79 Park Avenue Read online

  At the tone of admiration in his voice, I nodded my head without speaking.

  “There isn’t a guy in this court who would turn down a piece of that.” He was still whispering.

  I had all I could do to keep my anger from showing. That was the trouble. That had always been the trouble. She was the kind of woman whose sex fit her like a halo. No man could ever miss it.

  I picked up a pencil and began to doodle on a scratch pad. Alec nudged me and I looked up.

  Henry Vito was walking toward our table. I watched him stroll assuredly until he was opposite me. He looked down at me, smiling confidently. “How’s the Old Man, Mike?” he asked.

  “Coming along, Hank,” I said, smiling back at him.

  His voice was just low enough to carry to the press rows. “Mighty lucky appendix he suddenly came up with.”

  I stretched my voice so they could hear my answer. “All the luck coming out of that appendix landed on your side of the court.”

  He didn’t change expression. “If he ever becomes Governor, Mike, he’ll owe you a big vote of thanks.”

  I got to my feet slowly. Vito was a tall man, but I’m taller. I stand six foot two in my stocking feet, and I’m broad-shouldered and with my broken nose look ugly enough to make him seem frail. He looked up into my face and I smiled. “Thanks for them kind words, Hank. I know after the trial you’ll agree I deserved them.”

  The smile was still on his face, but he didn’t speak. I blocked him off from his audience, so there wasn’t any reason for him to continue. He turned back to his table with a jaunty wave of his hand. I watched him walk across the court before I returned to my seat.

  Joel was whispering in my ear. “Don’t let him get your goat, Mike.”

  I smiled coldly. “I won’t.”

  “I thought you were going to slug him when you got up,” Alec whispered from the other side.

  My smile turned into a grin. “I thought about it.”

  “I could see that look on your face—” Alec’s whisper was interrupted by the tapping of the gavel.

  There was a quick rustle of clothing as we got to our feet. The judge was coming into the court. Peter Amelie was a short, stocky man and as he went to the bench he looked like a little kewpie doll with his cherubic face and bald head rising from the black cloth of his official robes. He sat down and with a quick motion tapped the bench before him with a gavel.

  The clerk’s voice boomed out. “Hear ye, hear ye. The Court of General Sessions, Part Three, is now in session. The Honourable Justice Peter Amelie presiding.”

  This was it. There was no turning back now. The fight was on, the referee in the ring. Suddenly all the tension left me. From now on nothing would bother me, no memories torture me. I would have no time for them. I had a job to do.

  A few moments later, at a nod from the judge, I got to my feet. I walked slowly across the court to the jury box. She didn’t look up as I passed the defendant’s table, yet I knew she was watching every motion I made in that crazy way she had of seeing out of the corners of her eyes. I stopped in front of the jury and gave them a chance to look me over.

  After a few seconds I began to speak. I started slowly. “Ladies and gentlemen of the jury, I feel pretty much like a pinch hitter being sent in to bat for Di Maggio. For who—” I paused a moment to let a ripple of warm laughter die down in the courtroom. “For who can follow Di Maggio?” I continued, and answered my own question: “Nobody.”

  I let the faint, friendly smile fade from my lips. “But the people of the State of New York are entitled to the representation and protection of their elected officers. And the people of the State of New York through their Grand Jury found grounds to present to this court an indictment against a certain person for violating its laws and its decencies. So I humbly beg your indulgence while I, in my poor fashion and manner, represent the people of the State of New York against the crimes of Maryann Flood.”

  Vito came in on schedule with his objection. As I expected, the court upheld it. But I had made my point. I turned back to the jury.

  “I would like to read from the indictment currently before this court. It is charged in this indictment that the defendant, Maryann Flood, has committed and engaged in the following activities, which we will prove beyond a reasonable doubt.

  “Maryann Flood, hiding behind the façade of a respectable model agency, Park Avenue Models, Inc., procured for profit young girls and women for illicit and immoral purposes and led them to lead lives of prostitution.

  “Maryann Flood in several instances paid off or bribed certain public officials, in order to protect her illicit activities.

  “Maryann Flood, by virtue of her contacts in this nefarious trade, was able to extort varying sums of money from her clients by threatening them with exposure.”

  I let the indictment drop to my side and looked at the jury. I could sense their interest.

  “Procurement for purposes of prostitution.

  “Bribery of public officials.

  “Extortion and blackmail.

  “Not a pretty picture for the people of the State of New York to contemplate. Each year thousands of young girls come to New York with their eyes on the stars. Broadway, T.V., modelling. Each with their connotations of glamour and success.

  “And lying in wait for these poor innocents is someone like Maryann Flood. Secure in the knowledge that her bribery and extortion will protect her from harm and molestation by such prosaic and mundane things as the laws of the people of the State of New York.”

  For the first time I turned to face the defendant’s table. She was looking down at the table, a pencil tightly clutched in her fingers. Vito had a thin smile on his lips.

  “Maryann Flood!” I called out.

  Automatically she raised her head, and her eyes fixed on mine. There was something hurt in them I had never seen before. I let mine go hard and blank as I turned back to the jury and spoke as if I hadn’t called to her.

  “Maryann Flood,” I repeated, “sits before her court of judgment, before a jury of her peers, charged with violating the laws of her society.

  “And we, the people of the State of New York, the people for whom she had so much contempt, will prove these charges we make against her so that there will never be in any mind a vestige of doubt as to her guilt. We will follow, step by step, each and every action of her illicit and illegal career. We will establish in detail each action. And when the whole of the story is revealed, you, the jury, will be called upon to render such a verdict as to discourage and restrain any person who feels he has a right to flaunt and evade the responsibilities and laws of the people.”

  I gave the jury time to chew on what I had said while I went back to my table and exchanged the indictment for some other papers. Then slowly I walked back to the jury box.

  “Ladies and gentlemen of the jury, I would like to trace for you the manner in which the State became acquainted with the activities of Maryann Flood.” The jurors leaned forward, a look of interest on their faces. “One afternoon last May a young woman was admitted to Roosevelt Hospital. She was hemorrhaging internally. The result of an illegal operation. Despite all efforts, she began to sink rapidly.

  “As is usual in matters of that kind, our office was notified. The girl was too weak to answer many questions, but this much we were able to learn from her. She was a model registered with Park Avenue Models, Inc. She also asked that Miss Flood be notified. She seemed sure that Miss Flood would be able to help her.

  “A first routine telephone call to Park Avenue Models, Inc., brought forth the reply that they had never heard of a model by that name. About an hour later Miss Flood called our office, saying that there had been a mistake on the part of one of her employees. That this young woman had been registered with her agency. In particular she seemed concerned about what the girl had said, and as an afterthought offered her assistance.

  “Both the telephone call and the offer of assistance came too late. The young woman had
died shortly before.

  “A check of the young woman’s acquaintances revealed that she had come to New York approximately a year before. For six months she had been barely able to make ends meet. Suddenly she blossomed forth in a complete new wardrobe and furs. To her friends she explained her new-found prosperity by saying that she had made a connection with Park Avenue Models. She began to go out frequently, and her friends saw less and less of her. She explained this to them by saying she was constantly on call. That her work kept her busy all hours of the day and night.

  “Yet when these statements were checked with the employment record maintained by the agency, there was a great discrepancy. The agency had listed only two or three jobs for her during that six-month period. Her total earnings during that period, after commissions were deducted, came to about one hundred and twenty-five dollars.”

  I shuffled some papers in my hand and pretended to look at them while I rested. After a moment I looked up at the jury. They were ready for me to continue.

  “While this routine investigation was taking place, a report came to the Vice Squad of wild parties being held at the East Side apartment of a prominent manufacturer of ladies’ undergarments. It was also brought to the attention of the police that the man had made statements in various quarters that he had contacts with a certain model agency that enabled him to have a supply of girls at any hour of the day or night and that his friends just had to call on him for the favour.

  “On the last day of May the police interrupted a party going on in his apartment. Four men and six women were found in compromising attitudes.

  “Each of the girls gave her occupation as model. One admitted she was registered at Park Avenue Models, Inc. Several of the other girls whispered something to her. Immediately the girl retracted her statement. A check proved that each of the girls was registered there.

  “It was at that point that the police and the District Attorney’s office realised they had come across a vicious example of organised vice. An investigation of the agency immediately ensued.”

  I switched papers in my hand and began reading from one of them. “Park Avenue Models, Inc. Incorporated June 1948. Licensed to represent models for art, photography, fashion shows, etc. President, Maryann Flood.”

  I turned the page. The next sheet was a police report on Marja. I scanned it quickly as I walked silently toward the jury. Maryann Flood, born November 16, 1919, New York City. Unmarried. Record of first arrest, April 1936. Charge—Assault with a deadly weapon against stepfather. Before Magistrate Ross, Juvenile Court. Committed to Rose Geyer Home for Wayward Girls, May 1936. Discharged November 1937 upon reaching age of eighteen. Arrested February 1938. Charge—loitering for the purpose of and committing an act of prostitution Pleaded guilty. Received thirty days in the workhouse. Arrested April 1943. Charge—grand larceny after committing an act of prostitution. Pleaded not guilty. Case dismissed for lack of evidence. No further record of arrests. Was known as associate of persons with criminal records. Held as material witness in slaying of Ross Drego, prominent gambler and racketeer, in Los Angeles, California, in September 1950.

  I put the papers carefully together in my hand and pointed them at the jury. “From this beginning the State began to assemble a story of vice and corruption that made even its most callous and hardened officers sick to their stomachs. A story of innocent young girls being forced into a life of prostitution and perversion, of extortion, blackmail, and corruption that reached high into the business, social, and official life of the city. And behind all this sorry mess the evidence points to the machinations and planning of just one person.”

  I turned and pointed the papers dramatically at the defendant’s table. “Maryann Flood!”

  Without looking back at the jury I crossed the room to my table. I sat down amid the rising murmur of voices in the courtroom behind me. I stared down at the table. My eyes were burning. I blinked them wearily.

  “Good boy!” I heard Joel whisper.

  “You sure pasted her!” Alec’s voice came from the other side.

  I didn’t look up. I didn’t want to have to see her. It seemed as if a thousand years had passed since I had got up to address the jury.

  I heard the sound of the judge’s gavel on his desk. Then his heavy voice: “The court will adjourn until two o’clock.”

  Automatically I got to my feet as he left the court. Then without speaking I made for the private entrance to the District Attorney’s offices.

  We ducked the reporters by going out to lunch through the Tombs. I went into the Old Mill restaurant and was given a table in the far corner. I sat down with my back to the room, facing Joel and Alec. The waitress came up to us.

  “I need a drink,” I said and ordered a gin over rocks, with a twist of lemon peel. “How about you fellows?”

  They shook their heads and ordered their food. There was a murmur in the room behind us. I didn’t have to turn around to know who had come in. I looked questioningly at Joel.

  He nodded. “They’re here.”

  I smiled thinly. “It’s a free country.” Suddenly I couldn’t wait for the drink. I wished the damn waitress would hurry back. “Where’s my drink?” I growled irritably.

  “The waitress stopped to pick up their order on the way back,” Alec said quickly.

  A moment later she put the drink down in front of me. There was a peculiar expression on her face which I understood the moment I lifted my glass. There was writing on the doily under the glass.

  I didn’t have to look at the signature to recognise the writing. She still had the same childish scrawl.

  “Welcome to the big time, Counsellor,” it read. “Good luck!” It was signed “Marja.”

  I crumpled the doily with my fingers so that the others could not see it had been written on, and sipped my drink. That was one thing I had always liked about her. She was afraid of nothing.

  She wished me luck knowing full well that if I was lucky she could spend the next ten years of her life in gaol. She was like that even when she was a kid.

  I remembered once when I tried to stop her from crossing against the light into traffic that was moving wildly. Angrily she shook me off.

  “That’s the trouble with you, Mike,” she had said. “Afraid to take chances. Even on a little thing like this!”

  “But, Marja,” I had protested, “you could get hurt, or maybe even killed.”

  She had looked at me, the wild light blazing in her eyes. “So what, Mike?” she said, stepping into the gutter. “It’s my body, not yours.”

  That, in its essence, was the difference between us. That philosophy and a lot of other things. Like the way we had been brought up. She had an amazingly paradoxical capacity for both affection and cruelty.

  I sipped again at my drink. The cold, sweetish taste of the gin burned its way down my throat. I think my mother put her finger on it one night when I came home dejected from waiting for Marja to return from a date.

  I was too big to cry, but the tears hovered beneath my eyes. Mom knew it the moment I came in the door. She moved quickly towards me. I turned away to go to my room, but her hand caught mine and held me.

  “She’s not for you, Mike,” she said softly.

  I didn’t answer, just stared at her.

  “I’m not telling you who to like, son,” she added. “It’s just that she’s not for you. She’s been brought up without love and has no understanding of it.”

  I had pulled my hand away and went to my room, but what she had said stayed in mind. Without love.

  Now I could understand at last what Mother had meant.

  That in all its simplicity was the story of Marja’s life. Without love.

  BOOK ONE: MARJA

  Chapter One

  SHE PUSHED OPEN the door of the candy store and stood there a moment while her eyes adjusted to the dimness. The bright sun behind her framed her face in the shimmering gold of her hair. The violent scarlet slash that was her mouth drew back over white, ev
en teeth in a tentative smile. She walked toward the counter.

  There was no one in the store. Impatiently she tapped a coin on the marble top.

  There was an immediate answer from the rear of the shop, where Mr. Rannis had his rooms. “Just a minute, just a minute. I’m coming.”

  “That’s all right, Mr. Rannis,” she called. “It’s only me. I’ll wait.”

  The old man appeared in the doorway of his rear room. His hands were still busy adjusting his clothing. “Marja!” he exclaimed, a pleased tone coming into his voice. He moved stiffly behind the counter toward her. “What can I do for you?”

  She smiled at him. “Gimme five Twenty Grands.”

  Automatically he turned to the shelf behind him, then hesitated. He glanced back at her over his shoulder questioningly.

  “It’s okay, Mr. Rannis,” she said quickly. “I got a nickel.”

  He picked up an open package and shook five cigarettes out carefully and placed them on the counter before her, his hand covering them.

  She pushed a nickel toward him. He lifted his hand from the cigarettes and covered the coin. He slid it back along the counter toward himself and it dropped into the cash drawer just beneath the counter.

  The white-papered cigarettes were bright against the dirty grey marble. Slowly she picked one up and stuck it in her mouth. She reached toward the open box of wooden matches on the counter.

  Before she could strike a match he had one flaming in front of her. She dipped the cigarette into it and dragged deeply. She could feel the harsh, acrid smoke filter back into her lungs. She exhaled, the smoke rushing from her lips and nostrils. “Man, that’s good,” she said. She looked at the old man. “I thought I’d never get out of school. I wanted that smoke all day and nobody would even give me a drag.”

  The old man looked at her, his lips drawing back over his partially toothless gums in a smile. “Where have you been, Marja?” he asked. “I haven’t seen you all week.”

  She stared at him. “I been broke,” she answered bluntly. “An’ I owe yuh enough.”