Dreams Bigger Than the Night (8 page)

At the conclusion of his number, people spilled change and bills on the tables, which Fussell swept into his black derby as he made his way through the room. Arietta enthused knowledgeably, “He’s the best, the very best. Leave him five dollars.” Five dollars! Who did she think he was, a Vanderbilt? His reluctance led Arietta to sing:

When me and mine am blue and broke,

Wishing to ’scape the common folk,

We throw money at our cares,

Though we ain’t no millionaires.

Maybe Barbara Hutton and her friends used conspicuous wealth to thumb their noses at the Depression, and maybe the determined gaiety at the Kinney Club was designed to ignore the world outside, but he knew that some families could live two weeks or more on a fiver. So he put down two greenbacks. Looking contemptuously at his offering, Arietta shoved it back at him, opened her purse, and balanced a fiver atop her beer glass. He figured her father wasn’t wrong in saying that she supported him. Perhaps her mother had left her a trust.

Shamed, he excused himself to greet Margie. Her deep-cut dress accentuated her breasts. One of the hoods showed his appreciation by lasciviously staring at her exposed anatomy. She leaped up and embraced him, to the annoyance of her escort.

“Boys, I want ya to meet an old friend of mine, Jay Klug. We used to go marathon dancing together. The night I got sick, Jay was my partner.” Jay shook hands with the men, whom Margie introduced as Mandy Weiss and Charlie Guzick. “This is Charlotte. She’s one of the girls.” The young woman, balancing a cigarette holder in one hand and wearing a sheer pink dress that brought to mind Jean Harlow, smiled and cracked a piece of gum. He nodded—and wondered how one could chew gum while smoking. “Sit down,” said Margie. “Take a load off your feet.” She turned and looked over her shoulder. “Who’s the lady?”

“Sheesh,” said Charlotte, “she looks like a movie star. Maybe I ought to ask for her autograph.”

“After they drove you to the hospital, I teamed up with her. She teaches at Castle House.”

“Pretty soon you’ll get so good you’ll be high hatting me.”

“Not you, Margie. You’re an old pal.”

Weiss kept staring at Arietta. “How does a punk like you rate a doll like her?”

Margie shook her head censoriously. “Behave yourself, Mandy. We’re here to have a good time.”

But Mandy persisted, “Well, kid, how come? You got a bulgin’ bankroll or somethin’ else in your pants?”

“We both like to dance.”

Mandy laughed uproariously. “With a babe like that, why spend your time waltzin’?”

Jay didn’t like the company Margie kept. Standing up to leave, he foolishly taunted, “The pleasure’s been all mine. The conversation’s been illuminating. Maybe we can meet again, on Prince Street.”

Mandy and Charlie exchanged knowing looks. Forcing Jay back into his seat, Charlie put his hand inside his jacket. “Mandy, I think pretty boy here’s tryin’ to tell us somethin’.”

“Yeah, he’s soundin’ real smart.”

Margie foolishly blurted, “Sure he’s smart. He went to college.”

“See, I told you, Mandy, pretty boy’s got a head on his shoulders—unless he loses it.”

Nightclub shootings were not unheard of, and the gunsels usually escaped in the confusion. This party was certainly unlike Longie’s. Gang leaders were one thing, gorillas another.

“My friend Charlie has an itchy finger. Maybe if you tell him what’s on your mind, he’ll stop scratchin’.”

Trusting that Margie would restrain her friends, and that Abe’s magical name would protect him, he replied, “I’m merely an errand boy for Longie Zwillman. My boss likes to keep tabs on his friends.” A contrite Charlie Guzick offered to buy Jay a drink, and Mandy amended his remarks. Immediately, Jay began to trade further on Zwillman’s name, suggesting that he had long been in the employ of “Abe.”

“Some of us,” said Charlie, “ain’t real happy about Longie puttin’ out the no-go sign for drugs in the Third Ward. He oughta know that a guy’s got a right to make a livin’.”

“I hate when friends fall out,” said Mandy. “You end up scraggin’ your own.”

Charlotte said impatiently, “Hey, we’re here to dance, not chew the rag. They’re playin’ some good swing music.” She stood and grabbed Charlie’s hand. “Come on, Romeo.” Charlie seemed uninterested. “Forget how to dance?” Charlie got to his feet and hit her forehead sharply with the palm of his hand, dazing her. She plopped back in her chair and sat there looking off into space.

Arietta had to be troubled. Jay mumbled something about his date waiting for him. Margie grabbed his arm and pulled him toward her.

“Drop by Polly’s. I’m there every day but Mondays.”

When Jay returned to his table, Arietta asked, “What was that all about?”

“The woman in the blue dress . . . she’s the one who took sick the night I met you. The others I don’t know.”

“They seemed awfully friendly for strangers.”

Her suspicions made him uneasy. She’d never see him again if she thought he ran with the mob. “Honest, I never met them before.”

“All that back slapping and laughing made me wonder.”

“We were just swapping stories.”

“On what, mad hatters?”

“I don’t follow.”

“Headwear. Chapeaus. Caps. Lids. Skimmers. Homburgs.”

“Arietta, you’d better translate.”

She studied her glass and said, “The ticket taker at Dreamland said that the two men in the getaway car wore black homburgs.”

A second later, he remembered that Mandy and Charlie entered the Kinney wearing homburgs. “Hey, thousands of men wear them.”

“You
do
seem to show up at the wrong places at the wrong time—or perhaps the right places.”

Now, what the hell did
that
mean? “You’re speaking in riddles, and frankly I’m lousy at solving them. Could you be more precise?”

“If those are the same men who drove the getaway car . . . your being palsy-walsy with them doesn’t look so good.”

“What about you?” he said snappishly, feeling abused. “You asked the victim to dance. Maybe yours was the kiss of the spider woman.”

“Yes, I went to Dreamland, but while I rested in the tent, you hung around. Why?”

“The triggerman looked fishy.”

Could she really believe that he had anything to do with the murder? If she did, why would she spend the evening with him? Something else had to be up. “Look, Arietta, I’m no gangster. Just a journalist who . . .”

She interrupted, “. . . is on Longie Zwillman’s payroll.”

How did she know that? He hadn’t told her.

“I can hear what you’re thinking, Jay. Where did I get my information?”

Losing patience with her, he blurted, “Yeah, you read my mind perfectly.”

The same waiter began to eye them, so he ordered another beer; but Arietta held up her hand indicating that she had had enough. Disgruntled, the waiter went off for one beer. Jay told himself that when the guy returned, he would slip him a buck and ask him to leave them alone.

“During Prohibition my father trucked in beer from the shore to Newark. He has friends among the Zwillman gang.”

But that didn’t explain how she knew Longie had hired him to write reviews for the
Newark Evening News
. The only two people present at that meeting were Jean Harlow and Abe. And the only person he’d told was Puddy. Crap! Puddy probably told Moretti. “Does your father know a Willie Moretti?”

“It’s the Italian connection,” she said. “They both began small. Moretti advanced, my father didn’t.”

“If your father trucked booze, then why are you grilling me about knowing a few gangsters?”

“You admit, then, that you know those men.”

He could see that he wasn’t helping his case. She seemed intent on twisting his words.

“Until a few minutes ago, I never laid eyes on them.”

“They were certainly chummy with your friend in the blue dress.”

Ah, maybe her real beef was not the hoods but Margie? That argued she might have a yen for him. He smiled.

“Margie,” he said casually, trying to assuage her jealousy, “has a husband and two kids.” But once again he misjudged her cleverness.

“Then why the hell is she hanging out with other men? The morals of your friends leave much to be desired.”

He lied. “Her old man is out of work. She has to support him—any way she can.”

“What’s her husband’s name? I’ll ask my father if he can find him work. Hungry kids are no joke.”

“That won’t be necessary . . . because, you see, uh, um, the guys Margie’s sitting with have agreed to give him a job. That’s what the powwow was all about.”

Arietta said simply and without anger, “I don’t believe you.”

A disconcerting pause ensued; he then laughed and admitted that his embarrassment had led him to lie. She made him promise that he would always level with her. Encouraged by that word “always,” he convinced himself that if she cared about his future behavior, then maybe she’d agree to return with him to the Riviera Hotel. So when the band took a break, he used the occasion to ask. She lowered the lids over her fascinating eyes and peered at him as if she couldn’t make out the person in front of her.

“Please, Jay, we hardly know each other.”

He wanted to say “What better way to get acquainted,” but sensed that beneath her skin was a mystery that sex was unlikely to solve. For a moment, he entertained the idea of telling her how much she entranced him, but guessed that, if she knew, he would be her toy, always at her beck and call. Maybe he was already. . . . The wiser course, he decided, was to act nonchalantly, pretending that all gentlemen, as a matter of form, propositioned their dates. In response to her comment, he replied, “Since we have so much ground to make up, let’s go out next Saturday.”

“Any place special?” she said rising from the table and pocketing the book of matches that had been lying in the ashtray.

“The Park movie house to see
Bombshell
.”

He dressed in a tan suit and draped around his neck a brown silk muffler. As the cab passed the B’nai Abraham Synagogue, the spectral worshippers sparkled in the illumination of the incandescent moon. His thoughts became reflective. Terrible events were unfolding in Italy and Germany, but the Lord gave no sign of His displeasure. What would it take, he wondered, to disabuse people of their belief that the Almighty would protect them? At the door, not Arietta but Mr. Magliocco greeted him, scowling as if somehow the old guy knew about Jay’s propositioning Arietta. Instead of retiring to the living room, Mr. Magliocco led him to the back of the house and into the damp and moldy air of the garage, where autumn flies buzzed in the light of an old standing lamp that illuminated a motorcycle and a “Toga Maroon” Waterhouse 1929 DuPont Model G five-passenger sedan, in mint condition.

“DuPont Motors made only about 625 of them,” Mr. Magliocco said, “from ’29 to ’32. It’ll go 125.”

With its six “Borgia Wine” wire wheels, two of them spares resting in the fender wells, a rearview mirror strapped atop each, silvery aluminum bumpers, and the glowing maroon exterior finish, one could see that the car had been lovingly cared for.

“A reminder of adventures past,” Mr. Magliocco said. “If this car could talk, the tales it could tell. . . . Shall we take a spin? We could circle the park . . . and talk privately.”

Jay’s confidence fled. What could he say if Arietta had told her father about his forwardness? Perhaps her father merely objected to a Jewish suitor with shady connections. Or maybe Piero just wanted to learn whether the lad’s intentions were honorable. This much Jay knew: He wanted to take her to the hotel, not to the altar. At least not yet. Marriage happened when one had the means, and never before the age of twenty-five.

Driving smoothly and deliberately through the city, the old guy chatted about joyful felonies, bootlegging in particular, and the death of his wife from cancer—“she made me promise I’d raise Arietta a good Catholic.” Like a kid who digresses but eventually returns to the subject, Piero kept coming back to the DuPont Model G Waterhouse. It fascinated him, particularly its pedigree.

“I understand you know Longie Zwillman.”

“He got me my job at the paper.” Hoping to look like an innocent, Jay added, “Though I’m not sure why.”

“Longie has a big heart. He gives lots of money to the Catholic soup kitchens, and believe me they need it in these times.” Slowing the auto to a crawl as they entered Weequahic Park, Mr. Magliocco said, “He gave me this car.”

“Really?”

“Zwillman bought it from a guy in Pennsylvania, a fellow by the name of Robertson. Family owned thousands of acres. Abe figured that since most of the leggers hauled liquor in ‘Henry’s Lady,’ a classier car like this one wouldn’t be stopped—or caught, because it could outrun the feds. Zwillman originally got it to move liquor from Canada to Kansas City, but when the Pendergast people started buying from the local shiners, he used it to carry booze from Quebec to Atlantic City. I worked as a hauler. It suited me fine because I’d sneak off to visit a friend from Italy, Luigi Baldini, who had a farm near a small town not too far from Vineland, called Norma. Once his wife died, he hired a Negro housekeeper to keep up the place. He eventually gave the farm to her. That was Luigi: generous. Would you believe . . . ‘Hump’ McManus once hid out in Luigi’s bunkhouse after he shot Rothstein in the stomach. Ever hear how the Big Bankroll refused to tell the cops who plugged him?”