Not surprisingly, they were combining pleasure and business, for they were never quite able to indulge strictly in the former.
Prohibition had been in effect for a decade. Bootleggers flourished and quickly metastasized into the organized gangs that thereafter plagued the country. The empowerment of the gangs and the relatedcorruption of politicians that followed struck them as promising material for a film.
In those dry days, the Gaslamp Quarter, though famous for its beautiful Victorian architecture, was known as well for its brothels and the easy availability of demon rum. Some speakeasies were dim and dirty places that provided sports betting and card games. Others were stylish supper clubs that did business under the protection of city hall.
Blue Mood was the most elegant of such establishments in the Gaslamp Quarter. It occupied a former garment factory on a back street. There was no sign or parking lot to call attention to the place; customers curbed their vehicles on surrounding streets or taxied to and from this fountain of forbidden brews.
The windows had been infilled with bricks, and an effort had been made to soundproof the walls. Nevertheless, muffled music could be heard a block away, because Blue Mood employed a nine-piece band that accompanied some stage acts and provided dance music.
Occasionally a member of the Temperance Union or Anti-Saloon League filed a complaint with authorities. They were told that the garment factory had been repurposed as a recording studio and venue for big bands to practice, a legitimate enterprise.
If those who complained were to doubt that explanation, they might discover that water and power were no longer provided to their residences. This reliably proved to be a billing error, and it was regrettable that two weeks or more passed before the mistake could be rectified. Fate meddled in the lives of the complainers with impressive creativity, visiting a variety of misfortunes on them until they convinced themselves that, indeed, the old garment factory had been repurposed as a recording studio.
On Saturday, September 6, on their second night in San Diego, Franklin and Loretta went to Blue Mood for a steak dinner, superb wine, and research. This was not the first speakeasy they visited overthe past decade. However, in the higher social circles, Blue Mood had a singular reputation for its elegance, fine cuisine, and risqué entertainment, which suggested that this was the place most likely to provide two filmmakers with colorful material for a movie.
The maître d’ sported a tuxedo, and every waiter wore black slacks and a white shirt. Members of the band, excellent musicians, were dressed alike in black slacks, powder-blue sport coats, and black neckties. There was a comic who relied on blue material. There were two gorgeous chorus girls, resplendent in sequined and feathered costumes; they shared the stage with the funnyman and acted as his foils, and both were topless.
Franklin and Loretta were sophisticated. Neither the foul-mouthed comic nor the topless beauties shocked them. However, they weren’t prepared for a thing like me or for the humiliation to which I was subjected—or for the laughter and applause with which the other two hundred well-heeled patrons responded to every indignity that I was forced to endure.
Five
Loretta’s anger was hot, but her voice was ice cold as she repeatedly stabbed Captain’s chest with a forefinger to emphasize her words. “No one has the right to buy another human being. You don’t have—no one has—the right to force a child to endure a crucible like that disgusting so-called stage act of yours, to endure it even once let alone over and over again.”
Captain’s usual bluff and bluster deflated like a punctured tire. He retreated from Loretta until he backed into a wall. “I have papers. Papers signed by her mother. Adoption papers approved by a court.” He drew himself up in a pretense of righteous indignation. “If you don’t get out of here right now, I’ll summon the police.”
“Summon?” Loretta said. “Should we refer to you as your royal highness? Your majesty? Sure, all right,callthe police. You think they’ll storm into a speakeasy that they’ve been paid to pretend doesn’t exist? And if they do, after the raid, will management just break your legs or maybe put a bullet in your head?”
Until now, Captain had viewed the world as a planet of rubes, marks to be bamboozled. This couple that had invaded his domain were neither hicks nor gullible sophisticates. They could not be cowed by threats, intimidated by pompous attitude, or snowed by an avalancheof words. Captain suddenly realized that his usual feints and bold flourishes would not win the day. His customary high self-regard melted like stage makeup under too many hot lights, and something of the boy he had once been came into view. His round face swelled with petulance and, for the first time in my experience, he glistened with sweat. There was anger in his eyes, but also confusion and fear. Any difficult child looked like this as he worked himself into a tantrum. His lower lip trembled. He made a fist of his right hand.
Franklin shouldered past Loretta and seized her would-be assailant’s wrist below the fist. With his other hand, he clutched Captain’s throat and pressed him so hard against the wall that my keeper’s ever-pale countenance flushed a shade of red that I found satisfying. “Just settle down, Farnam. Don’t be stupid. It’s over. You know it. We don’t need to see your papers. No court would allow a man who’s not a relative—a carnival barker or whatever you are—to adopt a child as afflicted as this girl and put her on exhibit.”
“You have no damn idea what a judge will do for money,” Captain declared, spittle springing from his lips. “People like you have no damn idea.”
Now and then the band played a few bars in support of whatever Buddy Beamer was doing onstage. The music seemed to come from far away, from another world.
Franklin’s anger didn’t put an edge on his voice, as his wife’s anger sharpened hers. He sounded like a prosecutor calmly laying out the case against a defendant. “Even if some judge was pitiless and corrupt enough to sell out to a piker like you, he’ll have scrubbed it from the public record. So the charge is kidnapping. They fry you for that, Farnam. But if you’re smart, it won’t go to court. As much as we’d like to see you locked up, we can’t allow this girl to be splashed through the tabloids so the knuckle-dragging readers of those rags can gape at her and get a dirty little thrill.”
Captain was certain of my dependence on him and of my inability to take the risk that ordering my life in a new way would be better than what he provided. He could have tried to pry Franklin’s hand from his throat, but he didn’t. Maybe he was afraid he’d be unable to do it. He tried to shake off Franklin with a sneer of contempt and a pitchman’s bravura. “You see Alida onstage for a few minutes, and you think you know all about her. You really get my blood up, you really do, you snotty high-hatters, you snobs. Black Tuesday meant nothing to you, millions out of work and worse ahead, but you slide through untouched, so then you think you know everything about everything. Well, you know nothing about this girl here. This girl gets her purpose and meaning from being onstage. She isn’t ashamed of her difference. She likes the attention, how they marvel over her. She gives them an education just by showing herself, teaches them about the whims of Nature, and that’s honorable work.”
“I hate it,” I said. “I die a little bit every time. The only reason I’m not dead for real is because I figure you’d pickle my corpse and go on showing me in a big jar, wouldn’t need to buy me food or provide a place to sleep, more profit for less effort. I won’t give you that chance.”
They were all staring at me—Captain with keen vexation and disbelief, Franklin and Loretta with sympathy and a lovely anguish that made me feel as if, after years onstage, I was truly seen for the first time.
Loretta said, “I’m so sorry, honey, so very sorry.”
No one had ever spoken to me with such affection. I’m not sure why I pulled off my hood to let my hair fall around my face. Perhaps I wanted to remind her there was a part of me anyone might find easy to love if what my robe concealed could be put out of mind.
“You ungrateful little bitch,” the Captain said. “After all I’ve done for you, all the trouble I’ve gone to. If I’d never come along, your mother would have strangled you and thrown your lifeless body in a garbage dump to feed the rats.” He had more—and much worse—to say. My longtime keeper mighthave indulged in a lengthy, vicious tirade, but after maybe half a minute, Franklin let go of Captain’s throat in order to punch him in the face.
Although I am a peaceful person, I will admit that, in this case, the sudden violence warmed my heart.
Captain had no inclination to defend himself if a face-to-face confrontation was required. I suspect he preferred retribution of the knife-in-the-back variety. With one hand over his bleeding nose, unsteady on his feet, he sidled along the wall to a straight-backed chair that protested the sudden burden of his bulk.
His voice hollowed by the need to pinch his nostrils shut to diminish the bleeding, he said, “That was assault and battery. You can go to jail for assault and battery.”
“After we resolve the matter before us,” Franklin said, “I’ll drive you directly to police headquarters so you can have me booked for assault and battery while I have you booked for violating this state’s child welfare laws and other crimes against a minor.”
“You broke my nose.”
