This Way Out
This Way Out
by Esther M. Friesner
Whenever Maxie’s luck ran dry, it wasn’t brains that tossed him a break, it was looks. That boy had a pan that Valentino would envy and he knew it, but he was too dumb to realize that luck and looks was all he had. Yeah, my pal Maxie was like one of those phony bankrolls with a C-note wrapped around a bunch of ones.
I’m not one to talk brains. I was a big enough dope to let the bird talk me into joining the O’Dwyer mob when he did. I guess I did it for old times’ sake. Maxie and me grew up together down on Eldridge, maybe not the heart of Manhattan, but at least the kidney. All sorts of things filtered out through those dumps, and Maxie didn’t care for the smell. He’d been to Paree during the Great War. He’d had a taste of the high life, rubbing elbows with a lot of grateful mademoiselles.
I mean a lot.
Now me, good old dependable Jimmy Logan, I didn’t have any of Maxie’s advantages. I did know enough to keep my nose clean, or at least as clean as I could and still work for the O’Dwyer mob. Barry O’Dwyer was an easygoing, red-faced Irishman with a gift for keeping our operation small enough so we never had to take on the big boys and wind up laid out in Clancy’s Funeral Parlor wearing wooden kimonos. He kept the business down to a little modest bootlegging and to a sideline, namely Miss Elsie Devine’s tea parlor. (At which they did not serve any tea, except corn and Canadian, in case you were wondering.) There were times when running that speakeasy seemed like more work than it was worth, but O’Dwyer was not one for putting all his eggs in one beer keg.
“You see, boys,” he told us. “It’s a smart fox that digs two doors to his den.”
This is good advice, especially when it comes to establishments like Miss Elsie’s. If you’re going to run a speakeasy, you’d better have two ways out, to give your customers decent odds of giving the cops the slip in case there’s a raid.
The boss didn’t much care for cops.
One day, he calls a meeting to talk about the cop problem. Maxie comes in with a lady on his arm. I’d seen my pal playing escort to some hot tomatoes in the past, but this one left the others looking like a bunch of flophouse mattresses. Everything about her sort of shimmered. It wasn’t just her dress, which was solid silk and spangles, or the diamonds doing a frozen waterfall number from her neck and ears and wrists, or that bobbed blond hair that made you think of winter moonlight. It was her. Her from somewhere inside, you know? She was—was—
Ah, forget it. I’m no poet. If I was, maybe I could do justice to those eyes of hers. Brother, that skirt had a pair of baby blues that just naturally made a mug lean in closer, closer, closer, until he could fall into them, drown, and not give a damn.
So of course she’s with Maxie.
O’Dwyer’s the only one of us not staring at her. Talk about being all business! “You’re late, Max,” he snapped. “Maybe you don’t care that the cops are making us bleed cash?”
Maxie just grinned. “Hey, Boss, you know better than that. I care. Can’t pay the landlord with promises.”
That raised a laugh. Maxie bragged that he hadn’t paid his landlord a penny in months, mostly on account of her being a landlady who didn’t mind getting paid other ways.
“Well, have a seat and give that girlie the heave-ho,” O’Dwyer said, gnawing his cigar in the lady’s direction. “We’ve got troubles to fix.”
I’ll say we did. Last raid the cops pulled on Miss Elsie’s they didn’t just do a little light roisting; they smashed the place. Broke it down to the cellar and out through the walls. It’d take weeks before we’d have things up and running.
“Then this is your lucky day, Boss. I’ve got the answers to all our troubles right here.” He grabbed a chair and pulled the lady onto his lap. “Ain’t that right, sugar?” He kissed his girl hard and she liked it, even though she didn’t show more than a thread of sharp little kitten teeth when she smiled. “Me and Faye are gonna make you real happy, you can lay to that.”
He started talking. I mean really started talking. Maxie always did have the gift of the gab. If his looks didn’t net the girls, his line did the job, only O’Dwyer wasn’t no girl and he was pretty well immune to Maxie’s hooey.
Which was why, when I saw him paying attention to my buddy’s spiel, I knew Maxie was saying something worth listening to.
See, thanks to the war ending and Mr. Volstead butting in, we now had a world where some high society debs got a kick out of slumming, spending Daddy’s money on wrong gees like us until it was time to settle down with a Harvard man. Faye was one of them ritzy types and she had something bigger to offer her man than cash: She had real estate. It was a brownstone townhouse over on the west side, and get this:
“It’s one hundred per cent guaranteed safe from the cops. One. Hundred. Per. Cent!” Maxie jabbed the table for emphasis.
“Balderdash!” O’Dwyer snorted. “No place is that safe when the bulls get greedy. That’s when small operators like us are easy pickings. They don’t dare take on the big mobs.”
“Boss, trust me, once we hitch up with Faye, we won’t be small operators for long. She told me all about her place and it’s perfect: straight route to the Hudson for ‘grocery’ shipments, a fine kitchen, second floor ballroom with space for a bandstand and plenty of tables—the bar and the dance floor are already there. Up on the third floor there’s room for gaming, and back downstairs again there’s three—count ’em, three escape routes.”
O’Dwyer made a face like someone had hid a mackerel somewhere in the room maybe five days ago and forgot where. “Let me get this straight, lad. Your girl just happened to think it’d be her maiden dream to run a blind tiger so she builds one and then gives it to you?”
“To us, Boss,” Maxie said. “She wants to give it to us.”
“And you’ve seen this pot of gold?”
“Well…” Maxie looked uneasy. “Not yet. But Faye and me figured that after the meeting—”
O’Dwyer walked up to him and yanked him out of his chair. Faye went sprawling. Then he backhanded him so hard his teeth clattered.
“What was that for?” Maxie demanded.
“That’s for trying to sell me a pig in a poke! And that’s also for blabbing our business to a broad who’s got no more right to know about it than the man in the moon!” O’Dwyer grabbed Maxie by the lapels and hauled him so close he could’ve taken a bite off the boss’ stogie. “Why’n’t you just put an ad in the papers?”
“Boss, boss, c’mon, Faye’s on the level. She won’t talk.”
“She’s not the talker I’m worried about.” O’Dwyer turned to the rest of us. “Any you palookas ever seen Maxie around with this chippy before now?” We all shook our heads and looked away. We felt sorry for Maxie, but not sorry enough to lie for him. O’Dwyer sneered. “That’s what I thought.” He gave the poor bastard a shake. “You don’t hardly know her, but you say you can trust her? Care to tell me how you reached that conclusion, Einstein?”
Before Maxie could say a word, the lady in question spoke for herself. She was back on her feet, although—
Funny, I don’t remember seeing her get up. She just…was.
Anyway, she glided behind O’Dwyer and laid one long, thin hand on his shoulder. Her pale skin glowed against the dark gray of the Irishman’s pinstripe suit. When he turned his head, her blue eyes locked on his. She was wearing another one of her thin little smiles and when she spoke, her voice was heat and honey.
“Barry Finnbar Seamus O’Dwyer, a word in your ear, if you please.”
Now how in the world did Maxie’s girl, who’d just met him, know to call the boss by all those names?
O’Dwyer called the new tea room Queenie’s, after Faye’s mama. That was all she asked and he said it was only right, since she’d fronted the whole set-up.
He also told Maxie that from now on, he and Faye were going to be working close together. As in very close. They had reached what you might call an understanding. He let my pal know that Faye had no objections to this, and if Maxie had anything to say about it—
Maxie’s face colored up, but that’s it. Get between O’Dwyer and what O’Dwyer wanted? No thanks. Sometimes he could be pretty smart for a stupid guy.
Besides, he was Maxie, Maxie the sheik. We all knew he’d have another doll on his arm before the curtain rang down on Faye’s exit. Getting girls was easy for him. Getting the top job at the newly opened Queenie’s—O’Dwyer’s reward to him for being a good sport—was not. That’s how Maxie wound up decked out in a swank monkey suit, welcoming all the East Side swells and the show biz crowd and the rest of the marks to our fine new establishment.
He was also the one who had to keep his eyes and ears open for the first sign that the cops had found out about Queenie’s and were about to pay a call. This was bound to happen, but we never expected it to be on opening night.
The place wasn’t packed, but we were doing okay. I was upstairs keeping an eye on the craps table. I was on edge and looking forward to an early quitting time, because that’s when the boss swore he’d show us all about the way out.
“Look, lads, Faye and me ain’t had time to take you on the grand tour yet because we’ve been busy readying the place. The doors you’ll want are in the ballroom. That’s all you really need to know. Now stop acting like a bunch of daisies. We’re safe. The bulls don’t even know this joint is open!”
Surprise.
The alarm sounded with Maxie yelling, “Everybody down!” As in, time for us guys upstairs to start herding the customers to the dance floor level. This was no quick job, and I felt the panic rising in my flock of suckers as they stampeded down the steps. Good thing I’ve got a loud voice and could make myself heard over the shrieking crowd. I got them into the ballroom just in time to see the abandoned tables, the empty bandstand, and the backs of their fellow guests disappearing through a pair of narrow doors that had been hidden behind blue velvet drapes to either side of the stage.
“Keep it moving, keep it moving,” I yelled. “Pick a door and go!” I didn’t need to tell them twice. We could all hear the sound of heavy pounding at the street door and the shouts of the big bad wolves in blue telling us poor little piggies to let them come in or they’d break the house down.
I checked behind me to see if I had any stragglers before I ducked through the doorway myself. Nope, no one. But just as I was about to save my own bacon, I heard a funny thing: Faye’s voice from down below, street level, at the front door.
“Good evening, officers,” was what I heard her say. “Won’t you please come in?”
Come in! Who does that? Who lets the bulls in when they’re going to bust up everything in your place?
Okay, so they’d wreck it even if you didn’t lay down the welcome mat, but it’s the principle of the thing. That’s not how you play the game.
I was no referee. Maybe Faye was nuts. I wasn’t, and I was going to get the hell away. I plunged through the door.
The door…
The door that melted into a hallway lined with gold-framed mirrors and ivory vases full of flowers and thick carpets patterned with peacocks and dragons and vines. I blinked in the pearly light. This was a getaway route? Not some badly lit tunnel through a cellar where you had to dance with rats and dodge garbage cans before you made it back into the outside world? I mean, Queenie’s was set up in a fancy townhouse, so could be the fanciness spilled over some, but still—
“This way, sir, please.”
The guy wore green. Leaves are usually that color, right? Well, that’s what he was wearing: leaves. They circled his head and wrists and ankles, plus he had a bunch of long, shiny ones wrapped around his middle like a towel from the Turkish baths. He took me by the elbow, urging me along, and I was too stunned to put up a fight.
We came out under the stars. There were torches burning on a beach where palm trees swayed in the evening breeze. I heard plinky-plunky ukulele music and saw a bonfire on the sand. A mob of people were there ahead of me, being offered pineapples and coconuts with straws sticking out of them. Hell of a way to serve cocktails, but the waitress was wearing just a grass skirt and a smile, so who cared?
I recognized the folks gathered around the fire. They’d all come from Queenie’s. They’d left in a panic, but they weren’t panicked any more. Some of the college boys started waving their coconuts around and singing about bulldogs going bow-wow-wow until a bunch of other Ivy League eggs got to howling for ten thousand men of Harvard. They got into a scuffle that wasn’t much more than a slapping match, but before it could turn ugly, a big gong shook the palms and a woman’s voice announced, “Thank you for your patience. The coast is clear. Welcome back to Queenie’s.”
Back? Who the hell wanted to go back anywhere if it meant leaving here? Not me, but for some reason, I found myself falling into line with the rest as we marched under an arch of white orchids, through the mirror-hung hallway, and out onto the dance floor. The band was there ahead of us, playing away like nothing had happened.
And nothing had. Not if you went by what your eyes told you. The place was intact. Not a sign that the cops had come by to pay a call. Nothing broken. Nothing tossed. Not one thing.
I went back to the craps tables, because a job’s a job and O’Dwyer hates shirkers. The dice were rolling again and didn’t stop until closing time. The house won more than we usually do, mostly because none of the suckers had their heads in the game. They were too busy talking about the raid and where they’d been and how was it possible.
My thoughts exactly, though I had to wait for the close of business to ask. I wasn’t alone. Every one of O’Dwyer’s boys had the same questions. We clomped upstairs to the top floor of the house, where the boss had his office as part of Faye’s private apartment, and made our concerns known.
O’Dwyer was at a big, brass-bound mahogany desk, wrist-deep in the night’s receipts and happy as a pig in shit. Faye leaned against him like a Persian cat rubbing up on a trouser leg. The boys and me made a racket, all of us talking at once. Turned out that the second escape route took some of Queenie’s customers to a different spot, namely—
“—Havana!” Maxie had as big a case of the heebie-jeebies as the rest of us. “I tell you, Boss, I been there and I know that city when I saw it. How the hell is Havana walking distance from Manhattan?”
O’Dwyer shifted his cigar from one corner of his mouth to the other and flashed his teeth. “Ask me no questions, my boy, and I’ll tell you no lies. Also I won’t flatten that beezer of yours for swearing in front of a lady.”
Faye laughed. “Darling, you mustn’t keep your friends in the dark. May I set their minds at ease?”
O’Dwyer shrugged and went back to counting the kale. Faye slithered around and perched herself on the front of his desk, crossed her gams, and explained what had happened.
It was a real good explanation. I think. For some reason, all I came away with as I left the house and went staggering home at dawn was scraps: Stagecraft…best of vaudeville magicians’ tricks…lighting effects…actors…the lady had friends from Hollywood…
She’d talked a long time, and my memory claimed that she’d answered all our questions, but I felt like I’d spent the night stuffing my face at a banquet where it turned out that all the food was made of air. The one thing that stayed with me most wasn’t anything Faye said, but the boss’ final word on the subject:
“What do you birds care how she did it? What counts is that it worked and that it’s gonna be great for business.”
I’ll say it was. After that night, word got around. People flocked to Queenie’s, and for a change they came hoping for a raid. Some showed up with friends who’d been there on that night, friends they thought were spouting baloney, or who’d been too spifflicated to tell the difference between reality and drunk dreams. They came along either wanting to be proven wrong or wanting to find out that they were right.
You get that much traffic, the cops take notice. They came back. They came back plenty, but you’d never know it. Time after time, we had the alarm, the pick-a-door escape, and the reluctant return to a speakeasy that looked fresh out of the bandbox, no sign of the heavy hand and flat feet of the law. There wasn’t so much as a single busted glass.
“The secret is to let them in. They’re much more polite and considerate about leaving things be once they see we’ve got nothing to hide,” Faye said.
“Nothing to hide?” I echoed. “How do they not see the bar and the dance floor and the upstairs and—?”
“Stagecrap, you dope,” said O’Dwyer. “Levers. Pulleys. Panels. Spinning walls. It works, don’t it? Shut up.” He gave me a clip in the ear. Faye smiled.
I was starting not to like that smile. Damned if I could say why. I guess it was like the places those doors led, places that looked pretty, but—
Crazy to say, crazy to think about too much, but those places at the other end of the two passageways just didn’t feel right. Kind of like the passageways themselves. They didn’t leave me feeling right, either. They gave me the creeps, you know? Whenever I walked through, I always caught this—this breath out of nowhere, stirring the hairs on the back of my neck, and Jesus, was it ever cold.
There were other spots besides Havana and Honolulu too. Lots of them. Me and the guys compared notes. We toted up at least a dozen different scenes—Paris, Rome, Monte Carlo, Los Angeles, San Francisco, a yacht sailing through the Greek Islands, Egypt, London, more.
“How does she do that?” I asked.
“Stagecrap,” Maxie said.
“No, I mean it, how? You ever see a single carpenter come through here to swap scenes?”
“They come when we’re not around.”
“We’re here every night. You trying to tell me someone can turn Los Angeles into London in less than a day? And what about that yacht?”
“Hey, Jimmy, what about you go ask O’Dwyer all those questions,” Maxie said.
That shut my trap for me. I wasn’t looking for more trouble. Best thing to do was sit tight and count my blessings, along with the cash. Business was better than ever and O’Dwyer was no piker when it came to sharing the profits.
Still, that feeling…like something was watching me, us, and smiling the great granddaddy of Faye’s blade-thin smile.
Our customers didn’t seem to have my problem with the places Faye’s carpenters threw together and tore down so fast. Some of the regulars were regulars because they wanted to see all the different sets at the end of the two passages. They were collecting them like stamps, like postcards, like those decals you slap on your steamer trunk when you’ve got enough money to cross the ocean like ordinary people cross the street.
Some of them were real keen collectors. I had one bird slip me a fin and ask me to call him any night I knew there was going to be a raid. I told Scrooge that kind of inside dope’d cost him a fifty, which I pocketed. I didn’t bother telling him he was off his nut. I’m gonna know a raid’s gonna happen?
“What a chump!” I said to Maxie when I told him about it.
“That so?” my pal remarked, thoughtful.
None of us noticed the changes, at first. They were real subtle, which is why no one suspected Maxie was involved. First change, the college crowd stopped showing up at Queenie’s, all except the ones from the richest families. Next, the rest of the herd began to shed the show business folks and the out-of-town butter and egg men in favor of the Old Money customers who had enough lettuce to buy and sell Hollywood, Broadway, and a lot of territory in between. Queenie’s stayed as packed as ever, so who cared?
Last of all, the number of raids began to pick up until there wasn’t a week went by with at least one, sometimes two. Now that was what finally got me and the boys’ attention.
O’Dwyer took it with a laugh. What did it matter how often the bulls showed up when they never did any damage? He brushed off the slowly multiplying raids as coincidence. We swallowed that. It’s what we all wanted to believe.
I guess I would’ve kept on believing it myself if not for the fact that one night when I was getting a breath of air outside the club I caught sight of Maxie having a tête-à-tête with Patsy the Pigeon, a noted stoolie. The minute that little rat scuttled away, I confronted my buddy.
“What was that all about?”
“Eh, just arranging for tonight’s entertainment.” He cracked a deck of Luckies and lit one. “Faye’s got one of the passageways leading straight to the Casbah, this time. It’ll be swell.”
“You set up a raid?”
He smirked through a trail of cigarette smoke. “Practice makes perfect.”
I hoped he was kidding. I knew he wasn’t. “So all—?”
“Oh, I can’t take credit for every last one.” He put on a modest look phony enough for an alderman on the take. “Sometimes it’s the real cops, maybe once a month, but the rest of the time it’s the crew Faye hires to man her fake Havanas. It’ll be the real ones tonight, though, unless Patsy’s lost his touch.” He took a deep drag.
I spread my hands. “Maxie, I don’t understand.”
He put an arm over my shoulders. “Look, Jimmy, I’m just giving the customers what they want, okay? Faye and me, we knew that once the marks got a taste of what was waiting for them on the other side of those doorways, they’d want more and be glad to pay for it. That’s why I started using my spot at the front to only let in the ones with real dough. Now I’ve got a house full of suckers ready to pass me a C note a week just to make sure I keep on letting them in the door. They double that when there’s a raid and they get to see the world without leaving the block. You think I’ll miss out on something that rich?”
“Nice racket. No wonder the boss don’t care.”
“He don’t care because he don’t know.”
“You didn’t tell him you’ve got all that dough coming in?”
Maxie gave me a What am I, stupid? look. What he said next froze my bones: “This is just the icing, Jimmy. Let me tell you about the cake.” Before I could say I was happier not knowing, he opened his yap and started to brag.
Oh God. Oh damn. My friend Maxie wasn’t just fleecing raid-crazy suckers; he was skimming the cream off the straight bootleg side of the business. That Dumb Dora boyhood pal of mine had been flimflamming O’Dwyer from the day Queenie’s opened.
Now I was sweating. “Jesus, Maxie, what if he catches wise? He’ll let so much daylight into you, you’ll look like a screen door!”
He snorted. “He won’t learn nothing. What, are you gonna blab?”
“You know I won’t.” The two of us went back together too far for that to ever happen.
“So, okay.” He gestured with his cigarette. “Besides, my girl’s got him distracted.”
His girl. His girl. He didn’t have to draw me a picture. I got the message the second he said her name the way a man does when he’s dizzy with a dame. He and Faye were still an item, behind O’Dwyer’s back, and they were in cahoots on the grift. How do you like that? I’ll bet she was the brains behind the “cake” side. Maxie could hardly spell cake.
But what did a little rich girl really know about handling men like O’Dwyer? It was all a game to her, and what happened if one day she had the bad luck to slip up and show the Irishman her cards?
“Maxie, you’ve gotta call this quits. O’Dwyer could hear about this from someone besides you or me or Faye. What if one of your two-Cs-a-raid suckers spills the beans?”
“Ah, get that look off your face, Jimmy. Stop picking out the flowers for my funeral. Faye and I aren’t dumb enough to hang around playing this racket forever. We’re gonna make one last score—a big one—then skip town, go to Brazil and live the life of Riley.” He gave me a friendly punch in the arm. “I’ll send you a ticket from Rio.”
“When’s that happening?” That was all that mattered to me. I wanted my pal gone, out of harm’s way, and the sooner, the better.
“Less’n a month. Faye’s got something special planned, a grand opening.”
“Another one? We’re already open.”
“Not everything. Not the third door.” He finished his cigarette, flipped the glowing butt into the gutter, and went back inside.
The big October bash at Queenie’s was the talk of a very exclusive part of the town. Everyone who counted got a word-of-mouth invite. Everyone who heard about it, one way of another, wanted to come. Maxie had his work cut out for him, dealing with the crowd storming the townhouse that night. Some of those rich boys got so wild to get in that they forgot to keep their “tips” palmed.
When you start waving C notes, the smell of money flies up to the top floor and hits the wrong nose.
By the time Maxie had harvested the cabbage and shut the front door on the disappointed stragglers, O’Dwyer was out of the office and storming through the ballroom, blood in his eyes. I was doing a turn by the bar, making sure things were going smoothly, so I had a front row seat I never wanted.
I gotta be straight: I didn’t notice O’Dwyer there at first or I would’ve given my buddy the high sign. I was too wound up in my own thoughts, still mulling over what Maxie told me that night three weeks back. Ever since we talked, I wondered about that third door. Not that I doubted him—he’d told us there were three escape hatches to the townhouse the first time he brought up the subject. It’s just that—that—
—I couldn’t find it.
Yeah, I went looking. I was curious. But three weeks of looking and nothing? I checked every room I could get into, peeped behind every piece of furniture, knocked on every wall. It’s not like it was that haystack needle they always talk about. A townhouse is only so big. Where in hell was that dame hiding a whole third escape route plus yet another spectacular wait-out-the-cops spot at the other end?
I was about to get my answer.
The boss grabbed Maxie by the neck, shook him like a wash rag, and slugged him with a right cross that sent him crashing into the nearest table full of swells. The chicks squealed with alarm, but you could tell they were loving the floor show. Maxie sat in a puddle of gin-soaked tablecloth and shook his head like a two-bit palooka up against the heavyweight champ.
O’Dwyer jerked him to his feet. He shook him some more, enough to make some of the C notes flutter out of his jacket. This time the girlies were squealing with glee, grabbing the party favors. The look in the Irishman’s face was pure murder. He wasn’t gonna bump off Maxie in front of all those witnesses, but beating him to a pulp on the dance floor? Try and stop him.
All of a sudden Faye was there, between the two men. She put one fingertip on O’Dwyer’s chest and gave him a tiny shove.
The boss staggered clear to the far side of the dance floor, mouth and eyes wide open in surprise. It was like a butterfly had landed on a bull’s head and driven him into the ground up to his knees.
If it was me, I’d’ve stayed put, because when a frail who can’t tip the scales past ninety pounds does that to full-grown tough like O’Dwyer, a wise head might want to think things over before making another move.
The boss was too mad for thinking. He took another run at Maxie, even with Faye now blocking his path. He was two, maybe three steps shy of barreling into the little lady when she raised one hand and declared, “Barry Finnbar Seamus O’Dwyer, we have guests.”
He stopped dead. Then he sat down. Then he keeled to one side and lay down, staring at the ceiling. The crowd applauded. I kneeled beside him to check he was still breathing, which he was. The other boys working Queenie’s that night didn’t know what to do.
Unlike Faye. She gave Maxie a little push in the direction of the front door. It wasn’t anything like the one that had floored O’Dwyer, more like a hint for him to blow while the blowing was good. He started away and she went to the bandstand.
“Ladies and gentlemen,” she said, while the lights made her dress shoot sparks. “We’re sorry for the disturbance. The next round of drinks is—”
She didn’t get the chance to say if the next round was on the house or was gonna cost double. The familiar thunder of fists on the front door sounded twice as loud as it ever had, so loud the chandeliers jigged and tinkled. Sirens went off outside. A booming voice announced that this—surprise!—was a raid. The words came as clear as if they weren’t fighting their way through a thick oak door and up a flight of stairs.
“Oh my goodness,” said Faye, playing it cute. “It looks like we’ll have to move the party. I hope none of you are too disappointed?”
The customers’ cheers swamped her as the blue satin drapes flanking the stage parted, revealing the two doors they knew so well. They abandoned their tables eagerly, massing up on both sides of the bandstand, wild to rush through and see what sort of fresh, exotic delights were on the far side tonight.
But when the first suckers reached the doors, they wouldn’t open. They rattled on their hinges as one man after another tried and failed to make them swing wide. People started muttering, confused at first, then nervous, then outright scared.
Faye stepped in before things got out of control. “Don’t worry, darlings, this is just a teensy delay. Here at Queenie’s, all the doors open at the same time or they don’t open at all. Remember how we promised you a
special treat tonight? Well, hold onto your hats, because here we go!”
She spread her arms and the bandstand began to rise. Silently, quickly, a pair of doors emerged from the floor. They were wider than the others, with amber panels that shone like Japanese lanterns. Sill and top and sides were silver, cast in the shape of sleeping leopards. Webs of jet-black metal spun pictures of winged, naked men and women across the glowing gold.
The amber doors began to open. The others did as well.
“Enter and be welcome.” Faye sat with her gams swinging over the silver archway. “Make your choice, but a word before you do: you’ll have better luck if you don’t try to cross this threshold. Even though it will take you to a getaway like none you’ve ever experienced, admission is limited. Only one in ten of you will be allowed. Sorry, Fire Department rules.” She laughed.
Guess what happens when you tell rich people there’s something they might not be able to have? The crush was on. They were crabs trying to get out of a bucket, the ones below grabbing the ones closest to the rim and dragging them back down. Meanwhile, the noise from the front door was getting louder. I heard wood creak, splinter, and smash. Running feet hammered the stairs.
Some of the mob at the amber doors lost their heads and made a beeline for one of the two old reliable exits. The closer the rumble came, the more of them changed their minds and vanished down the familiar passageways. Our guys brought up the rear, playing shepherds like they’d been trained. Soon there was just a handful of contenders left behind, so wrapped up in wrestling for the right to be the first over that sparkling threshold that it took a moment for them to realize they’d won.
Faye jumped down from her perch and tapped one of them on the shoulder. “It’s all yours,” she said, touching the brim of her invisible doorman’s cap. The winners traded handshakes, all good sports now that they had the victory, and headed for the rewards beyond the silver-framed gate. There was music coming through that doorway now—harp notes threading their way through the piping of flutes. A mutter of drums tempted the slowest feet to dance. I smelled roses, and the scent of ripe fruits fit to make a statue hunger for a bite, and a whiff of real champagne so intense I swear I felt the bubbles prick my nose. Somewhere a girl was singing, and that was my name in her song.
I stood, ready to go to her, ready to fall into line with the handful of swells, ready to fight any of them who tried to get in my way. I patted the spot where my jacket hid a Colt .32.
Yeah, let them try.
A hand snapped around my ankle, snapped me awake. “Stop them,” O’Dwyer whispered. His skin looked like paper but his grip was steel. I tried to pull free; his grip tightened. “It’s the tithe, Jimmy. She’s paying the ancient debt, and they’re her coin.”
Old habits die hard, especially when you’re in the habit of following orders from a guy who scares the piss out of you. Even flat on his back, O’Dwyer could command; even when his commands sounded crazy.
“Boss, what are you talking about? The cops are coming. Let me help you to—”
“Curse your wooden head, Jimmy Logan, do what I say! There are no cops! If there were, what’s keeping them?”
He was right. The beefiest bull on the force could’ve busted down the front door and reached the ballroom by now. Where were they?
And if he was right about that—
“Okay, Boss.” I didn’t get his babble about tithes and coins and debts, but he could fill me in later. He let go of my ankle and I made a run like Red Grange heading for a touchdown. I’m small, but I’m spry. I slipped past Faye and made my stand right behind her, balancing on the lip of the silver-framed door.
“Hold it!” I drew my roscoe for emphasis. The rich boys still left took one look at the gun, turned tail, and blew through the other doors. They moved so fast that they missed all the curses Faye threw after them.
Then she spun on me.
“Well, aren’t you the killjoy, Mr. Logan.” Her teeth showed small and sharp. I felt that familiar chill on the scruff of my neck, only now it wrapped itself all the way around into a noose. “You’re not much for a girl to bring home to Mother, but you’ll have to do.” She waved one hand over my gun. I clutched a handful of crumbling leaves. “Let’s not keep her waiting. Tonight, our tithe falls due and we haven’t got the world’s most understanding creditor.” She took me by the arm and I was powerless to stop her. Her blue eyes flared green when she laughed at me.
There’s other times your past comes back at you than when you’re going to die. Faye’s eyes blurred from green to brown, from cold to kind, and I was a brat being minded by my old Kerry gran. Her soft voice told me tales about the good folk, the fair folk, the gentry, the good neighbors, the ones who lived under the green hills of Ireland, the ones you didn’t meet, if you were lucky.
The ones who every seven years settled their debts and paid the tithe they owed to Hell.
“Damn it, O’Dwyer, why couldn’t you let her have that bunch of moneybags?” I shouted as she began towing me toward the amber doors. “They were asking to go!”
“And have the D.A. huffing down my neck when they disappeared? The law cares what happens to the rich.” He paused. “I never meant for you to take their place.”
“I’m not too crazy about the idea myself.” I made an effort and braced myself against Faye’s pull. I wasn’t going to go without a fight.
“Insect,” she spat. “You’d better come along. Don’t try my temper. I’ll burn this house to the ground and all within the portals, too! You pathetic, mangy, scrawny, trifling—”
“Mind your mouth when you’re talking about my pal Jimmy!”
He was on her before she could catch a breath. I had no more idea where he sprang from than she did, and she had more at stake because he bowled her clear of me, off her feet and heels in the air.
“Maxie!” I cried, never so glad to see the big palooka in my life.
His attack broke her hold over me. I lurched away to where O’Dwyer still lay stretched out stiff on the dance floor. I propped him up so we could watch Maxie fight that otherworld wildcat. Oh, it was a fine thing to see! She turned into seven sorts of beast, from tiger to serpent to more, forever lunging for the tenderest bits of the man. He blocked her every time. Her shrieks of frustration and rage made the gaping amber doors shiver in their silver frame.
I had a thought to mind the hour. My watch said we were a scant three minutes from midnight. Halloween would end. My granny’s words came back to me a second time, reminding me that the way between our world and the fairy realm was thin for just so long on this night. The portals between here and there would soon slam shut. I prayed the people who chose the other two doorways would get out somehow, but I couldn’t spare them any more worry than that.
“Jimmy, Jimmy boy.” O’Dwyer’s fingers clawed my hand. “Get salt. Cast it wide in front of her. She’ll have to count each grain. It’s all that can save Maxie now.”
But there was no salt, no way to entrap Faye. I shuddered, imagining her rage if she failed to bring home the fairies’ tithe to Hell. We’d pay for it. She’d fulfill her word. The townhouse and all in it would go up in smoke. The cops would write a report and shrug and life would go on. Just not ours.
I guess Maxie’s thoughts were running down a similarly bleak street, because suddenly he stopped fighting Faye and grabbed her face, forcing her to look him in the eye.
“You want your payment to the devil? You’ve got it.”
He kissed her, slapped her hard, and shoved her away. Two strides, a leap, and he was through the amber doors. We heard the unholy roar that greeted him on the other side.
Faye brushed herself off, tucked a lock of hair behind her ear, and gave me and O’Dwyer a wry look. “It’s been a pleasure doing business with you, gentlemen,” she said, before she melted into mist, wafted after Maxie, and was gone.
After that night, O’Dwyer’s gang broke up because O’Dwyer broke down. He never did recover the full use of his body—“Elf-shot,” he said, accepting his fate—and when the police did show up on the doorstep of Queenie’s, he told them what had happened.
Exactly what had happened, fairies and Hell and all.
I’m not sure which hospital he’s in now.
I also don’t know what happened to Queenie’s customers, but since the rest of the gang turned up safe and the D.A. didn’t stop by, I guess they made it out okay.
The other boys knew they didn’t have what it takes to keep running the operation, so they made a gift of it to the first bigger mob that agreed to take them on as part of the remaining inventory. I didn’t go along for the ride. I’d joined O’Dwyer’s gang because of Maxie and since he wasn’t with us any more, I saw no reason to hang on. I had other things to do, anyway.
Mostly, prayer. I went back to church, hearing Mass every chance I got, putting in a good word for my buddy’s soul. I took my savings and bought a horse and carriage—I always did like horses—and got me a job giving folks rides through Central Park. It wasn’t exciting work. That suited me fine.
One late night in June I was driving my rig along the park paths, taking my mare back to the stables, when I heard the sound of lots of horses coming towards us. Pretty strange, at that hour, but I pulled to the side of the road anyhow, just to be polite and let them pass.
They came riding out of the warm darkness in single file, the horses decked out with gold saddles and silver bridles, satin draperies trailing down their sides. Fireflies made clouds of light above their heads. The riders, men and women both, would’ve made Ziegfeld’s chorus line drop dead with envy. Tall and graceful, silky hair cascading over their shoulders, they were all dressed like something out of stories that start Once upon a time. I recognized the guy who used to play clarinet in the jazz combo at Queenie’s, and the drummer too. Small world.
In the midst of them was Faye. She had a look to her I’ve only seen on growling dogs before they spring for your throat. She rode beside a woman whose beauty made hers look like an old potato next to a diamond. Everything about that lady dazzled, from the tips of her jeweled slippers to the royal crown she wore like a sunrise. It was that crown told me for sure that I was laying eyes on Queenie herself at last.
But who did I see behind her, sharing her saddle? Maxie. He had his arms cinched around her waist, his chin resting on her shoulder and, swear to God, I saw the rascal nibble the lady’s ear, bold as you please. Once a sheik, always a sheik.
When they were right abreast of my carriage, he looked in my direction and tipped his plumed velvet hat with a flourish.
“Hell wouldn’t have me, Jimmy!” he shouted, grinning like a cat full of cream. “Hell wouldn’t have me!”
A gate in the night opened and they all rode far away.