Dreams Bigger Than the Night (11 page)

“Scarface” then followed the others to the front of the restaurant to collect his overcoat and dissolved out the door. Jay tried to get a better look at him, but could see only his straw-colored hair as the fellow removed his hat to enter a cab.

“Quite handsome. What’s his line of work?”

“My mother would have said hard times make good men bad.”

“But she would have approved of the German connection.”

“Yes, she was proud of her roots, which is why she had me homeschooled by a German tutor, Fräulein Bauer, a real stickler.”

“I would like to have met your mom.”

Arietta’s eyes misted, and she looked away, wandering to another place, another time. “She died on my tenth birthday. I have never celebrated my birthday since. When I was a child, she used to play hide-and-seek with me in the house. In those days, we had Persian rugs and Waterford glass and Wedgwood ceramics. After she died, I went from room to room looking for her. In my dreams, I often find myself opening doors, but the person I’m looking for is never there.”

“Is that why you maintain your German ties?”

She seemed inclined to answer, but Mr. Magliocco returned, full of Italian good cheer, talking with both mouth and hands, filling Jay in, as promised, on the details of Arnold Rothstein’s death, which had become the stuff of myth. Rothstein had received a call at Lindy’s and had left. The Big Bankroll was then found in a hotel, shot and dying.

“All the famous ones—gone. A.R., Legs, Joey Noe, Bo Weinberg, Vincent Coll.” He shook his head. “Now the tax men are closing in on the Dutchman. I wonder where he’s stashed his money. Dutch was always stingy. He must have a fortune.” Mr. M. picked at a nicotine-stained finger. “Probably somewhere in the Third Ward.”

Jay said nothing, fearing that Mr. M. sensed a connection between him and Schultz’s Third Ward drug operation.

He waited a few days before calling Arietta again. The evening with her father had left him feeling peculiar. Why had Mr. M. asked him to dinner? No reason was ever given. Was it to heal the rupture between Jay and his daughter? Perhaps that explained his cigarette break. Or did the invitation have something to do with the Fernicola-Bandello falsehood? But that confusion had been dispelled with a plausible explanation. Something lay below the surface, or was Jay being his usual suspicious self? Surely Mr. M. couldn’t imagine that he knew where Schultz’s loot was?

After a fortnight, his unease abated and he invited Arietta to a revival of Kaufman and Ryskind’s musical play
Of Thee I Sing
, a 1931 winner of the Pulitzer. The
News
had given him two comp tickets. When she inquired what to wear, he told her she would look good in a
shmattah
, which he had to explain meant a rag, and requested she tell her father that they would be late and not to stay up. He planned to take Arietta to dinner afterward and then try to steer her to the hotel.

Their fourth-row seats positioned them just behind Kaufman and his companion, the movie actress Mary Astor. He knew that George had a wife and Mary a husband and therefore figured they were just old friends. Whew, was he wrong! It all began innocently enough. Before the curtain went up, George kept Mary in stitches with his corny one-liners. Once the theater darkened, they played “kneesies,” and George slid his arm over her shoulder, cupping her breast with his hand. She responded by putting a hand between his legs. By the time the play ended with the audience humming, “He’s the man the people choose—loves the Irish and the Jews,” Jay’s temperature had risen several degrees. He would have gladly skipped dinner and grabbed a train back to Newark, but Arietta wanted to ask Kaufman and Astor for their autographs. In the press of people, they temporarily lost them. A few minutes later, Arietta saw them walking down the street, hand in hand. They discreetly followed. When George and Mary entered an eatery just off the boulevard, Jay looked at Arietta. She said, “Why not?” They entered, got them to sign their programs, and decided to stay for dinner.

Kaufman and Astor sat at the back of the restaurant. Jay could see them but Arietta could not. They seemed perfectly at ease, and periodically George leaned across the table to kiss her. Jay saw him rest his hand on her knee, and she, dropping a shoe, put her stockinged foot in his crotch. Arietta asked him why he kept staring—“Are they still making whoopee?”—to which he replied, “You ain’t kidding.”

As Jay related the scene unfolding behind her, she cut him off, as if to send him a signal: don’t get any ideas. He would find out soon enough. With their meals unfinished, George and Mary left; they seemed to be in a hurry. Jay could guess why. Mentally, he was writing Walter Winchell’s next day’s column: “Flash. Deskman at a midtown hotel says Kaufman and Astor arrived around midnight. Took the elevator to her sixth-floor room. Did not emerge until morning.” In his own review, he merely observed that the author graced the audience in the company of Mary Astor.

By the time they reached Newark, Arietta requested that they take a cab from Penn Station right to her house, no detours. Crestfallen, he complied, and then returned to the hotel to jack off.

Finding her presence addictive, he had to give it one more try; and the next date, wherever he took her, he’d leave plenty of time to return to the Riviera. After giving it some thought, he decided on the Chanticler club in Millburn. Erwin Kent and his band would be playing. They could make the early show. When he rang, Mr. Magliocco answered the phone and to Jay’s surprise said, “I thought she was ice skating with you at Irvington Park?” He hastily assured him that they had been skating and that she was now on her way home. Would she please call when she returned?

A little more than an hour later, she telephoned, full of apologies and thanks for his backing up her story. But she didn’t say why she had used his name or where she had been. In an appreciative mood, she agreed to join him the following Sunday for an afternoon of dancing and an evening of dining at the Chanticler.

Three days later, he had an unexpected visit from two cops, Detective Barbarash and Sergeant Muger, still investigating the murder of Heinz Diebel. They found him in his Prince Street room, writing and vainly watching for hoodlums.

“Who pays the rent?” asked Detective Barbarash, as he and his pal pulled up a couple of chairs.

“I do.”

“On this place
and
the Riviera?”

Fortunately, Longie had, at his request, directed the hotel manager to tell anyone who asked that Jay worked there as an assistant super. When he explained that he received a room at the hotel in return for services rendered, the detective mumbled:

“Yeah, that’s what the manager said. I just wanted to hear you say it. And this room? Your landlord said someone else rented it for you, Puddy Hinkes. A friend of yours?”

“He found the place for me. His office is just down the street.”

“We know that.”

Sergeant Muger began shuffling through a stack of Jay’s papers and examined the sheet in the typewriter.

“Hey, do you have a search warrant?”

“We don’t need one,” said Muger.

“Why would I have anything to do with the death of Diebel?”

“You’re Jewish,” said Detective Barbarash.

“And so is 20 percent of Newark. Try them.”

“They weren’t at Dreamland. You were.”

“I know nothing about the murder.”

“You know Arietta Magliocco.”

“What’s she have to do with it?”

Sergeant Muger, absorbed in Jay’s manuscript, read out loud, “May bananas grow in their throat; my god, I am passing . . . out!” Then a moment later, “Bleeding from two large holes in his chest, the stricken man gasped for air and uttered some unintelligible German words. His partner sank to his side and took his hand. While trying to whisper in her ear, the victim expired.” Muger looked up from the page and said, “This sounds like a description of Diebel’s death. How come?”

“I’m a journalist.”

“Yeah,” said Barbarash. “The
News
gave us copies of your reviews. You really laid it on with a ladle about Harlow. Could the reason have anything to do with Longie Zwillman?”

“Who?”

Detective Barbarash reversed his chair so that he was now leaning over the backrest. “Knock it off, Jay. We had police stationed outside Abe’s house the night of his big party. We’ve got you on film. You and Puddy.”

“All right, I went to a bash. There’s no crime in that.”

Detective Barbarash looked at his associate. “Armen!”

Sergeant Muger, still reading from the manuscript, said without looking up, “What do you know about Arietta Magliocco?”

The police, of course, knew that he had been dancing with her just before the murder. They had questioned him on that point at the time of Diebel’s death. But did the cops know that they had been dating? He saw no reason to lie and readily admitted that he had taken her out a few times. Where had they gone? He told them.

Muger continued. “Ever been to a meeting of the Friends of the New Germany, in Irvington?”

“What the hell would I be doing there?” he said indignantly. “You said it yourself: I’m Jewish.”

Detective Barbarash held up a hand, as if to signal Muger to wait. “Zwillman has been known to plant some of his boys in these meetings to gather information and sometimes even to foment a fight.”

“I write reviews, not reports about Nazis.” Turning to Sergeant Muger, he urged, “Read through every page on the table. You won’t find a one that concerns the Friends of the New Germany.”

Muger smiled. “Not yet. I already checked.”

“Why do you suppose,” Detective Barbarash said languidly, “that Arietta Magliocco attends these meetings—at least some of them?”

“I don’t believe it.”

The detective removed an envelope from his breast pocket and spilled on the table several small photographs. “Take a look for yourself. Isn’t that her?”

Indeed, the shots depicted Arietta heading into and coming out of the Nazi meeting hall. Not knowing what to say, he shrugged and held up his palms. Barbarash collected the photos and said:

“So you’re unfamiliar with these activities of hers?”

“Absolutely.”

“Disloyalty kills.” The detective handed Jay a business card with his telephone number. “If you hear anything, please let us know. Your own safety may be involved.”

For a long time after they left, Jay sat in a distracted state, trying to make sense of what he had just heard. Should he call off their date at the Chanticler? A number of times, in the next few days, he went to the phone, but then in his imagination he would see her delicately sculpted face and radiant eyes. Try though he might, he could not dispel her image. She haunted him. He saw her in beautiful women on the street, in paintings, in carvings, in ads, in movie actresses. Finally, he persuaded himself that he owed her the chance to explain her behavior. On the Sunday, he borrowed Puddy’s car, collected Arietta at her house, admired her yellow sweater, and motored to the Chanticler in Millburn.

Driving up the circular drive, he stopped in front and handed the car keys to an attendant. The chandeliers’ silver radiance reflected off the black-and-white marble floors, lighting the entry hall and the winding staircase leading up to the bridal suites. They left their coats with the hatcheck girl. At the bar, to the right, he could see a large late-afternoon crowd. He pushed aside the serge curtains leading to the lavish red-carpeted dining room and gave his name to the maitre d’. The tables—arrayed on two tiers, one at the level of the dance floor and the other two steps up—glowed in their starched linen brightness and silver settings. They sat close to the oval dance floor, facing the central bandstand, where shortly Erwin Kent would play the piano and direct his small band.

To the chagrin of the waiter, he and Arietta ordered two ginger ales. Without any soft soaping, he broached the subject of immediate concern: her relationship to the Friends of the New Germany.

“The police came to see me.”

“Me, too, for the second time.”

“They asked me why you would be attending a Nazi meeting.”

“My mother’s older sister, Aunt Hilde, begged me to go. I hated every minute of it.”

“Then why did you return?”

“For the same reason I went the first time, as a favor to an old woman. Would I do it again? No.”

“The police seem to want to tie us into the murder, somehow.”

As Maestro Kent and his fellow musicians seated themselves at the bandstand and launched into “I Get a Kick out of You,” the bar crowd began to migrate to their reserved tables. In no time, the place filled up with swells.

“Where does your aunt live?”

“What?”

“Your Aunt Hilde. She must have an address.”

Arietta said matter-of-factly, “You don’t believe me.”

In fact, he didn’t, but he also didn’t think that she sympathized with Nazis. So why had she attended those meetings? The cops said Longie had spies in the meetings, but women? Perhaps she worked for the cops. No, they wouldn’t have pushed so hard for information about her if she’d been one of theirs. Maybe FBI? That would explain the source of her money. But if the FBI had employed her, wouldn’t they have tipped off the police? Maybe yes, maybe no. Perhaps the bureau wanted the cops to keep a protective eye on her, given the circles she was traveling in. But why then would the cops have questioned Jay about her loyalty? No, they had to have been nosing around independent of the feds. He reasoned that since the cops were in charge of the Diebel investigation, they undoubtedly had put the Friends under surveillance, and when Arietta showed up, they saw a connection. Present at both the murder and the meeting hall, she was a likely suspect.

Arietta leaned across the table and rested a hand on his. “You must trust me, Jay. I can’t talk about it.”

“But what does your presence at those gatherings mean?”

“I am not a Nazi or a Friend, if that’s what you’re thinking.”

“The word on the street has it,” he said, trying to draw her out, “that the group plans to launch a violent anti-Semitic campaign.”

But she ignored the bait. He felt helpless, like a child subject to its parents’ whims. She held all the cards. A particularly gorgeous smile animated her face.