(1988) The Golden Room (5 page)

‘I think our friendly courts might shut their eyes to that. Of course, it would be better, once finished, to tell the girl what you’re doing. Since she’ll be out of a job anyway, you could suggest she come along as a witness to back you up -in return for a sizeable bribe. That would be perfect.’

‘Who’s the lucky man?’ Gus Varney wanted to know. ‘Who gets the call?’

‘Well, let me think a moment -‘

Harrison examined each of his aides carefully, trying to imagine which one might be able to carry out the infiltration best. Most of them had been on his staff too long a time and might be recognized by another customer at the Everleigh Club. At last, his gaze fixed on Gus Varney.

‘You,’ said Harrison. ‘You’re the lucky one, Gus. Not because you’re so beautiful and sexy.’ Varney was, in fact, a beanpole and almost chinless. ‘You’ve been on my staff the shortest time. You’re from Detroit and haven’t been around Chicago very long. Not that many people are familiar with you. You’re the least likely to be recognized. Yes, I should say you’d be about right. You want the job?’

Varney grinned. ‘If you’re willing to pay for the evening, I’d love to have dinner and drinks, and a tumble in the hay with a beautiful girl.’

‘Then you’ve got the job,’ said Harrison. ‘Get yourself dressed neater than you are now, get that business card printed, and find out from Coughlin and Kenna how things are managed in the Everleigh Club. Let me work out the amount we can spare for a bribe, presuming anyone can be bribed. Are you sure you can do what you have to do in bed?’

‘Haven’t failed yet,’ said Varney.

After worrying for twenty-four hours about bringing the matter out into the open, Minna Everleigh finally decided that she had no choice. She sent Edmund around the Club to inform his fellow servants, the musicians, and all the girls that Minna wanted to meet with them at three o’clock in the afternoon.

Minna was in the Turkish Room, rearranging the pillows and divans and shutting off the gushing water fountain in the centre of the room, when the girls and servants began to appear.

The coloured servants arrived first, most coming from their comfortable quarters in the basement. Next, the five members of the Everleigh Club orchestra arrived. Standing at the perimeters of the Turkish Room, they watched as the girls filed in, a few fully dressed, most still in peignoirs, a dazzling array of youthful brunettes, blondes, redheads. As they came in to take their places, Minna stood at the head of the room and

greeted each by name. ‘Hello Virginia … Avis … Margo … Fanny… Belle … Phyllis … Cindy,’ and so on until she had welcomed them all.

When the entire group was settled, and with all curious eyes on her, Minna began speaking in her deep voice.

‘Aida is tending the front door, so I’m handling this gathering alone,’ Minna began. ‘It is of great importance, this meeting, and I thought I had better let you in on our problem as soon as possible.’

Minna scanned the still-puzzled faces before her and then she resumed.

‘As you all know from yesterday’s papers, Mayor Carter Harrison is our sworn enemy. I need hardly remind you that he won reelection on a reform platform. He had pledged to clean up the Levee, and his first priority was and is the Everleigh Club. Can the mayor shut us down? The answer is a definite yes, if he can prove that our Club is a house of prostitution. You and I know that is absurd …’

There was a ripple of laughter in the Turkish Room.

‘… and so I am glad we all know what this is,’ continued Minna, also laughing. ‘From now on, the Everleigh Club is a very fine, exclusive restaurant and all of you - I address the girls now - are floor show entertainment. That fact has been conveyed to the mayor by two of our friends, Aldermen Coughlin and Kenna. Now the mayor must try to prove that we are more than a restaurant. He will need actual witnesses if he hopes to shut us down. We must make sure that no investigation will reveal that we are anything but the soul of purity and innocence.’

Phyllis, a tall blonde, came to her feet. ‘Minna, what happens to our earnings if we can’t have men upstairs?’

Minna chuckled. ‘Who says you can’t have men upstairs? I just say no one must ever know about it.’

Finding her package of Sweet Caporals, Minna shook a cigarette free and lit it.

‘There will be business as usual,’ Minna went on, ‘but

maybe not quite as usual. While we can trust our regular customers, we will have to be entirely wary of strangers. Unless they come in with bona fide referrals, or with suitable identification, we will have to turn them away. This may lead to a slight cut in your income, but you will still be doing well enough, certainly better than any other females in the Levee. Aida and I can screen the customers. You can leave that to us. What we cannot screen is your own behaviour away from the Club when you go strolling in the afternoon or when you have your day off to shop, attend the theatre, or whatever. If any one of you even hints that the Everleigh Club is continuing as a brothel, and a witness to your words goes to Harrison or to the police, then we are lost. If loose talk gets us shut down, then we will be forced to close. That will mean all of you will be out of work. You’ll be struggling to get any kind of low-paying and degrading job in some shack in the Levee.’

Avis, a small, curvaceous brunette, rose to her feet. ‘Minna, how long do we have to live under these conditions? I mean, worrying about everyone who comes in here and being quiet with everyone on the outside. How long?’

‘Not long,’ said Minna. ‘Just long enough to let the mayor be satisfied that his reform effort has worked, and that he has satisfied voters he has kept his campaign promise. By then he will relax, and devote himself to larger matters. It won’t be long.’

‘But how long?’ Avis persisted.

‘Let’s say maybe two weeks,’ Minna said. ‘Think you can stand that?’

There was a chorus of assents.

Minna was pleased.

‘All right,’ she said, ‘our policy of caution goes into effect immediately - today - tonight. Tomorrow I intend to hire a new doctor, who will be instructed to observe the same cautions. If all of you do as you’re told, we have not a thing to worry about. We can go forward and continue to live the good life.’

After deciding to get rid of her horse and carriage, Minna Everleigh had gone shopping for the ever more popular horseless carriages or automobiles. She had liked the Peerless, but had found it too expensive at $4,000. Finally she had narrowed her choice down to either the Haynes-Apperson, the Columbia Electric car, or the Model A Ford. The Haynes-Apperson was also a trifle expensive. She had been drawn to the silent, ladylike Columbia coupe, with its curved plate-glass windows, silk curtains, broadcloth upholstery, and vanity compartments, but decided against it because it could drive only five miles before requiring a battery recharge. She had settled on the Model A Ford as the most practical vehicle. Despite the fact that it was a slow car, with a speed of not quite ten miles an hour, and therefore needing no windshield, horn, or lights, Minna had bought one of the 200 produced in 1903. It had cost her $900, and she adored it. Although Minna had never driven it herself, she allowed Edmund to chauffeur her wherever she went.

Now, this morning in the front seat to the right of the begoggled Edmund, with the tonneau seat in the rear unoccupied, she was enjoying the drive to Englewood for her interview with Dr Herman H. Holmes. She was enjoying, also, the attention her Ford attracted, with its red body striped in gold, its vase of flowers near the steering wheel, and gleaming black fenders.

Consulting the address in her hand, Minna watched the house numbers glide past, then tugged at Edmund’s sleeve. ‘There it is,’ she called out, ‘on the south-west corner of Wallace and Sixty-third streets. See it? The three-storey brick building with those battlements and towers on top? No wonder Bathhouse told me it was named the Castle. Pull up in front of it, Edmund, and park. I won’t be long.’

After descending from her Ford, Minna walked around it to the front door of the peculiar building and used the doorbell. Moments later the door opened, and Minna found herself confronted by a surprisingly attractive middle-aged man in dapper suit and vest.

‘I’m Minna Everleigh,’ she announced. ‘I have an appointment with Dr Herman Holmes.’

‘I am Dr Holmes,’ he said, stepping back to admit her.

He was a rather small man, she saw, perhaps five feet eight and 150 pounds. He was strikingly handsome, with a high forehead, hypnotic blue eyes, and bushy moustache upturned at the ends. When he spoke, his voice was soothing, melodious. Everything about him was gracious and charming.

‘Do come in and make yourself comfortable, Miss Everleigh,’ he added, gesturing her past the two fluted columns inside the front door. As she came into the foyer, he went on, ‘If my little residence seems excessive - there are, indeed, ninety rooms, about thirty on each floor - do not be put off. I built it myself, as a hotel for the Columbian Exposition. When the fair was over, I decided to stay on and to return to medical practice. I won’t exhaust you by showing you around. Why don’t you come with me to my office, where we can be cosy and have our little talk.’

Walking to his office, Minna was bewildered by several staircases seeming to lead nowhere.

‘I never quite got to finish them,’ Dr Holmes explained. ‘Now, into my office.’

Except for an oak table desk with eight drawers, a white-sheeted examination table nearby, an elaborate fireplace holding a heavy yellow vase shaped like Venus de Milo and filled with dried flowers backed by a high mirror above it and blue drapes on either side, and a square table piled with medical books and folders, the room was relatively austere. There were two wooden side chairs in front of his desk. Dr Holmes drew one chair closer to the desk, indicated that Minna should sit there, and settled into the other chair.

‘Alderman Coughlin telephoned and told me to expect you,’ Dr Holmes said. ‘Do you know him?’

‘Not really. He called, introduced himself - of course, I’d heard of him - said he’d heard I was a reputable physician

with a special interest in female problems, and that you were dismissing one doctor and seeking another.’

‘Did he inform you why I am seeking a doctor?’

Dr Holmes smiled winningly. ‘The alderman reminded me - although it wasn’t really necessary - that you and your sister own the most elegant brothel in America.’

‘Yes, the Everleigh Club on Dearborn. We have thirty very beautiful, high-class girls on the premises. I need a doctor for them. Does the idea of working as a doctor for a brothel offend you?’

‘Offend me?’ said Dr Holmes. ‘I’d be privileged. Attending to the concerns of thirty young women would be a delight and a challenge.’

‘Well,’ said Minna, ‘do you know anything about my present situation?’

‘Not much, really. Only that you require a physician who is discreet.’

‘Someone who won’t talk about what is going on in the Club.’

‘It is a basic rule in my profession to keep patients’ histories private.’

‘There is more to it than that,’ said Minna. ‘Mayor Harrison won reelection on a reform platform. His major pledge was to shut down the Everleigh Club. He has been advised it is no longer a brothel, but merely a restaurant featuring a floor show.’ She paused. ‘The truth is, Dr Holmes, it will continue to be a brothel, as long as the mayor has no evidence of it. Henceforth, we will screen customers, and my servants and girls have promised not to discuss their activities. The only hole to be filled is to find a doctor who could be equally discreet.’

Dr Holmes offered his winning smile once more. ‘Miss Everleigh, rest assured that in me you have found such a doctor.’

‘Well, that’s the main thing.’

‘You’ll find I never discuss women I’m involved with.’

Minna nodded. ‘Good. Your duties would be to come to the Club two days a week, mornings and afternoons — the girls are otherwise occupied evenings — to examine the girls and report to me if anything is amiss.’

‘You mean if any one of them has a venereal disease?’

‘That is my sole concern,’ said Minna. ‘These girls of mine are the best and most expensive, and they must be clean.’

‘I presume, Miss Everleigh, your real concern is syphilis.’

‘Exactly. Are you familiar with the latest treatment of syphilis?’

‘It is one of my specialities, of course,’ said Dr Holmes.

‘I am familiar with the symptoms,’ said Minna, ‘but I am not a medical person. I don’t know how one examines for this and the latest methods of cure. Can you enlighten me?’

Dr Holmes seemed at ease and perfectly frank as he answered her. ‘The big problem in examining your average female who may be afflicted is a prevailing sense of false modesty. This infectious disease is usually the result of so-called impure sexual intercourse. The male’s poison enters a female’s minute wound or lesion. Syphilis is rarely fatal, but the effect on a female is extremely debilitating. She suffers from the disease and she passes it on to other partners. Faced with false modesty, I often find it impossible to examine a patient’s genitalia. It must be more possible to touch the inflamed area to locate syphilitic chancres, but this female delicacy makes real effectiveness all too difficult.’

‘But you wouldn’t have the same problem of modest resistance in examining a prostitute, would you?’

‘No, I wouldn’t. That would make it much easier for the patient and myself. I merely look into the vagina with a speculum. If I find a chancre, I will prescribe the standard medication - mercury, in pill or ointment form. It will not be difficult for me.’

Minna stood up. ‘Dr Holmes, you sound capable and I feel you can be trusted. You have the job, if you want it.’ Dr Holmes came to his feet. ‘It would be an honour and

my pleasure to serve you and your ladies. Definitely a great opportunity.’

‘There’s still the matter of your fee. If you will come to the Everleigh Club at eleven tomorrow morning, you can meet my sister Aida, and she will work out a satisfactory arrangement. Then I’ll take you around and introduce you to our girls. Is this agreeable?’