Irving Wallace: The Golden Room

'Close only counts in bed,' snapped Minna.

Aida continued to scan the front page. 'Minna, listen to this. Prince Henry of Prussia, the brother of the kaiser of Germany…'

'What about him?'

'He's coming to Chicago soon. Minna, he'll attract a lot of people. It could mean more business for us.'

'What business? We'll be out of business. Harrison will see to that.'

'Why don't we find out what Bathhouse and Hinky Dink have to say?' pleaded Aida. 'Here, let me pour you a whisky.'

'Make it a double!'

Fifteen minutes later, as Minna and Aida sat brooding, Edmund the valet knocked, opened the door, and showed John Coughlin and Michael Kenna into the office.

Minna snatched up the paper and waved the front page at Coughlin. 'After taking all of our pay-off money, how do you explain this? Your very own ward turned the tide for Harrison. How did that happen?'

'We passed your money around,' Coughlin said with sincerity. 'Apparently it wasn't enough. Someone else must have come along and outspent us.'

'I don't believe you,' said Minna sharply. 'I'll bet you pocketed it all yourselves.'

'Minna, I swear -' began Coughlin.

'We spent it all,' interjected Kenna. 'Somebody on the mayor's side just came along and bamboozled us.'

'It makes no sense,' persisted Minna. 'The Levee vote was suicidal. Everyone voted against themselves. Everyone is going to be wiped out, and first of all the Everleigh sisters.'

'No, that's not true,' said Coughlin. 'That's what I was coming over here to tell you.'

'What do you mean, not true?' Minna demanded.

'Please sit down, Minna. You too, Aida, and let me explain what really happened.' He waited for the sisters to sit, and then picked up the newspaper. 'It says here you lost, but I can tell you that you really won.'

'That's a slick one, Bathhouse,' said Minna bitterly. 'We lost but we won.'

Coughlin pushed on. 'Just listen to me. Hinky Dink and I were with Mayor Harrison this morning. To congratulate him. I tell the mayor, "You can do whatever you want to do with the other houses in the Levee. But you can't close the Everleigh Club." The mayor rears up at that. "Who says I can't close the Everleigh Club? It's the one whorehouse I mean to close and fast." Then Hinky Dink speaks up and says, "Mayor, we have it on good authority it is not a whorehouse. Sure, it was once. But it isn't one now. The Everleigh Oub is a restaurant, and the girls there are dancers and entertainers." The mayor is furious. He says, "I know it's a whorehouse." So I says to him, "Mayor, you better prove that for certain before you can close it down." That shut him up for now.' Coughlin beamed at Minna. 'So there you are, home free.'

'Who's home free?' Minna demanded. 'If I haven't got our house and our girls, what have I got?'

'An expensive restaurant, with special charges for seeing the girls perform, in whatever way they perform. Maybe a way can be arranged for some of them to perform upstairs if you're careful to screen all visitors.'

'But, in effect, we still don't have a house anymore,' insisted Minna.

'Not exactly. You can earn enough on the restaurant to keep going, and let the girls do floor shows as entertainment.'

'You know our real money comes from upstairs.'

'So you'll lose a little for a short time,' said Coughlin cheerfully. 'Gradually, the heat will be off. The mayor will have other, more pressing matters on his mind. He can claim he reformed you and forget about it. When he does, you can resume business as usual – no more problems. So maybe you think you lost, but Hinky Dink and I say you won, in the long run you won.'

'That's a terrible scheme, but I'll go along with it for a little while, as long as you do your part.'

'Meaning?'

'Meaning that you see to it that none of the Harrison-people get in here. I don't want spies who'll try to prove we're still running a whorehouse.'

'Hinky Dink and I will do our best. You have to do your part too.'

'Like what?'

'You have to get your girls to pledge they won't peep a word of any goings-on upstairs. That means your servants too.'

'Don't worry about the girls and the servants. They don't want the place shut down. They want their jobs.'

Kenna moved up beside Coughlin. 'One thing, Minna. Do you have any outsiders who work here?'

'Outsiders? Just one. Dr Myers from the Loop. He comes here weekly to examine the girls.'

'Can you trust him?' asked Kenna.

'How do I know?'

'Not good enough,' said Coughlin. 'Fire him. We have someone to replace him.' He looked at Kenna, who nodded assent. Coughlin resumed. 'We know of a Dr Herman H. Holmes, who specializes in female complaints and who has offices in Englewood, which isn't that far away. We heard he's the most close-mouthed and trustworthy doctor around. We can tell him what's going on, and I know you can depend on him. We'll send him over Saturday. Mayor Harrison'll never learn a thing. Then you can use the restaurant front, and quietly keep up your business.'

'Sounds reasonable,' said Minna. She glanced over at her sister. 'Aida, let's assume it'll work, and let's have a bottle of champagne on the reformed Everleigh Club.'

When Harold T. Armbruster received the call from Mayor Harrison's secretary, Miss Karen Grant, inviting him to drop by for a moment that afternoon to convey his thanks for the meat-packer's assistance in the election, Armbruster hesitated momentarily. He was a busy man, and normally he would have suggested it would be sufficient for the mayor to thank him on the telephone. But then Armbruster remembered something else he had read in the morning newspaper besides the election results. What he had read was very much on his mind.

He had decided that it might be a wise idea to meet with the mayor in person, after all.

'Yes, fine,' Armbruster had said. 'Tell Mayor Harrison I'll be delighted to come by this afternoon at three o'clock.'

Now, at five minutes after three, Armbruster sat comfortably in a tufted leather chair across from the mayor's roll-top oak desk.

'Congratulations,' Armbruster said again. 'It was a wonderful victory you had yesterday.'

The mayor leaned back in his own high leather swivel chair, plainly pleased with his triumph. 'Thank you for your kind words,' Harrison said, 'and more than that, thank you for your contribution. That probably made the whole thing possible. Let me repeat, Mr Armbruster, if there is ever anything that I can do for you…'

Armbruster interrupted him. 'As a matter of fact, there is something.'

'Ah, good. You need only name it.'

'There was an item that I read in the paper this morning.'

'And what was that?'

'It was about Prince Henry of Prussia, head of the German Navy, the brother to Kaiser Wilhelm. He's coming to the United States to pick up the kaiser's new yacht – and he intends to make one side trip – right here to Chicago, presumably because of our large German population. May I ask you, Mayor Harrison, is this true?'

'Absolutely. I don't have the date, yet, but I believe that Prince Henry will be in our fair city in about three weeks.'

Armbruster leaned forward intently. 'Mayor, the fact is, I would like to meet Prince Henry.'

'I'm sure that can be arranged.'

'I don't mean merely a handshake. I would like to have a relaxed talk with him. Will he be very busy?'

The mayor thought about it. 'Well, Prince Henry's visit is still in the planning stage. We hope to have him place a wreath on the Abraham Lincoln Monument. Then we plan to escort him on a quick visit through the city. About this talk you want with Prince Henry – is it important?'

'To me it is, yes, very important,' Armbruster said urgently. 'I want to request that the prince assist me in becoming

ambassador to Germany.' Armbruster checked himself briefly. 'Let me confide in you, Mayor Harrison. I have at this stage in my life almost everything a man could wish. A prosperous business. A beautiful mansion for a home. A devoted family and good friends. I have as much wealth as I could ever want. I have everything that Armour, Swift, Marshall Field, and my peers have, except one thing – social status. My peers have it. I don't. For the benefit of my wife, my children, myself, I would like to have social status too. Becoming ambassador to Germany would give me exactly that.'