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Wasted Life a Law Edwards Mystery by Sam Stefanik
6 Memories of a Madam
I bounded down the stairs from the rooming house I lived in at the time and hurried along the street. It was Friday, July 26th, 1929. I'd had a shit day, at the end of a shit week, and I was ready to blow off some steam. The fucking Treasury Department had shown up again on Monday, unannounced and unwelcome. They were in the middle of another push to enforce Prohibition on a city that didn't want anything to do with it.
As I was only in my second year on the detective's squad, me and a lot of other younger guys were seconded to the treasury feds to help them clean up the city, or some such horseshit. The idea behind that marriage made by bureaucracy was that the Treasury Department had the right to search and arrest without warrants and we, the dedicated detectives of the Philadelphia Police Department, had the street knowledge on where to search and who to arrest.
The trouble was, the Philadelphia detectives, including me, were all as crooked as hell. We did our jobs when it came to actual crime, but for harmless stuff like bootleg liquor and speakeasies, we turned a blind eye. Often, we were well paid for our blindness.
Each time the feds came, we had to play along. We didn't have any choice if we wanted to keep our jobs. Usually, we'd stick with the federal fools during the day to lead them down blind alleys and up dead-end streets. At night we'd alert the sources of our graft to the federal plans for the following day. Our warnings would help the bootleggers steer clear of the feds so they could keep the liquor flowing.
The federal programs usually lasted two weeks to a month. Since it had only been a week, I knew I'd have to suffer for at least another full week until things got back to normal. The feds had pissed me off. I was in a foul mood and that made me especially eager to get to Madam Mitchell's place that night.
Besides the misery the feds brought with them, was the aggravation of the hot weather. The heat itself wasn't the problem, the problem was the stink it caused. Philadelphia in those days was still very much a horse drawn city. With the heat of the late summer came clouds of flies and the barnyard scents of lathered draft animals and hot horse manure. The atmosphere was too close to the one I'd endured as a doughboy in the trenches of The Great War.
My time as a soldier had ended with one brief moment of catastrophic violence that led to months of brutally painful convalescence. My memories of that time were all bad and the late summer city stink triggered them in the worst way. My stomach was usually knotted for most of July, all of August, and at least half of September.
Only two things helped ease my pain and quiet the memories. The first was gin. If I could maintain a constant low-grade intoxication, my guts would feel less like a canvas bag full of fighting snakes. The other thing that helped was getting away from the smell. That was impossible to do during working hours, but after work, I could escape to Madam Mitchell's paradise.
Paradise is where I was headed as I drank warm gin from my hip flask and strolled along Oregon Avenue with the sunset at my back. I progressed along the short blocks, and knew I was getting close when the residences thinned out and the property lots to the south became mostly vacant. The air changed, almost to an ocean breeze as I drew close to the Pennsylvania Salt Works near the waterfront. The waterfront was the shore of the freshwater Delaware River, but the salt from the factory cleaned the air and made everything pleasant. The clean-smelling air helped my crawling guts. They still crawled, but not as badly.
Right before the salt works, and opposite the vast warehouses and switch yards of the Pennsylvania Railroad, was a single house. To refer to it merely as `a house' was to understate. It was a mansion, a massive Victorian monstrosity built over three floors. The mansion's style was like some kind of nightmare wedding cake, with turrets and wrought iron and fancy gingerbread stuck all over it. That's how it looked on the outside. On the inside, it was heaven. The house was the home of Madam Mitchell's bar, restaurant, and whorehouse which catered exclusively to the homosexual male.
I climbed the grand staircase, taking two of the curved marble steps at a time, until I stood on the wrap-around porch. I paused to cast an eye along the row of tall tables arranged behind the porch rail. Each had a glass vase in the center that held a single fresh carnation. Most had at least one man seated at it. I threw my hand in the air and waved to Charlie who was delivering drinks from a small tray.
"You look like shit, Charlie!" I shouted my part of the running joke at the heavily muscled, shirtless waiter. Charlie was like a Greek statue made flesh. He was gorgeous. No matter what job he did at Mitch's, I made sure to get an eyeful of his breathtaking form. Because I couldn't have him, I always teased him.
I'd met Charlie when he was a substitute bartender. I'd also seen him deal a fast-moving game of blackjack. I'd made advances toward him several times, but Charlie always rejected my offers. He'd said I wasn't his type. When he rejected me, I childishly responded by telling him I hadn't wanted him in the first place. "You look like shit anyway!" I'd snarled at him.
Charlie hadn't been bothered by my disappointed anger and ever since then my childish retort had become a teasing exchange between us. Charlie never disappointed me with his reactions to my accusation. That night he smiled a lopsided grin at me and shook his head. His long, raven black hair was up in a ponytail but was still long enough to brush his shoulders with the movement. Charlie set a drink in front of a patron and cocked his arm back to flex a bulging bicep at me.
"Yeah, but what can you do with it?" I challenged.
Charlie craned his head toward the hard, round muscle and planted a kiss on top of it. He dropped his arm and grinned at me again. I roared with barks of laughter. Charlie could always make me laugh.
I finished barking and rapped my knuckles on the painted surface of the wide front door. I knocked just to the right of the brass plate that still bore the name of the home's original owner. `Cassatt,' the plate read in black filled, old fashioned script.
I'd been told that Cassatt had been an eccentric executive of the Pennsylvania Railroad. He'd built the house where it stood so he could breathe the steam and coal smoke from the properties that made him his fortune. When he died, his family kept the fortune but not the house.
The residence had gone through several owners since then, each of progressively lower and lower class, until Mitch bought the place in 1923 and opened her funhouse. I thought of old Cassatt while I waited for the door to open to my knock. I wondered with dark amusement over how he'd feel if he knew what his house had become since his death.
I didn't wonder for long. The door opened to my knock and swung inward with barely a whisper of well-oiled hinges. Behind the door was Madam Mitchell herself. The Madam was theatrical as all hell and insisted that everyone around her play along with her fantasies. I immediately assumed the role she'd assigned to me. I swept my arm to the side and bowed to the Madam's royal personage. "Dear Madam." I said to her from the lowest point of my bow.
"Welcome!" Mitch said in her falsetto voice from behind her Chinese fan. "Welcome to the Kingdom of Keystone, my hero. Welcome to you, my errant Hero of Law and Order."
Mitch always called me that because of my position on the police force. She also called me that because she thought of me as her personal detective. I protected Madam Mitchell's `kingdom' and made sure that neither the feds, nor the vice boys, tried to raid the dear Madam's establishment.
Mitch snapped her fan shut, hid it away into the folds of her startling blue velvet ballgown, and struck an attitude to show off her dress. The pose she'd taken was toward the glow of the overhead chandelier and was done for the light to shine on the silver piping and glittering sequins that trimmed her gown. Mitch altered her attitude just enough so she could offer her small hand for me to kiss.
I kissed the back of the hand that bore a diamond ring on every finger and gave it gracefully back to the madam. I rose to admire the plunging neckline of her gown and the complicated wig she wore that night.
Mitch had the largest collection of wigs I'd ever seen. I don't think she ever wore the same one twice. That night, her head was plastered with a great pile of white ringlets woven with blue feathers to match her dress. She glared disdainful dignity up at me from her bare five feet of height and pursed her red mouth in her heavily powdered face.
"Dear man," the sixty-year-old man pretending to be a dowager said to open a question, "will you take this week's gratuity in coin or in trade?"
"Trade, my lady, very rough trade." I replied.
Madam Mitch didn't break character. She never did. She remained the image of dignity in spite of the fact that she was the owner and manager of the biggest and best queer whorehouse in Philly. "Shall I call a lineup of the Knights of Keystone for you?"
Madam Mitch's question nearly made me laugh. I had to bite my tongue every time she asked it, and she always asked it the same way. The `Knights of Keystone' were the whores who staffed her funhouse. Madam Mitch was a scream, especially as she was always deadly serious.
In Mitch's mind, she didn't run a whorehouse, she was the ruler of a kingdom, and her kingdom was named for the state motto of Pennsylvania. The Kingdom of Keystone was called that because Pennsylvania was the Keystone State, so named because of some nonsense about the original thirteen colonies. The whores were the Knights of Keystone and all of Mitch's allies were `the errant hero of this and that.' I thought the whole thing was silly, but it was fun to play along with Mitch, so I always played along.
"No thanks, Madam." I said to answer the dear lady's question. "I want to get a load on first, then we'll see how many of your toys I play with."
Mitch's fan appeared from nowhere, seemingly so she could use it to point the way to the bar. "All the hospitality the kingdom has to offer is at your disposal my hero."
I bowed to Mitch once more and headed for the bar. I took my time as I passed through the two big plain rooms that housed the gaming tables. Mitch hosted blackjack, poker, roulette, and craps. She permitted no slot machines because she didn't believe in what she called `low entertainment.'
I liked the gaming rooms even though I didn't use them. My money came to me easily but gambling never called to me. I'd bet on the horses from time to time, but losing hand after hand of blackjack held no allure. Still, I liked the murmur of the betting crowd and the click, click, click of the roulette wheel as it chose the next winner. I liked that the patrons all dressed to the nines to spend their money at Mitch's. From the time I was a child, I loved the sight of immaculate men in fine suits and silk shirts.
The gaudy gaming tables and well-dressed patrons were in stark contrast to the rooms that housed them. I knew that once upon a time, the first floor of the Cassatt mansion would have been a warren of little parlors and sitting rooms. I could see where they used to be by tracing the different ceiling finishes and light fixtures that still hung where Cassatt had put them.
Sometime before Mitch purchased the house, it had been a Saturday night dancehall. The dancehall proprietor had demolished the interior walls to open the first floor up for his purposes. Everything the dancehall owner added to the house was plain and cheap, but that didn't detract from the classy feel of the busy spaces.
I think that's what I liked the most about the gaming rooms. I liked to feel that I was somehow still part of high-class society. Not a member of it exactly, but maybe like I stood just outside of it. I liked the glow those people exuded. I liked to feel it reflected upon me. Because I had once enjoyed a position just on the outside, I took my job as protector of the Kingdom of Keystone very seriously. After I finished my little daydream over the atmosphere, I sharpened my attention and checked the rooms to make sure there were no undercover plants in attendance.
Some of the vice squad boys had been talking about Mitch's place lately. They'd said she was being too flagrant. They didn't like queerness on display in `their city.' I thought the joke was on them. Ever since the start of Prohibition, old fashioned puritan morality seemed a thing of the past, a relic to be forgotten. Queerness was slipping out of the shadows and into the light.
Mitch's place wasn't the only queer bar or whorehouse in the vast city. There were others and they operated more-or-less in the open, much like the cat houses for the straight-as-an-arrow guys. I figured that soon, none of my fellow queers would have to hide what they were. Still, hard feelings lingered, and I was wary that the vice boys might plant some undercover guys in Mitch's to cause trouble.
I also kept an eye out for high rollers. I knew that certain members of the city council, prominent lawyers, businessmen, and stage actors were known to frequent Mitch's. I liked to keep an eye on them when they were present. In the unlikely event of an unannounced raid, I could pretend to arrest the influential person or people and spirit them out the back door. That way I could keep their identity out of the newspapers.
While I did the job that I was well paid for, I also scanned the room for new talent. Mitch employed a smorgasbord of gorgeous, shirtless men. The entire staff, from the gambling dealers to the wait staff, to the bartenders, even the cigarette and cigar men were attractive, young, shirtless men. The staff were required to wear slacks while the whores could wear as little as they liked when they were among the crowd. Whenever the whores weren't engaged with a client, they would work the crowd in the gambling rooms or in the bar to drum up more business.
The only places the whores weren't allowed was the porch and the restaurant. Mitch insisted on her own brand of decorum. That's why the regular staff all wore slacks. "In a palace or in a whorehouse, dignity and decorum always!" Mitch had insisted to me during one of her rare, inebriated moments.
I paused to linger at the bottom of the grand staircase that led upstairs. I leaned against the busy, floral print wallpaper and held my churning insides. I'd stopped to watch the flow of traffic up and down the staircase, the ascending patrons, eager for their time in paradise and the descending ones, temporarily sated and already planning the next visit.
One always ascended the stairs arm in arm with their partner or partners but descended by themselves. This was so the whore could wash up and reset the room for the next pair of tenants. I wondered who my partner would be that evening. Mitch had an amazing variety to choose from. She employed at least sixteen men of all shapes, sizes, and nationalities to preside over the dozen pleasure rooms on the second floor of the house.
Recently I'd been favoring a lithe, boyish Pacific Islander. I liked his taught body, exotic look, and silky black hair. He was an insatiable lover and a submissive one. His name began with the letter `K' and ended with a string of vowels. I had no idea how to pronounce it, so I didn't bother. I referred to him simply by the first letter of his name. He and I had been trying all the different rooms.
We'd met during a huge, all-night orgy in the Arabian Nights suite. That room was decorated with pastel silk and satin cushions, flowing curtains, and a wardrobe of robes and loincloths. K had offered himself to me and I accepted. Since then, he'd been my steady choice for a partner. After that night, me and K tried The King's Court, which was a room with a large throne and tin suit of armor that stood in the corner. I'd had fun as the king while K had been my dancing jester.
We'd also tried the schoolhouse where I'd been the principal and K had been a misbehaving schoolboy badly in need of discipline. On another night, K had seemed particularly at home in the Asian room with its gold dragons and silk robes. We had yet to explore the dungeon, the jail cell, the pretend public restroom, or the gymnasium. We also hadn't used any of the standard rooms.
I'd enjoyed K, but the eyeful I'd gotten of solidly built Charlie out on the porch made me wonder if something more masculine was in order for that night. Maybe someone who was more of a match for me physically. As much as I liked to take charge, I wondered if a change might be in order. I wondered if it were time for a man instead of a boy.
I decided to go to the bar to think about it over a couple gin and tonics. At the bar is where I saw him for the first time.