It wasn't until after Jack died that I heard the whorehouse story. Flossie told it to me one night at Packy Delaney's Parody Club in Albany, one of Jack's latter-day hangouts. The Floss worked at Packy's as a singer and free-lance source of joy. She and I had no secrets, physical or professional, from each other.
'He was a handsome boy,' she began, 'with hair like Valentino, shiny and straight and with a blue tint to it because it was so black. Maybe that's why they called him Billy Blue. And they always said from St. Loo whenever they said his name. Billy Blue from St. Loo. I don't think his real name was Blue because he was Italian, like Valentino. He talked and laughed at the bar just like a regular fella, but you know they just ain't no regular fellas anymore, not since I was a kid in school. They all got their specialties. I never would've figured him for what he was. I never even figured him for carryin' a gun. He looked too pretty.
'I was working in Loretta's place on East Thirty-third Street, her own house which she'd lived in alone since her husband was clubbed to death by two fellas he tried to cheat with loaded dice. Loretta had been in the life when she was young and went back to it after that happened. It was a nice place, an old town house with all her old kerosene lamps turned into electric, and nice paintings of New York in the old days, and a whole lineup of teapots she'd collected when she went straight. We were as good as there was in the city and we got a lot of the swells, but we also got a lot of business from hoodlums with big money. Billy was one of those.
' 'What's your name?' he says to me when he come in.
' 'The Queen of Stars, that's my name.'
' 'Beautiful Queen of Stars,' he says to me. 'I'm going to screw love into you.'
'Nobody knew my real name and they never would. And it's not Flossie neither. My old man would've died of shame if he knew what I was doin', and I didn't want to hurt him more than I already done. So I picked Queen of Stars when Loretta asked me what my name was. I was thinking of Queen of Diamonds, but I never figured I'd ever get any diamonds, and I was dead right about that. All I ever got was rhinestones. So I said Stars because I had as much right to them as anybody livin'. Then Loretta said okay and we went from there to business, that lousy business. You couldn't get out once you were in because they hooked you. They even charged you for the towels. And the meals? You'd think it was some swanky place the way they priced everything. Then they took half what you made, and by the time you were done payin', what you had left wasn't worth sockin' away. And try and quit. Marlene got it with a blackjack in the alley, and she didn't quit anymore. They even beat up Loretta once after she complained about how much she had to pay the guys up above. The only thing to do was forget it. Just work and don't try to beat 'em out of anything because you couldn't. They were bastards, all of 'em, and a girl had no chance. I saved what I could and figured when I got enough money, I'd make a move. But I never did because I never knew where to move to.
'So Billy Blue, he called me by my full name anyway. Some of them called me Queenie and most everybody that knew me good called me Stars, but he was one of the few called me the whole thing. I liked him. Most of them I didn't like, but most I didn't even look at. Billy was pretty to look at. He got me to sit on the edge of my oak dresser, and then he walked into me. He had his pistol in his hand and stuck it in my mouth and told me to suck it. Jeez, that got me. I was scared as hell. It tasted like sour, oily stuff and I kept thinking, if he gets too excited when he comes, he'll blow a hole in my head. But what could I do?
' 'You like my pistol?' he asks me.
'Now what do you say to a goofy question like that? I couldn't say anything anyway with the thing in my mouth, but I tried to smile and I give him a nod and he seemed to like that. You can't understand how a nice-lookin' fella like that could be so bugs. The first bug I ever had stuck a feather duster up his hiney, his own duster he brought with him, and jumped around the room makin' noises like a turkey. All I did was sit on the bed so he could look at me while he did his gobbles.
'So I'm on the table and Billy's doing his stuff and I got the pistol in my mouth when the door opens and in comes Jack Diamond and two other guys, one of them was The Goose with his one eye and the other was fat Jimmy Biondo, and they got guns out, but not Jack, who was just lookin' around with them eyes of his that looked right through doors and walls, and The Goose shoots twice. One bullet hit the mirror of my oak dresser. The other one got Billy in the right shoulder, and he let go the pistol, which fell out of my mouth onto the floor and cut my lip. Billy didn't fall. He just spun around and stared at the men, with nothing on him at all but the safety.
'Jack looked at me and said, 'It's all right, Stars, don't worry about anything.'
'I was scared as hell, but I felt sorry for Billy because he looked so pretty, even if he was bugs. I started to get off the table, but The Goose says to me 'Just stay there,' and so I did, because he was the meanest-looking guy I ever saw. Jack was just lookin' at Billy and gettin' red in the face. You could see how mad he was, but he didn't talk. He just stared, and all of a sudden he takes a gun out of his coat pocket and shoots Billy in the stomach three times, and Billy falls sideways on my bed, bleedin' all over the new yellow blanket I had to pay eleven bucks for after a customer peed all over my other one and the pee smell wouldn't wash out.
''Loretta came runnin' then, and was she mad.
'Why the hell'd you do that here?' she asked Jack. 'What'm I supposed to do with him? Goddamn it all, Jack, I can't handle this. '
'Billy was moanin' a little bit, so I sat down alongside him, just to be near him. He looked at me like he wanted me to do somethin' for him, get a doctor or somebody, but I couldn't do anything except look at him and nod my head, I was so scared. I thought if they decided to leave maybe I could help him then.
' 'We'll take him with us,' Jack said. 'Wrap him up.'
'The Goose and Biondo walked over to the bed and stood over Billy. Billy's eyes were still open and he looked at me.
' 'It's sloppy,' The Goose said, and he took an ice pick out of his coat and punched it half a dozen times through Billy's temples, first one side then the other. It happened so fast I couldn't not look. Then he and Jimmy Biondo wrapped Billy in my yellow blanket and carried him down the back way to the alley. Billy was still straight up and still had the safety on. I'd told him I was clean, that I got regular checkups, but he wore it anyway. I didn't see The Goose or Biondo again for years, but I saw Jack quite a lot. He was our protector. That's what they called him anyway. Some protector. It was him and his guys beat up Loretta and Marlene-the bastards, the things they could do and then be so nice. But they also took care nobody shook us down and nobody arrested us. I don't know how he did it, but Jack kept the cops away, and my whole life I never been in jail except for being drunk. Jack didn't own us, though. I always heard Arnold Rothstein did, but I never knew for sure. Loretta never told us anything. Jack did own some places later and got me a job in a House of All Nations he was partners in, up in Montreal. I was supposed to be either a Swede or a Dutchie because of my blond hair. Jack brought me back down to Albany a couple of years later and I've been here ever since.
'I really hardly knew him, saw him in Loretta's a few times, that's all, until he gave Billy Blue his. Then one night about a month later he come in and buys me a real drink. None of that circus water Loretta dished us out when the chumps were buying. Jack bought the real stuff for us.
' 'I'm sorry about that whole scene, Stars,' he said, 'but we had to settle a score. Your guinea friend tried to kill me six months ago.'
'Jack took my fingers and ran them over the back of his head where he said there were still some shotgun pellets. It was very bumpy behind his left ear.
' 'Were you scared, Stars?'
' 'Was I! I been sick over it. I can't sleep.'
' 'Poor kid. I was really sorry to do that to you.'
'He was still holding my hand and then he rubbed my hair. The first thing you know we were back up in my room and we really got to know one another, I'll tell the world.'
The Wilson, Rothstein, O'Hagan, and Blue confessions came out of Jack so totally without reservation that I told him, 'I believe you about Northrup now.'
'Sometimes I tell the truth.'
'I don't know as I'm so sure why you've told me all these stories, though.'
'I want you to know who you're working for.'
'You seem to trust me.'
