Where Have I Heard That Name Before
Down on the first floor sat Intima, the lingerie boutique; evenings belonged to the Pumpkin Dance Hall. The days of never catching a breath had begun in earnest.
I spent most of my time buried in the ledgers, but Ida’s performance was dazzling. Her grasp of how a dance hall actually worked was formidable enough that I found myself regretting I hadn’t consulted her from the start.
“Cover charge takes care of the overhead and payroll. The real money comes out of drinks and snacks. That’s what the dance-hall girls are for—they keep the customers buying, and they keep the water clean.”
“What about their pay?”
“They take whatever they can earn. They push drinks and snacks and cut a percentage. That’s it.”
Average drink ran five cents. Even at twenty percent, a girl had to push more than a hundred orders a day just to clear a dollar.
Of course that wasn’t the whole story. The girls also partnered the customers on the floor and took a set fee per dance.
“They split that with the house too. So a lot of them just treat it like a light second job—come dance, make a little cash, have fun. If that still isn’t enough, they sell themselves. The ones who need the money for rent usually end up there.”
I was fairly sure Ida herself had once been exactly that kind of working girl, yet she spoke of it with the same flat detachment she might use for someone else’s history.
“Bottom line—if we want to clean out the customers’ pockets legally, we need the dance-hall girls.”
“Not necessarily. There are side effects.”
“Such as?”
“Some of them will work a customer maliciously—blackmail, theft, even abduction. You can’t just hire anybody.”
One way or another, the only sensible conclusion was to put Ida in charge of the whole operation.
“You’re going to have to double as dance-hall manager, Ida.”
“You want me hiring the girls too?”
“Of course.”
“Then I’ve already got a few in mind.”
The corner of her mouth lifted, just a fraction. So did the light in her eyes. For the first time I saw something like life on Ida’s face.
A week had passed since the twin buildings on Allen Street hung the banner reading “Spend the Holidays at Pumpkin Dance Hall!”
December 1, 1917.
With the year-end rush gathering real momentum, the dance hall drew heavier crowds every night. Most of the customers were Jewish and Italian laborers.
In this era no one danced alone. To step onto the floor you needed a partner, and the partners who soothed the loneliness of poor immigrant men were the dance-hall girls Ida had brought in.
They were all in their early twenties, Hell’s Kitchen girls to a one—striking looks, sharp conversation, and a comic timing that had the customers ordering drinks like men possessed.
The effect showed up instantly in the books. Once the girls hit the floor, drink sales jumped nearly thirty percent.
And who do you suppose was responsible for most of that?
Ida herself, out on the floor dancing with some man… wait, what?
A five-piece Italian band was playing Lew Pollack’s ragtime number “That’s Plenty,” and Ida was spinning with a stranger as if she had nothing better to do.
Was she simply in the mood to dance? Or was she working the room the same way the other girls did? Impossible woman.
“Anybody know who that guy is?”
I asked the men stationed near the kitchen; every one of them shook his head. I was going to have to get the answer straight from Ida.
Dance-hall office.
I hadn’t even called for her, yet Ida walked in with her face flushed and glowing.
“Been a while since I loosened up. I’m wiped.”
“You look it.”
“Boss, you catch me dancing?”
“Yeah.”
Beads of sweat stood out on her forehead. She was holding a drink; she dropped onto the sofa, drained half of it in one long pull, then spoke again.
“You know my partner?”
“No idea.”
“Name’s Joseph Toblinsky. Used to run with a gang right here on the Lower East Side.”
Toblinsky. The name rang a bell.
One of the three who had organized the so-called Yiddish Black Hand in imitation of the Italian Black Hand. They had never drawn much attention, overshadowed by the Eastman Gang of their own people, and by now the whole outfit had vanished without a trace. I knew almost nothing solid about them.
“You two close enough that he recognized your face?”
“No. He spotted me first. We crossed paths years ago when I got tangled up with the Eastman boys.”
“And?”
“Figured I’d fish for why he showed up all of a sudden, so I kept him talking.”
Even when the job wasn’t hers, Ida went looking for work—and the results were rarely bad. Tonight was no exception.
“Toblinsky said he was just curious how a whorehouse turned into a dance hall overnight.”
“He a regular?”
“Not a customer—he’s the owner. After the gang fell apart he started running a few houses on this street.”
According to Ida, Toblinsky’s visit had been pure curiosity: a new dance hall opening on the same block where he did business. Perfectly natural.
“The second he saw me on the floor he looked shocked. Then he said, ‘So the Hell’s Kitchen crews really are moving into this neighborhood.’”
Ida delivered the line in a flat monotone, mimicking a voice I had never heard. I had no way to judge how accurate the impression was.
Either way, the street brawls of the past few weeks had already made the Hell’s Kitchen gangs’ involvement common knowledge. Nothing surprising there.
“When I told him I worked here, he asked me to set up a meeting with the boss.”
“What do you think he wants?”
“One of two things.”
Either a simple introduction between fellow Allen Street operators—or he smelled a gang connection and meant to dig.
I put equal weight on both possibilities.
Running whorehouses without gang protection was nearly impossible; of course Toblinsky would want to feel out the new crew that controlled the block. Still, the less anyone knew about the dance hall’s link to the Marginals, the better. You can’t stop every rumor, but volunteering the truth is just stupid.
I had always limited the protection racket to legitimate storefronts. Whorehouses, opium dens, smuggling, gambling—I left them alone for a reason. Those trades were already tied to the bigger syndicates: Sicilian, Neapolitan, the Five Points Gang. Starting out by kicking a hornet’s nest was not on the agenda.
So I put Blackburn forward as the “owner.” Patrick had been my first thought, but he was Tanner Smith’s right hand and already too well known in Hell’s Kitchen. Blackburn, at least, looked more businessman than gunman.
The whole episode also showed me a new angle on Ida—how to raise the value of a woman who could change colors like a chameleon.
“Ida, I’m going to push hard for you. How about you start expanding our circle of friends?”
“Upward?”
I nodded. She understood at once.
“You want me recruiting people who can actually help the business.”
“Exactly.”
“Got it, Boss. I’ll do whatever you say.”
“I suggested it—I’m not ordering you. And it doesn’t have to start tomorrow.”
“I know. Besides, I’m enjoying the work. First time in a long while I’ve felt like this.”
Her face didn’t match the words. Or maybe she only went blank when she talked to me.
Ida’s a girl whose heart died a long time ago.
Hazel’s voice drifted through my head and faded.
“Welcome in.”
Right—first floor was still the lingerie shop. Ida and I were living a double life, hopping between hot bath and cold.
A few days later Blackburn returned from the meeting with Toblinsky.
“He wants to go into business together.”
“What kind of business?”
“He wants us to look the other way while he works the girls. We’ll split the take.”
I didn’t follow. Ida, standing beside me, filled in the blank.
“He means if a pretty customer shows up, he snatches her for one of his houses.”
I nearly swore out loud. Managed to swallow it.
“……How exactly does he plan to grab them?”
“There’s a whole method, Boss. First the gang picks a good-looking guy. He hits the dance hall, scouts targets—usually teenagers—buys them drinks, gets friendly.”
“Then he talks them into a date, walks them outside, and grabs them. If that fails, he slips them something. After that it’s just breaking the body and the mind.”
“Ida really does explain things well.”
Blackburn laughed in agreement.
My head was spinning. Apparently this kind of thing happened in dance halls more often than anyone liked to admit.
“Boss, what’s the call?”
Blackburn asked the obvious.
“Refuse. Tell him if we catch anyone working our place we’ll tear every last one of his houses down to the bricks.”
“Uh… yeah. I’ll tone that down a little when I pass it along.”
Blackburn left. Ida watched me with that same calm, empty stare.
“Why turn him down?”
“I need a reason?”
“No. I wasn’t judging. Just… I think you did the right thing. If you’d accepted, Toblinsky would’ve been sure we were a gang.”
I hadn’t calculated that far, but I nodded anyway. Thinking it over, she had a point.
“I’m heading out, then.”
As she reached the door I stopped her.
“While we’re at it, why don’t you move in here?”
Losing a competent employee to a snatch job would be a disaster. I’d seen it happen before. Besides, Ida still lived in Hell’s Kitchen and only used the temporary rooms upstairs once in a while. Better she just stayed.
She didn’t need long to decide.
“All right. Thanks for looking out for me, Boss.”
After she left I turned Toblinsky’s offer over in my mind. Even inside crime there are lines you cross and lines you don’t. The standard is purely personal. If I wanted the men to follow it even when they disagreed, I had to set the rule first and never waver. So I opened the notebook and added one more entry for the day.
Human Trafficking Strictly Forbidden.
I was still wondering what else belonged on the list when someone knocked on the office door.
Jeffrey—early Marginals man alongside Patrick, former labor slugger, now running the warehouse where we stashed the stolen goods—walked in with a problem.
“Strike’s broken out in Pier 88. Slugger crews are poking around everywhere. We need to move the stuff out of the warehouse.”
“Which side’s people?”
“Both. Ever since Kid Dropper got out it’s been a goddamn free-for-all.”
Kid Dropper. Where had I heard that name?
“Who is he?”
“Johnny Spanish’s old partner. The two of them used to own the slugger racket.”
It came back to me.
In the labor-slugger lineage one name always turned up: Dopey Benny Fein, the man who started out working for the unions and ended up owning shirtwaist factories. After he stepped back, Johnny Spanish and Kid Dropper Kaplan had filled the vacuum almost overnight.
So the partner of the man I had killed was out of prison and the whole strike market was shaking.
“You ever hear the story about Johnny shooting his pregnant girlfriend in the gut?”
“Tanner mentioned it once.”
“He did it because he thought she was cheating. The other man was Kid Dropper. Can you believe that? Your best friend bangs your girl.”
Just another trashy soap opera.
“Anyway, the second Kid Dropper shows his face, strikes hit Hell’s Kitchen and the South East docks too. I know that bastard’s pattern cold.”
Jeffrey was warming to the tale, but my mind stayed on the warehouse inventory. Then something else arrived that demanded even more attention.
My mother appeared at the lingerie shop downstairs, face tight with urgency.
“Kieran—Larry’s been badly hurt at the docks.”
Larry… my mother’s brother. The same uncle who had once carried Liam home after the boy was beaten while scabbing on a strike.
Of course I was going.
“Where is he?”