The Black Stiletto (19 page)

I was on top of a building across the street when it happened. I should explain—I had mapped out a rooftop route from the gym as far as I could get going east toward First Avenue. It was impossible, of course, to go west—Second Avenue was a bit wide, ha ha, and I could only go so far north and south before hitting the respective 2nd or 1st Street impasses. Usually I left my bedroom window, climbed to the roof by means of the fire escape, ran east along 2nd Street to a spot I knew where I could shimmy down a telephone pole to the ground. It was in such a dark and unobtrusive spot on the street that no one ever saw me. From there I’d make my way on foot to my destination, wherever it might be.

Anyway, I was at that telephone pole, about to descend to the
sidewalk, when I looked down and over at the liquor store. Through the window I saw the robber pull a gun and watched poor old O’Malley raise his hands. I was down that pole in a flash. Before O’Malley had managed to get the cash register drawer open, I was in the store.

Since the crook had a loaded weapon, I drew the stiletto and pointed it. “Drop the gun and nobody gets hurt,” I said. Well, my voice must’ve startled the guy, who was already hopped up on some of those drugs they take, and he turned and
fired
at me! Luckily, he was a very bad aim, but the bullet shattered the glass window on the storefront. I ducked down an aisle for cover—and the guy fired again at the bottles above my head. It was vodka or gin—I can’t remember—but I was drenched. It took me days to clean it out of my suit.

“Call the police!” I shouted at O’Malley, but he was too scared to move. He kept his hands raised, fearful that the robber would turn back and shoot him out of spite.

I kept hidden, but I ran down the aisle and up the next one so I’d be behind the crook. The sight of me had shaken him pretty badly, so he wasn’t thinking straight. I could hear exactly where he was, too. When I came around the edge of the aisle, his back was to me. He pointed the gun down the vacant aisle, wondering where the heck I was.

“Psst,” I whispered.

As soon as he turned around, I punched him in the nose. Before a second had elapsed, I’d grabbed his gun hand and redirected it. Another round discharged, as I expected it would. From there it was easy to disarm him, hit him one more time, and send him to Dreamland.

I turned back to O’Malley and said, “
Now
will you call the police?”

He nodded, his hands still raised.
About two weeks after that, I was in the area they call SoHo, on Wooster Street between Spring and Broome. I was darting along from shadow to shadow, when I heard a woman scream. Pretty amazing that I heard it at all—the sound came from behind closed doors in an apartment above me. But I had an estimation of where it originated, so I stepped out into the street to look up at the building. I caught the movement of two silhouettes on a drawn shade over a window. A man and a woman. The body language told me all I needed to know—the man was threatening the woman with violence.

My lockpicks got me in the front door of the building. I ran up the stairs—three flights—and heard the couple arguing outside their door. She was hysterical, crying, “No, Jim, no!” I heard a slap.

I kicked the lock
once, twice
, and
three times
before the door flung open.

The couple stood there in the middle of the room, scared and shocked as all get-out. She was crying and obviously in a defensive position. The smell of booze was overpowering—the man was apparently a mean drunk.

I didn’t ask questions. I simply went up to the guy and delivered two jabs and a cross. He was down before you could count to three.

Turning to the woman, I asked, “Are you all right? Did he hurt you?”

Much to my surprise, the lady went to
him
, knelt by his side, and tried to revive him. She looked at me and shouted, “That’s my husband, you idiot. What did you do?”

I was dumbfounded. It was a situation I’ll never understand—how could a woman let her man treat her like a punching bag and
then defend him? It was the same way with my mother, I saw it with Lucy and Sam, and there it was again.

“He has no right to hurt you,” I said.

She stood and pointed a finger at me. “Get out of here!”

I held up my hands. “Look, I’m just trying to hel—”

“I’m calling the police.”

She went to the phone on the wall and started dialing.

Fine
. Let ‘em have their wedded bliss.

I left and was long gone before the cops got there.

By May, the newspapers were having a field day with the Black Stiletto. I read about incidents in which I allegedly took part, but was nowhere near. A couple of mob-related shootings were blamed on me. I had nothing to do with them. Some teenagers up in Harlem got hold of a gun and it accidentally went off. A kid was killed. They blamed it on the Black Stiletto, who had “shown up and tried to take away the weapon.” You wouldn’t believe the kind of dog poo I had to read about me. It was sickening.

Still, no one had managed to photograph the Stiletto. The police sketch from the Washington Square Park incident had stuck, so that was what every paper ran whenever I “made the news,” even if it wasn’t really me.

The police commissioner issued a statement saying the Black Stiletto would eventually be caught. I was a “menace, just as bad as the criminals I was pursuing.”

Maybe I was, but I hadn’t really done anything wrong from my point of view. One thing was for sure—the people didn’t agree with the press. They were talking about me in a different light. I heard ‘em, too. In the diner, on the subway, in the gym, and on the street the word was that the Black Stiletto was some kind of hero and the police should shut up and let her do her job.

My intention was to do just that.

19
Judy’s Diary
1958

J
ULY
6, 1958

Well, dear diary, we are up to date. I can now begin writing entries as they occur instead of reflecting back on what’s happened in the past. It’s been a therapeutic—sometimes painful—exercise to write all that stuff down. But now I can move forward.

I suppose you could say I’m in an unusual position for a single twenty-year-old woman in New York City. Most women in the workforce are either secretaries or waitresses, and all the others are housewives. I’ve learned a lot in my short life about how the world treats women. Basically, we’re considered inferior until it comes to childrearing, and that’s what men want us to do. Have sex with them and raise their kids. That’s it. Here in the big city, there’s a prevailing illusion that women have wondrous opportunities to get a higher education or advance in a career. But in the end it’s all the same—you work for the man, and by that I mean the
male
. It’s even worse back in Texas. I was young when I left Odessa, but I saw it even then. Women were the doormats of life.

Sometimes during the day when I’m not working at the gym or training with Soichiro, I take walks along Madison and Fifth Avenues. I see and hear the working women on their lunch breaks—smoking cigarettes and gabbing about their bosses, complaining about their pitiful pay, wondering if so-and-so will ask
them to get married, and I just feel sad. I’d never survive in that kind of environment. I could never be an office girl, answering phones, taking messages, fetching coffee, having an illicit tryst with the boss, even though that’s what all the other women my age are doing. I don’t like to smoke, either, and it seems that’s a requirement to work on Madison Avenue. I tried it a few times and coughed my lungs up. Freddie smokes, so I’m used to the gym and our apartment smelling like cigarettes. That part I don’t mind. Heck, everyone I know smokes. Lucy and Sam do. I don’t think Soichiro smokes, at least I’ve never seen him. Maybe I’m wrong.

Those office ladies drink a lot, too, I’ve noticed. When they’re out at lunch, they’ll order one or two cocktails—sometimes three or four. If they’re with “the men,” they usually get completely plastered and go back to work that way because the guys do it. Me, I’ll drink when I want, and I’ve done so since I turned eighteen. Freddie and I often have a drink at night if we’re both at home. Lucy and I drink
a lot
when we’re out on the town together. But I can’t see drinking during the day, at lunchtime, when you’re supposed to be working. I guess that’s one of the many differences between me and all the other women I see around me.

One friend of Lucy’s—a girl named Rebecca—works in one of those Madison Avenue buildings. It’s an advertising firm, I think, or maybe a publisher. I can’t remember. Anyway, a couple of weeks ago she was in the diner crying her eyes out because her boss, with whom she was having an affair, informed her that he’d decided not to leave his wife. So she’s stuck working for him and dealing with a broken heart. She had to apply for a transfer and it might mean less money or a demotion. I felt sorry for her, but I also wanted to shake her and say, “Why the heck would you do that, knowing he was married?” I know I’m not in her shoes and sometimes people can’t help what their hearts tell them to do—
look at me, I fell in love with a
gangster
, for Christ’s sake—so I suppose I shouldn’t be talking. The thing is, let’s say Rebecca got married to this guy, he’d probably continue to have affairs with his secretaries and she’d still end up with a broken heart.

I don’t want any of that. I’m happy where I am. I love working in the gym—and I’m probably the only woman in the city of New York, maybe the whole country—who can claim that privilege. The patrons at Second Avenue Gym used to give me a lot of “shit”—Freddie’s word, not mine—by making fun of me, saying sexually suggestive things, you know. But now they mostly leave me alone. I’ve become “one of the guys.” It’s great.

And then there are my nighttime activities as the Black Stiletto, a whole other side of me. A secret identity. Most people would think leading a double life is dangerous, and it is, but it’s just so exciting and fulfilling. I feel as if I’m contributing something to our society.

The only thing I don’t have is romance, but right now I think that’s something I can do without.

JULY 18, 1958

Something terrible happened last week, on the twelfth. Looking back on it, I probably should have played it differently, but no one has that kind of hindsight. Not even me, with all my heightened senses. All my acute hearing and intuition can’t keep me from making stupid mistakes.

The Black Stiletto was out on the prowl. It was about eleven o’clock and I was on First Avenue and 23rd Street. The sky decided to suddenly open up and let loose with a downpour. I mean, it rained
hard
. I had to find shelter, and the first mistake I made was to step into a bar. Full of people. I don’t remember the name of the place, but I thought—
why not
? They’re just ordinary folks, having a drink, and I was something of a local hero. What could be the harm?

And, at first, it was very pleasant. You should have seen the faces when I walked in. There were maybe fifteen customers. Dean Martin was singing something on the radio, or maybe it was a jukebox, but I doubt that—the East Side Diner was the only place in town I knew that had a jukebox. Anyway, most of the clientele were men. There were two women. Everyone was amazed to see me. Someone asked if I was the real deal, and I told him, “Yes, I am.” One guy asked me for an autograph. That was a first. I signed a paper napkin—
To Joey, lots of love, the Black Stiletto
. One woman was very excited to meet me. She told me she reads about all my exploits and cheers me on, and that I’m doing “good work.” That made me feel good. More than one person offered to buy me a drink. I had a Scotch and soda the autograph guy paid for. Then a man with camera came up to me, told me his name was Max, and that he worked freelance for the
Daily News
. Could he have a couple of photographs? I thought it would be all right, especially since no photos of the Black Stiletto had ever been published. I knew Max would make a lot of money for the pics, too.

So I posed for photos in that bar. Max took shots of me alone—standing on a table, sitting, holding a drink, displaying my stiletto—and he snapped some of me and the customers together. There was even one of me kissing the bartender on the cheek—I think I’d finished my drink by then and was feeling good.

All the photos appeared in the paper the next day. And the next. Then they got syndicated and picked up by every major newspaper in the country. I hope that photographer made a fortune, because for the last week those pictures have been everywhere. I thought they were pretty good ones, too. Unfortunately, they remind me of the trouble that came afterward that night.

So there we were, having a great time in the bar—a bunch of neighborhood lushes and the Black Stiletto—when in comes a
policeman. I swear everyone in the joint froze. The cop did a double take at me and then drew his gun. He said I was under arrest. Everyone in the bar told him to leave me alone, I wasn’t hurting anyone. The cop insisted I was wanted by the law and he was going to bring me in.