“I have nothing that can be squeezed into ten minutes.” I laughed.
“Oh, look, nine minutes.”
She was funny, Alma.
I decided to tell her about my life with Rose. I needed to tell someone, and Alma was at that moment my only girlfriend. I told her everything up to and including the visits from the lawyers and Schmitz.
Upon hearing my story, Alma sat up, her brow furrowed. “The other night,” she said, “AB was talking with some fellas and I overheard a good bit. Everyone knows they’re tightening the noose on Ruef and Schmitz. But it seems they’re intent on casting a wider net. Rose’s name was mentioned.”
“How do you mean?”
“Well, I only gave them half an ear, because, my God, those men can talk round a thing, but they’re calling it a grand sweep—as many big and little fishes as they can catch.” Alma squinted at the bottle. “There was talk about proving the extent of the money trail. Bribes and more bribes.”
“And that would include Rose?”
“Mmm.” Alma nodded. “Has she said anything?”
“Uh-uh. She never shows her hand if she can help it.”
“Well, keep an eye out,” Alma warned, and having taken care of business, she looped her thin arm around me. “Now, tell me: What of that boyfriend?” Alma smiled. “Bobby Monster.”
I laughed. “His name is Bobby Del Monte, and I thought you said I was out of time.”
“Oh, we have loads of time for that,” Alma assured me. “Tell me all about him.”
As soon as Alma said the bit about Rose being in trouble, I knew it was true. The piece I’d been reluctant to see. It wasn’t bribes from the folks intent on trolleys that would prove to be Abe Ruef and Gene Schmitz’s undoing, and it wasn’t the Standard Lodge, that seediest of brothels; no, it was the ho-hum everyday payola from the Frenchies that put them in the sights of the prosecution. The steady flow of cash that came from the tills of the Poodle Dog and the Pup, and a list of others—the restaurants and hotels from which the mayor and the Board of Supervisors had received regular kickbacks. The money was a melody that played under everything. Who had it, who gave it, and all along Rose acted as Schmitz’s adviser, his greaser, and for that, she’d received a handsome cut.
If they were looking to lock up folks for taking bribes, Rose’s name was high on that list. If it could be proved. Same as the mayor, Rose was looking for a way out.
After the holidays, as the charred hills of the city were being pounded with heavy rain, Schmitz once again visited the gold house.
I was upstairs with Rose. Schmitz must have rung the bell and been let in by one of the women, but I never heard the gong. He burst into the bedroom as we were finishing a conversation about the week’s schedule. I was her secretary now, sending notes to her associates and arranging their visits to the house. I’d gone to fetch her a glass of water from the bathroom. Schmitz, dripping wet in his coat and hat, didn’t bother with hello. “Rose, I’ve just been with the lawyers. Older and Spreckels have called on the president to appoint a U.S. attorney to handle the prosecution. Did you hear me? Teddy Goddamn Roosevelt is after me, Abe, and you.”
I hovered in the doorway, in full view of Schmitz.
“The Poodle,” Rose scolded. “I told you not to go there, Gene. We didn’t need cash from every second-rate saloon and joint.”
“Abe was the one with his hand out,” Schmitz protested, his voice thin with self-pity. “They wanted protection. We couldn’t let them—”
“You could have let them,” Rose corrected. “Goddamn it, you could have let them,” she barked. “Then you have to draw attention by being the first to get permits to rebuild? You, the mayor?” She went on, lashing Schmitz with her tongue. “And what do you rebuild, what classy operation do you choose as your flag, to show everyone you’ve turned over a new leaf? Why, the Standard, that dirty crib-joint with the girls taking abuse at twenty-five cents a go? You know, I’ve never cared for that kind of operation. The girls are sick, the customers are low-grade filth. But you, you have no ability to see the larger picture—”
“It wasn’t me,” Schmitz protested. “It was Abe.”
“No, it was you, Gene. You think like a two-bit player. Worse, you’re greedy,” she bellowed. “You know, on the farm we had one rule: when the rooster starts acting like he’s got a spare cock, cut that one off too.”
“Ha!” he grumbled. “I never pegged you as a farmer’s daughter.”
“We’re all farmers’ daughters, once upon a time,” she said, her voice husky with rage and pain and something unmistakable to my ear—fear. My Rose was afraid. “Now I have to worry about more loose ends? Christ, Gene. Tell me you’ve taken care of things.”
“Yes! Yes,” he vowed, but he didn’t sound convincing. “There’s just one, uh, bundle I can’t get to—”
“Can’t is for fools in prison,” she spat.
“What can I do? They’ve impounded our old house,” he whined. “I buy Julia a mansion but all she can talk about is cops putting their dirty boots on her old furniture. She’s beside herself. Of course, knowing nothing about—” And here Schmitz looked at me, and I saw him decide that I was one of them after all, and that his problems were more urgent than any fear he might have of me. “Ah,” he went on, “with the jail in ruins, they’re talking about holding Abe ahead of his trial in our house—can you believe it?—with guards all over the place. Abe, of all people.”
Rose turned her cycloptic gaze in my direction. “Oh, hello, big ears. You still there?” She nodded to Schmitz to keep on. “Ironic, your pal Abe under lock and key in your house.”
If Schmitz saw the irony, he didn’t appreciate
