Page 9 of The Bootlegger’s Bride

J an Nowak surveyed the Ambassador Theatre: rococo proscenium with tall, gold-edged crimson curtains and red velvet seats that could accommodate three thousand patrons.

Yet on this Saturday night, half the seats sat empty.

Money was tight, prices high, and every sixth man still out of work.

Going to the theatre was a luxury, but for those who could manage it, the movies provided a few hours of fantasy, a place where you could forget hard times and travel to gayer eras and venues.

That’s if you could scrape up two dimes for a ticket.

“I adore this place!” Hazel said. “Helen and Raymond brought me last year to see The Adventures of Robin Hood .”

Jan turned to study her profile He snapped his fingers. “That’s it! Whatshername.”

“What are you talking about?”

“Maid Marian. That’s who you look like.”

“Olivia de Havilland? You can’t be serious.”

“Not exactly the same. Similar. Actually, you’re better looking.”

Frowning, she gazed at him askance as the lights dimmed. “Sounds like something Errol Flynn might have said.”

Jan leaned toward her and whispered: “ I always write my own lines.”

Lowell Thomas narrated a MovieTone newsreel that showed Polish cavalry charging Russian panzers on horseback, causing Jan to shake his head.

But he recognized the same hereditary propensity in himself, to risk everything on the wildest of hopes, with mindless bravado.

Today’s news on the radio hadn’t been good either.

The battle for Warsaw continued under a constant barrage of Luftwaffe bombs. God help them.

He felt Hazel’s hand on his, sensed her eyes appraising him.

Yes, he surely harbored a certain affinity for the Poles.

His family, his neighbors, his friends—most all shared that heritage.

Their lingo was his mother tongue. And there were those, like Bogdan, who embodied the mercurial, cynical, and romantic Polish soul, a man he understood without his speaking a word—English or Polish.

But Poland was five thousand miles away, and what happened there didn’t touch him.

This was his home, where he belonged. Where his heart was.

The coming attractions followed, starting with Gone With The Wind.

“I have to see that,” she murmured. “Loved the book.”

The trailer cut from Clark Gable to Vivien Leigh to Olivia de Havilland. Jan lifted his chin toward the screen. “See? Your twin.”

He savored her perfume as she leaned toward him. “That’s the gin clouding your vision,” she whispered while squeezing his hand. Her touch told him that her perceptions were blurring as well. Good. Few of us humans can stand much clear-eyed scrutiny.

§

They moved among the departing crowd down the curving marble staircase to the lobby with its glittering chandeliers, sconces, and gold-plated fixtures.

“I enjoyed that movie so much. Thank you, Jan.”

“I’ve seen all three Thin Man movies. The characters remind me of guys I know. The heavy, Sheldon Leonard, sounded and shambled like Bogdan.”

She wondered about his “guys”—bootleggers, hoodlums, street toughs—a far different milieu from a grade-school teacher’s.

On the sidewalk warm night air—humid and fetid—greeted them. A southerly breeze carried a yeasty smell from the Anheuser-Busch Brewery, just a few blocks downriver, the aroma dominating the nearby Mississippi Valley atmosphere.

They strolled arm-in-arm up Washington Avenue, headed to his hotel for a nightcap. In the lobby when he turned toward the bar she put a hand on his suit coat sleeve.

“Can we have a drink upstairs, Jan? I’d love to see how you live.”

“Pretty much like Nick Charles—room service martinis and such—but without the wife and dog.”

The elevator operator, a slender redhead in a black uniform greeted him by name and carried them to the sixteenth floor.

Down a carpeted hallway to its end, Jan keyed open the door and stepped aside to usher her into a softly lit sitting room with loveseat, wingchairs, cocktail table, desk, and chandelier.

But she hardly noticed the elegant furnishings, instead moving to tall windows facing East where she gazed down on surrounding buildings and stared off in the distance toward the dark flowing river.

“What a view! Makes me dizzy. So beautiful. The city, the moonlight, the river…”

“‘Distance lends enchantment to the view.’”

She turned to him. “Twain, right? Or maybe Thomas Campbell.”

He shrugged. “Not sure… Whiskey okay?”

At a credenza where decanters sat Jan poured drinks. He carried one to her and they touched glasses. Jan drank and gestured toward the river with his bourbon.

“It’s still pretty rough-and-tumble on the wharf, though nothing like it was back after the stock market crash.

That’s the site,” he said pointing, “of the first Hooverville, as local people named it.

By 1931 five thousand folks lived there.

Largest in the country. Families with kids, old people, whites, and blacks, all mixed together in makeshift shacks.

“Some had nice clothes at first. That never lasted long with no running water or electricity. And no work. St. Louis got hit hard. A third of the men out of a job. Something was wrong yet no one knew how to fix it. People were hungry but farmers couldn’t get their food to them.”

The human suffering she’d heard about and witnessed since childhood contrasted vividly with his own surroundings—the elegant suite with maid service and room service, glistening crystal liquor decanters, and stunning vista. Hazel sipped her whisky. Smoother than she had expected.

“You seem to know a lot about Hooverville.”

“A bit. Bogdan and I used to go talk to the people and hear their stories—lot of rags-to-riches-to-rags tales. Maybe take them a little food, spread some nickels among the kids. At Christmastime I’d carry over a few bottles for folks to share.

None of it made a dent, of course. Though we weren’t the only ones who brought something. Most everyone was living on handouts.”

“A modern day Robin Hood.”

He laughed. “You have an inflated opinion of me, Hazel. In those days it was hard to find someone rich to rob, if one was so inclined, since most everyone was suffering. Sure, you felt for the poor, but as usual I was looking out for number one, which was tough enough.”

“Don’t burst my balloon just yet.”

“Truth is I was prospering, though modestly. But if things had gone differently, if I hadn’t taken my shot”—he lifted his chin toward the wharf—“that could have been me in Hooverville. Seeing the down-and-out folks there gave me an incentive to keep pushing ahead. Fear of poverty and homelessness can either cripple a man or propel him forward. In some cases, it can make him take chances he wouldn’t otherwise risk.

And when fear is riding him hard, it can lead him to commit desperate acts. ”

Hazel saw him pull inside himself. Eyes unfocused, glimpsing something in the distant past, or maybe very close inside. After a moment he went on:

“My Polish forebears suffered much as well. Prussians pressing men into the army, Cossacks raiding villages, virtual slavery, real hunger; vicious regimes and indifferent aristocrats bleeding them. Desperation drove both my parents to take a chance. In my father’s case, to cross the ocean penniless in hopes of finding work on blind faith.

In my mother’s case, venturing off to a strange land to marry a man twice her age whom she had never met.

Though she may not have had much say in the matter.

“For all they suffered and whatever they dared, I thank them. As a result, here I am, their only living heir, happily ensconced in the land of opportunity without having to lift a finger to get here. To honor their courage and sacrifice I ought not squander my opportunity to make something of myself, the chance to be something other than a serf, a sheep, or someone’s errand boy. ”

“You seem to have succeeded at that.”

“I didn’t have the advantages some enjoy but didn’t suffer the high hurdles others face. Like everyone else I had to make the most of the cards I was dealt. And sometimes you have to take your best shot and bet it all.”

“Even if you’re just bluffing?”

He winked at her. “Especially then. If you see what you want and there’s a chance for you to get it, you’d be a sucker not to make a grab for it.”

Her dizziness seemed to intensify. She sat on the loveseat behind her, drank down her remaining whiskey, and looked up to Jan, who stood frowning at her.

“You okay? Whiskey go to your head?”

She closed her eyes and took a deep breath.

Maybe the liquor was skewing her judgment—but what the hell!

If she was going to be the odds-buster Jan had said she was and not just a cautious schoolteacher keeping within her own comfortable confines—that is, not just another sucker—she had to take her shot while she had the chance.

Hazel opened her eyes to find him still gazing at her.

“I think,” she said, “this may be the time for me to be decisive and lay my cards on the table… Jan Nowak, I’ve decided you’re the man for me.”

“You’ve decided that all on your own?”

“Just me and the devil whispering in my ear.”

“Well, that’s a devilishly nice surprise.”

“What’s more, Mr. Nowak, I want to spend the night with you.”

Jan studied her. So much for the timid schoolmarm . He spread his hands and shrugged. “Of course you’re welcome. But what will your parents say?”

“Not sure about Dad. But I know what Mom will say—‘What took you so long?’”

Jan laughed. “My fault really. My poker instincts told me to slow-play this hand.”

She bit her bottom lip. “Slow is good sometimes.”

She slid her hem up over her knees and beyond the top of her silk stockings where he could glimpse her thighs and garters.

He held his breath, gazing at her transfixed.

She felt her heart thumping in her chest as she saw him stiffening inside his trousers.

She reached up to graze her fingertips there.

“Do whatever you’d like,” she breathed. “Ask for whatever you want.”