose bartenders and captains of waiters for sweethearts, because these gentry always have money—and while she waited for them to finish work, she could drink champagne—at the boss's expense.
But, said the cutie, the best of all guys—if a twerp is lucky enough to get one—is a hotel bellhop. The only trouble with that aristocracy, she continued, was that they were too snooty and hard to get. They have the pick of the hotel.
The bell captain is the kingpin. He knows everyoneand everything, can get you liquor after closing, women, men, anything at any hour; find a pair of nylons, a traveling crap game, or clean diapers for your pride and joy.
Conveniences and necessities provided by this functionary are to be rewarded lavishly. Ask for him if you want extraordinary service.
It is difficult and dangerous to fall in with streetwalkers on the avenues, and next to impossible to locate a gambling den or a house of joy.
But the cops can't put a man on every bellboy. Many of them become intermediaries for purveyors of the particular kind of surreptitious pleasure you may seek; many also use them when the end in view isn't particularly sinful.
For instance, they are strangers in town, find themselves in the mood to see a show or go dancing with a nice young lady. What do they do? Call the boy, of course. He gets them what they want.
There is a difference—more than a subtle difference—between "call" girls and "party" girls, as previously set out.
Those in the first category go through all the earlier motions—and the later ones, too. But the party girls are just what their name implies.
They'll dine and dance with you, court and even romance with you. But they aren't prostitutes, if that's what you're looking for, and when it's time to go home, they go to their own home, unless you've clicked hard and registered high appeal.
Many of these gals are models or show gals trying to earn a few extra bucks, honestly.
Some of the call girls are also models or chorines, but their extra few bucks aren't earned so honestly, by pious standards.