VISITORS To New York are invariably disappointed by their first glimpse of famous night spots. Because it’s New York, they expect everything to be on a grand scale. They look for dance floors the size of the waiting room at Pennsylvania Station, a million tables more or less, and a lot of plush and glitter. The only thing they get that’s bigger than their anticipation is the check.
The Club Caliente was the newest of the really top spots. If you were a member in good standing of the Cafe Society set—the sort of a dope who makes the rounds just because it’s the thing to do—the Caliente was a must on your itinerary. Maybe it came first, maybe last, maybe in between. But it’s there. It can’t be left off the list any more than the Stork can be forgotten.
It had started modestly and bloomed like a sunflower. The manager was a smart lad who kept pouring his profits back into a venture which he figured had an excellent chance of becoming an institution. Originally a small room, plus bar, in the basement of a middle-aged apartment house, it had caught on with the name crowd and therefore had attracted the suckers who enjoy spending big money for the privilege of breathing the same overstuffed air.
The original room had been doubled in size. The decoration job was a honey: cream and jade and expensive and soothing. The dinners were excellent, the suppers good, the drinks sizeable, the service perfect. Show talent was always the best. The weekly outgo was terrific, but the take even more so.
The location was out-of-the-way, but that didn’t bother the late crowd. The Caliente was one of the places to go—so they went. They went and had their pictures taken if they were important, or they watched important people undergoing the process and then got a thrill by inquiring of bored waiters who they were.
You could stay as long as your money held out. You could eat well, drink good liquor, buy silly little dolls and woolly dogs, pay outrageous prices for gardenias and kid yourself that you were having the time of your life. You could store it all up and talk about it the next day, which was calculated to make you important in the eyes of friends who couldn’t afford what you also couldn’t afford.
When I first met Dana Warren she was dancing at the Caliente. I got in the habit of hanging around, which, on my salary, threatened bankruptcy, but that didn’t seem important when I balanced it against the prospect of seeing Dana. Since that time she and her partner had been to a lot of other cities and now they were back at the Caliente again for as long as they wanted to stay.
The arrangement of the place was unusual. As an architect I could imagine the headache that some fellow-sufferer must have undergone taking care of the expansion which prosperity had brought.
At the foot of the steps was a checkroom and a sort of lobby. Passing through that, you swung back a heavy plateglass door and entered the dimly lighted bar. There was a curtain between the bar and the main dining room so that the barflies who were not stuck with a cabaret tax couldn’t see the show. Unless the curtain was carelessly pulled, which it usually was.
The dining room, with its orchestra stand and dance floor, now occupied all of an enormous rectangle which originally had taken care of everything: kitchen, rest rooms, dressing rooms and what-have-you.
To solve this need for more space, it had been necessary to lease the basement of the adjoining building, which was an ancient red-brick structure with two flats on each floor. Between the rear of the club and the next building, a passageway had been cut. It was a bleak, dreary, undecorated thing, badly lighted by naked bulbs which seemed always about to flicker out.
The orchestra stand was at the opposite end from the bar. Immediately behind it were the rest rooms with modest designations on the ivory doors. To the right of the rest rooms were the storerooms and kitchens. To the left stretched the passageway leading to the next building. Rooms opened from that passageway: offices and dressing rooms. There was a big room for the lovelies who made up the line, and individual rooms for the principals. Three of these latter rooms had private baths. They were large and comfortable, and you’d never guess that the building overhead was little better than a tenement. Under the fire laws there was an exit through the tenement, but the door which opened onto the passageway was kept shut. It could be used, but customarily the Caliente personnel came and went through the club itself.
I took my usual table near the bandstand. I had a good view of the floor, and I was near the passageway, so that when Dana got dressed and was waiting to go on she could sit with me. Except for sometimes on Saturday nights, I never had any trouble getting that table because it was a pretty bad location and the customers didn’t want it. But it suited me fine.
The place was about half full, which was the usual size of the dinner crowd. There’d be a show at nine o’clock, and another at 12:30 or 1:00 A.M. Dancing from 7:30 until curfew. Two orchestras: a sweet name band and a nifty outfit for rhumbas and waltzes. The cover charge was two dollars and the balance of the expense was proportionate. It was much too rich for my blood, but all the employees knew that Dana and I were friends, and they usually forgot to give me a check. They never remembered the cover charge under any circumstances.
The show was good. It started with the gals. They were young and beautifully proportioned and looked lovely unless, or until, you happened to look at their eyes, which were hard and wise and blank. There was a famous female singer. A suave young man who worked with a French poodle was one of the greatest comics I ever saw. Then the chorus again. And finally, the topper—Ricardo & Dana.
I ordered a cup of coffee, lighted a cigarette, and watched the show. I was having myself a grand time. Being away from New York hadn’t meant a thing. Being away from Dana had meant plenty.
In my pocket was the long brown envelope which contained the bank statement. I was getting a kick out of that. I had visions of the head waiter wanting to know whether I could afford to be there. All I would have to do would be to produce the bank statement and say, “Look! One hundred thousand dollars—that’s my balance. Now bring me a second cup.” I wouldn’t have to explain that it was all a mistake. Tonight I could prove I was rich, whether I was or not. And that thought intrigued me. It didn’t matter what you actually had: it was what you could make people believe that counted. Smart me. Kirk Douglas, architect and philosopher. Clever thoughts a la carte. Fun tonight, just being this close to Dana, and fun tomorrow when I started kidding the boys at the bank about the mistake they’d made. I felt so good that I didn’t even worry about all the young fellows who were wearing the same kind of army uniform I had worn for a year . . . before they had decided in Washington, for no discernible reason, that I could help the war effort even more by being inactive.
The M.C. called for silence and made a simple introduction of the dance act. Ricardo always made his entrance from the other side of the bandstand. And now, as the sensuous music of the tango swept across the floor, Dana rushed in from the passageway. She made a cute little gesture as she passed me, and left me a smile to hold onto. Then she was out on the floor with her partner.
As I watched, I was gripped by an uncomfortable sensation which I never had been able to shake off. I couldn’t look at Dana out there and believe that she was the same girl who had been in my arms an hour ago.
On the floor she was utterly different from the bright, gay, natural, bantering young lady I was in love with. She was different in every way. Her face was different, her hair was different, her expression was different, her clothes were different.
Tonight she was wearing a sophisticated black dress which accentuated every lovely curve of her exquisite figure. Her hair, which she usually wore informally waved back from her face and combed casually to fall softly over her shoulders, was now parted on the side and brushed off the forehead. The back was swept up and caught by a jeweled comb. She danced with her eyes half closed and with her lips parted. She looked passionate and seductive, which was swell with me, except that it was passion and seductiveness in which I played no part.
She danced with her whole body. The rhythm seemed to flow into her from the orchestra and to flow out through her feet. She was in another world—a world in which I did not belong. I felt proud and helpless.
Ricardo was a superb partner. Maybe he danced better than she did. I wasn’t a very good critic. But out there on the floor, I couldn’t hate him. He was perfection. He belonged in the upper brackets. The team belonged there. They held you breathless.
The personalities as I knew them vanished in the magic of their dancing. They were a unit. As dancers, they belonged together. They went through the intricacies of their tango. The lifts were beautifully effortless. When they finished, there was an instant of silence, and then a wave of applause.
Their second dance was a gay, lilting polka and their third a novelty number which finished with a sensational lift and spin. The applause at the end of this was deafening. They wound up with a brief and delightful waltz, then took three bows; the orchestra swung into a dance number, and the show was over. I felt let down. I wondered why I punished myself by watching this night after night. It emphasized something that I preferred not to think about. It wasn’t jealousy. Not of Ricardo, anyway. I could be jealous of him at other times. But on the floor it wasn’t Ricardo, the man: nor was it Dana, the woman. It was perfection; a perfection in which I had no place.
Dana waved at me again and vanished in the chilly passageway leading to her dressing room, which was at the farthest end. I stayed where I was and fired up another cigarette. Then someone paused by my table and I looked up at Ricardo.
He was handsome, all right. Six feet tall, weighing perhaps a hundred and eighty, he had the black hair, tiny moustache, olive complexion and gleaming white teeth of the Latin. He was, as the head waiter had once confided, a smart cookie.
He had been born and raised in Brooklyn. He had come up the hard way and knew all the answers. His name was genuine, his father having been Puerto Rican and his mother American. He had learned a fair Spanish from his father. But he was too shrewd to build himself up as a South American. It had been his policy to publicize his Brooklyn background. He played on it so consistently that most people didn’t believe him. They thought it was a gag. The Broadway columnists loved it. From a publicity standpoint, he couldn’t have made a smarter move.
He stood looking down at me. He was a man now, not a dancer—and I didn’t like him. That went double. He said, “You’re back, huh?”
“Yes.”
“How are you and my wife getting along?”
It wasn’t what he said; it was the way he said it that I didn’t like. He knew that Dana and I were in love with each other. He knew that we were together constantly. To a man of his stamp that could mean only one thing. But it didn’t seem to do anything more than to afford him amusement. He repeated his question. I didn’t say anything.
He went on: “You taking her out between shows?”
“Maybe.”
“You know damn well you are.”
There wasn’t any use answering that, either. He took out a gold cigarette case and put a little white cylinder between his lips.
“With me,” he said deliberately, “she was always cold as ice.”
He walked away. I hoped he couldn’t see that my fists were clenched under the table. I was still that way when Dana came through the doorway and said gaily, “Let’s go, Rich Guy.”
I bought my coat and hat back from the checkroom girl for a quarter. We decided to walk. From one angle that was a mistake because the wind seemed to shoot icicles right through us. From another angle it was good because it helped sweep Ricardo from my mind. It helped, but it didn’t do a thorough job.
We got to our restaurant at 10:30. We abandoned our champagne idea. We ordered steaks with mushroom sauce plus the usual dinner trimmings. I tried to keep it light, but didn’t succeed very well. Over the coffee and liqueurs, Dana leaned across the table and touched my hand. “What’s wrong?” she asked.
I said, “Nothing.”
“Try again.”
I didn’t look at her. I said, “The usual thing.”
“Ricardo been baiting you?”
“Something like that.” I faced her squarely. “Isn’t there something we can do about it, sweetheart?”
“What?” She was very patient with me, considering we’d been over it a thousand times. “There’s nothing between Ricardo and me, but we are married. He won’t grant me a divorce, and so far as I know, or can prove, he’s done nothing to give me grounds for one. He swears that even if I went to Reno, he’d follow me there and contest it. And he isn’t bluffing.”
“It’s the act, isn’t it?”
“Yes.”
“Haven’t you offered to go right on with it if he’d give you a divorce?”
“Yes. But he doesn’t believe me. And also . . .”
“Also what?”
Her cheeks were pink. “He knows that I’d marry you. And he’s afraid that if I did . . . well, that things might happen. . . .”
“Children?”
“Yes. He won’t take chances.”
The grim humor of it struck me suddenly. I laughed. “It’s a new method,” I said. “But it’s certainly effective.”
She thought that was funny, too. The laughter helped a lot. But it didn’t make the evening what we had wanted it to be. It was grand, but it wasn’t perfect. We worked at it, perhaps too hard. At midnight, I took her back to the club and said good night. We made a date for the following night. “But no steak,” I warned. “Hash only. I’m going to the bank tomorrow and let them strip me of my wealth.”
I knew I wouldn’t sleep. I was thinking about too many things. I lay down on the bed and stared into the darkness. The next thing I knew the alarm clock was going off. The hands pointed to 7:30 and it was black as midnight outside.
I bathed, shaved, dressed, drank some coffee and orange juice, and went to the office. I reported to the big bosses. They seemed satisfied with what I had done. I spoke to a couple of the other boys in the drafting room and went out. Nothing to do until Monday.
I went to the bank. It was a branch on the corner near my office. I knew several of the men, including George Larsen, the assistant manager. He saw me come in and said, “Hello.” I walked behind the railing and sat down near his desk. I motioned for two other fellows to come over. I said, “You boys never make mistakes, do you?”
George said he hoped not.
“But you wouldn’t swear to it?”
“Almost.”
“That isn’t enough.” I pulled the brown envelope out of my pocket and produced the yellow sheet of paper with figures on it.
“Feast your eyes on that,” I invited. “Is that a laugh or is that a laugh?”
All three of them glanced at it. Then Larsen said, “What’s wrong with it?”
“Wrong? Are you kidding?” I read one entry: “January 28th—by deposit—$100,000.00.”
George said, “So what?”
“So your bookkeeping department is crazy. I never had a hundred thousand dollars in my life, and probably never will have. And if I did . . .”
Again the three men exchanged looks. One of them said, “You think that’s a mistake?”
“Don’t be absurd. I know it’s a mistake.”
Larsen shook his head.
“It’s not a mistake,” he said. “On January 28th we received one hundred thousand dollars in cash with instructions to deposit it to your account.”