Wicked, Wicked Women by Gardner Fox - Chapter 06

1961 Genre: Vintage Sleaze / Historical Fiction

SURVIVAL OF THE FITTEST

Men like Mike Gannon and Black John Bennett made their living off the Erie Canal, forever battling one another for control of canal shipping.

Women like Moira Kennally—the wanton widow turned Madam -- and the Egyptian, owner of the notorious pleasure parlor, The Golden Tassel - made their living off men like Mike and Black John, offering their passionate embraces in return for the hard-earned dollars the canalers wrested from "The Big Ditch."

Together and apart they lived and loved in a mad search for power and pleasure during one of the most turbulent eras in the mainstream of American life.

You can download the whole story from the Fox Library.

CHAPTER SIX 

The stone hit the building wall a few inches above his head, bringing Mike Gannon around on a brogan heel, arm lifted to protect his face from further flying rocks. Three men stood facing him, tough canalers in thick woolen sweaters, big grins on their faces. Bennett men, picked for their ability to rough and tumble. 

"We were sent to fetch you, Gannon," one man said.

"On your own feet or on ours,” another added.

The third man chuckled. "The choice is yours, matey."

"Fetch me where?” Mike rasped. 

"Black John wants to see you. In the alleyway behind The Bloody Deck. He has words to say to you." 

Gannon lifted his thick-set shoulders in a shrug. No sense wasting his strength on these toadies, if Bennett was thinking of having him beaten up. He might need all his muscles for what was to come. He stepped forward, watching the three canalers draw back. 

"At least you're respectful of your betters," he told them, and was pleased to see the hot anger in their eyes. “All right, my bully-boys Lead the way." 

They walked at a brisk pace up Canal Street. Gannon strode with his eyes fastened to their wide backs, wondering what deviltry Black John planned for him. An imp of stubbornness was in the big Irishman at the moment. His knuckles itched for action. He only hoped Bennett might be feeling the same tempestuous desires, but he supposed that would be too much to expect. Bennett wasn't one to fight his own battles. 

They turned into the alleyway almost as one man. Mike Gannon came to a halt. 

Black John was fifty feet from him, stripped to his middle, wearing trousers and shoes, talking to two of his cronies. One of his three guides motioned him closer. "Black John's waiting, Gannon. Or are you afeared to face him?" 

Mike swung a vicious left hook. His fist connected solidly. The man went backwards into the building wall, poised there a moment with a foolish expression on his face, then slid down to the ground. Mike nodded in an almost friendly fashion to the others. "Shall we get on so as not to keep Mr. Bennett waiting?" 

They stared truculently at Mike, then at their fallen fellow. One of them shrugged, chuckling. "Come along, Black John will do our work for us." 

Bennett came to meet him, walking easily. His chest was deep and muscles flexed like cable on his midriff and upper arms. A thick hate began to work in Mike Gannon. This man held himself a step above the rest of the canalers, deeming himself too good for the common run of Big Ditch men. It would be good to humble him, to knock him down into the alleyway dust, flat on his face, and watch him twitch. 

"I'll give you one last chance, Gannon,” Black John was saying as he approached. "I'll pay fifty thousand dollars for the Luck Line—cold cash within the hour." 

"Save your breath, you black spalpeen,” Gannon growled. "What's the real reason you sent for me?” 

"To make you an offer. Then to pound some sense into that stupid skull of yours.” Bennett saw the other man look around suspiciously. "No, no—no funny business. With my own fists. Just the two of us.” 

"You mean that?” Mike asked, incredulously. 

Bennett smiled coldly. "Did you think I got where I am by hiding behind other men?” 

Mike lifted his thick gray sweater off over his head. Naked to the waist now, he lifted his big fists. Bennett held up a hand. “I've posted men at either end of the alley. We won't be interrupted. Shall we make it a sporting thing between us? If I knock you cold, you'll sell the Luck Line to me for forty thousand.” 

"Agreed, by God. And if I lay you out?” 

"I'll indemnify you for all the damages I've caused, with a bonus of ten thousand dollars above damages." 

"You're mad," growled Gannon. "I'll make mincemeat of you.” 

Bennett laughed. “Try it, man—just try it.” 

The big Irishman should have been warned by the confidence of his opponent, but all he could see was the mocking smile on Bennett's face and the uplifted fists as the man posed like a prize fighter on a cigarette card. An urge to knock the smile from the arrogant face brought Gannon forward at a run. 

Bennett seemed only to shift his feet but he was out of the way of Mike's bull-like rush and his left was whipping into Gannon's face. The big Irishman felt himself shaken from heels to head. He came around, throwing a looping right. Bennett stepped inside it and rammed a fist into his guts. The breath exploded from Mike's lungs. He back-pedaled, panic touching him. A heavy fist rammed his ribs. He was being hurt, but the greatest emotion he felt was surprise. The fact that Black John Bennett was so quick with his fists and no mean opponent, seemed to paralyze the big Irishman. 

Two fists thudded into his face, shaking him. Mike threw a straight left, felt it jar home. He followed it with a cross to the jaw. Bennett went back on his heels. Instantly Mike was after him like a big wildcat hunting a wounded deer. He came up short as Black John pumped three jabs in his face. 

Blood was streaming from his nose, making a salt taste on his puffed lips. Anger was a thickness in his limbs, making him slow. He had to shake off the fury. Then maybe he could rouse himself out of this lethargy which gripped him. Mike Gannon began to fight back. 

Twice he rocked Bennett, heard him gasp and pant. But Black John was no fool. He stood little chance against Gannon in a free-for-all. His strength lay in his boxing skill. Bennett jabbed and ducked, hit and retreated. 

Gannon went after him, shuffling through the dust, his nosebleed covering the thick hairs of his chest with crimson liquid. His cheek and his lips were puffy. Every time Black John hammered a fist into them, they hurt like hell. But he was marking the other man now. Slowly he was getting through his defenses, splitting Black John's lip, marking an eye with a shiner. 

If he could get him sore-headed enough, Black John might forget his fighting style and stand toe to toe with him, slugging it out. A right to the jaw made big Mike falter. He shook his head, moving backward, letting Black John come to him, meeting his jabs with solid blows that missed more often than they landed. But when they landed, they hurt. 

Through his clouding senses he heard the shrill blast of a police whistle and he became aware that Bennett was trying to break free of the fight, snarling and swearing viciously. "It's the paddy wagon, man," Black John grated. 

Gannon lowered his fists. "The Black Maria? What do they want?” 

Bennett was turning away. He said over his shoulder, “Us, what else? We've been making noise enough to rouse the dead from their graves. Somebody must have heard and sent in the alarm." 

It was an anticlimax. Gannon stood with his arms by his sides, watching his men run up to Bennett, lifting his discarded shirt and coat and then hot-footing it beside him up the alley. 

Mike could hear the clip-clop of the horses' hoofs, the louder shrilling of the police whistles. Quickly, he put on his sweater and legged it up the alleyway in Black John Bennett's dust. 

The thought came to him as he ran that he and Bennett had settled nothing by their fight. Things were still the same between the Luck Line and Black John. He wondered when and where Bennett would strike at him again.

Frank Bannerman put his imported Havana cigar between his teeth and leaned toward the match The Egyptian was holding. He puffed contentedly, enjoying the aroma of the tobacco, his middle filled with filet mignon, the taste of champagne on his tongue. He leaned back and gestured at the room around him. 

“A masterpiece, Lily. I'd never have believed it possible.” 

She smiled down at him, then let her eyes touch the red brocade-work and gilded wood of The Golden Tassel. It was opening night. More than one hundred men in evening clothes were crowded at its tables and along the bar, and more were entering through the plate glass doors. 

"I got to hand it to Moira," she said admiringly. "It was all her idea. She had to practically hit me over the head before I saw the light. I was satisfied with The Mummy Case. The more fool, me." 

Bannerman calculated a moment, then nodded. "You ought to gross a quarter of a million dollars yearly at the prices you charge. Not that they're too exorbitant for what you offer, mind.”

"You haven't seen anything yet,” she laughed. “Wait until the show begins. Then you'll see the real reason why we're so positive society folks won't mind the high tariff it costs to come here." 

“This new partner of yours, she's the one who did that bedroom skit?” 

"She has a better routine worked out for The Tassel.” 

Bannerman pursed his lips. He was in his middle thirties, a highly successful real estate operator. He sold a lot of property in and around Buffalo and much of the money he made from his deals went into other profitable ventures. There was talk around the city that Frank Bannerman might run for State Senator in the coming elections. He was a man with money and influence. 

A tall man, handsome in a florid manner, he had married one of the Tracy girls who brought her own wealth to match his, insuring them a top spot as society leaders. 

"I'd like to meet this partner of yours, Lily," he said slowly. "It strikes me she has a head on her shoulders." He looked up quickly. "Does she know I own these buildings?” 

"I never told her. I figured it was none of her business. I guess she thinks I own them, though she's never said anything about it." 

"I'd rather you didn't tell her, not yet at any rate, until I can sit down and have a nice long chat with her. The Courier has been agitating to print the names of the owners of these Canal Street sin palaces. A few men and myself have been putting some pressure to stop it.”

He cleared his throat. "Nothing wrong with owning property on Canal Street, obviously. Just the same, to a man in my social position in the city-you do understand, don't you?” 

The Egyptian smiled and nodded. One of the waiters was beckoning. She made her apologies and left the table. Bannerman sat back and puffed at his cigar, nodding occasionally to an acquaintance whose eye he caught.. 

A smart move by this Moira Creegan, opening The Golden Tassel. Half of Buffalo—those men who counted, at least—were here at the grand opening. The rest would come tomorrow or the next night. The city has needed a place like this for a long time. Good place to bring customers to, excellent steak, the best wines and champagnes. Make a man feel important, just sitting here.... 

His thoughts were interrupted by the tapping of a conductor's baton. Bannerman settled himself more comfortably in his chair. He had an excellent view of the deep stage which occupied the north end of the room, all across one wall. If the performance lived up to half of what The Egyptian had suggested, the girls had a gold mine working for them. 

The lamps dimmed. The curtain rustled back. 

Frank Bannerman sat up, finding himself staring at a Roman bath. A scholar of sorts, he fancied himself an expert on ancient cultures. At first glance the simulated stone arches and the beveled edge of the pool seemed highly accurate as to detail. Just when he was settling himself to a consideration of a small room which was obviously the alipterium where expensive oils were massaged into the flesh of the bathers—surely those were earthenware oil jars, standing so neatly along the wall-his eye was caught by a shapely young girl who came running onto the stage. In her hand she carried stick-like objects—strigils, he understood suddenly, to rub the accumulated dirt and grime off the bodies of the bathers. 

The young girl was a slave, then. All she wore was a twist of linen to shield her loins. In a moment two other slave girls joined her, also carrying strigils. Ah, of course. The room where they were standing was an apodyterium in which Roman ladies disrobed. They would be attended by slaves who would follow them into the alipterium to massage oil into their skins, then to the tepidarium to hold towels in which to encase them when they were done bathing. Bannerman shook his head in amazement. 

Two Roman matrons emerged from the stage wing and entered the apodyterium. The slave girls came and began to remove their garments. The room was very still as the tableau was acted to its conclusion. 

Applause burst out as the curtain closed. 

Bannerman reached for his champagne goblet and drained it. His cheeks were flushed, his heartbeat accelerated. Moira Creegan and The Egyptian had an ideal setup here in The Golden Tassel. They had carte blanche along Canal Street to do what they would; no police force would come running to close their shows; they were avoiding the crude sex performances of their neighbors, and giving their educated customers a gilded, refined, though erotic, stage presentation. 

He was well aware of the fact that he would share their good fortune to some extent. His monthly rentals were secure. It was with a warm, satisfied feeling in his middle that he lifted and sipped the cold wine as the curtain rustled back a second time. 

A campfire glowed off to one side, probably a specially made gas fixture, but realistic enough, surely, for it cast red lights across a gaudily painted gypsy wagon and a dozen swarthy gypsy men and women. 

The wagon door opened and a woman clad in brightly colored blouse and a short skirt of red linen stepped into view. Around her slim middle was twisted a belt of golden rope which held a huge gold tassel at her hip. Long black hair hung straight down over her shoulders. Huge gold hoops dangled from her ears. Her dusky face was beautiful, with large mouth wet with red lip salve, eyebrows arched and darkened, the eyes brightly glittering. Her feet were bare, the ankles banded about with tiny bells on silver chains. 

The mandolins strummed furiously. 

The gypsy came down the few steps of the wagon ladder with conscious grace, hips swaying languidly. Beneath the flowered blouse her breasts bulked large and firm, moving ripely to her stride. In pantomime the nomads grouped about the campfire pleaded with her to dance. Haughtily she refused, head high. 

A big man came out of the shadows. His hand caught the flowered blouse and ripped it down her back so that it hung by a thin thread at a shoulder. A single pale breast was exposed between the torn remnants of the blouse. The same hand caught her elbow, whirling her, throwing her roughly to the ground. 

For a moment she crouched, head lifted, lips drawn back to show gleaming white teeth, while every man in the audience thrilled to the savage hate reflected in her face. Then her shoulders began to move, gently at first, while harsh laughter poured from her open mouth. She grasped the gaudy shirtwaist and ripped it from her. Slowly she lifted to her feet, naked breasts swaying, shoulders rippling. 

The mandolins went wild with pagan music.

And the woman danced ...  

She was a woman wronged by a man. To the warm summer night she showed her breasts, silently asking if these were delights to be ignored by the one she loved. In a dozen different ways she flaunted them, making them dance, lifting them in cupping palms. Like a forest dryad she floated about the stage, touching this man and that among the gypsies, crying out as their hands lifted to stroke her flesh, stamping her feet and whirling so that her long black hair flew wide. 

Then her hand balled a corner of the red linen skirt and ripped it free. Naked except for the golden rope at her middle and the golden tassel hanging below it, she posed, a slim white arm lifted high, eyes challenging as they went over the gypsies, then over the breathless audience. Her hips shifted in rhythm to the muted music, gently at first, then swiftly. The long white legs were moving now, carrying her this way and that about the campfire while her hands invited all eyes to the loveliness of her naked, mature beauty. This was the body her lover scorned. 

Her lover was mad, was he not? To ignore these smooth white thighs, these shifting, thrusting hips, any man must be insane.

With shrill cries the gypsies urged her on. 

Drunk with her own beauty in the summer night, the gypsy woman lost herself in the movements of the saraband. Head thrown back she arched her proud breasts under the eyes of the big man who had torn her blouse. While she laughed bitterly, her hips flailed the air before the onlookers. She was motion, from her long black hair to the painted red toenails on her feet. 

Every eye in the great room was fixed on the naked woman on the stage. At his own table, Frank Bannerman was finding it hard to breathe. Never in his life had he seen such a display of raw emotion. His collar pinched his neck. The blood pounded furiously in his veins. He felt himself drawn up in the dance as if he were one of the gypsy men she taunted. 

Then the woman was sliding bonelessly to the ground.

The mandolins stilled. The curtains swished closed. 

Behind the protection of the closed curtains, Moira snatched up her torn blouse and red linen skirt and ran across the stage. The Egyptian was waiting in the wings, calling out congratulations. 

"Just listen to them out there, just listen!” she cried, eyes feverishly bright. “We're in, honey-we're in! Word of your dance will be all over Buffalo within a day. We'll have to turn them away at the doors.” 

Moira extended her flushed cheek for a kiss, then ran for her dressing room. Exultation was a rising flood in her body. Laughter was quick to bubble on her lips. Success meant money in the bank for Moira Creegan and her little girl. The Buffalo that had refused her a job short months before would make her a wealthy woman before she was done with it. 

Her hand closed the door of her tiny dressing room. She tossed the torn shirtwaist and red linen skirt through the air. Naked, she stared at her reflection in the standing mirror. A slow flush tinted her cheeks. A year ago she would have died rather than do the things she had done tonight. Now it did not seem to matter. It was as if she had become a different woman, deep inside. 

The door opened behind her. 

Startled, she whirled. "Mike," she cried happily, running toward him. Too late she saw the disgust and loathing in his eyes. The flat of his hand came up against her cheek, driving her reeling backward. 

"You filthy whore," he rasped. "Have you no shame at all?” 

"Mike, I—” 

"To dance like that so everybody and his brother in Buffalo can see what you hide behind your clothes,” 

Anger flickered to life in Moira Creegan. "They wouldn't give me a decent job, everybody and his brother, so I take their money the only way I can.” 

"Money, money, money! Is this the world to you?”

"Not to me, no. But for my Kathleen, yes.” 

“I have enough money for you and Kathleen, more than enough. For the last time I'll ask you, will you marry me and come away from all this?” 

"I thought we'd reached an agreement, you and I, Mike. I believed I'd made you understand why I go on the stage.” 

"To watch you dance the way you did I had to go out on the street and breathe the stinking air of Canal Street as a sweet change from what was happening on that stage." 

Her palm came up hard against his cheek. Fury glittered in her eyes. Her lips twisted scornfully. "Get out of here, Mike Gannon. Get out and never come back. I don't want to see you, ever again." 

"Just like that, is it? Go away, after all we've been to one another. Walk out of your life as if I were a door-to-door salesman, peddling pots and pans.” 

Tears stung her eyes. "I w-won't listen to your constant scoldings. Why can't you accept me as I am? God knows I'm good enough to you in my bed upstairs. Any time you want, I'm there for you. Isn't that enough, Mike Gannon? I'm not carrying your name. I'm disgracing no one except myself.” 

He groaned. "It's that which eats in me! To see you dancing in your skin before those society swells. rankles me like a boil before it breaks.” 

They stared at one another, and Moira could read the hunger and the love which looked out at her from his eyes. A little core of tenderness blossomed inside her. On naked feet she moved toward him, putting her arms about his middle and resting her cheek on his chest. 

"Oh, Mike, Mike. Let's not fight. Can't you just accept what I do as proof that I love my daughter? I'm doing it for her, not for myself." 

Emotion made him swallow. Under his palms her back was smooth and warm. He held her against him protectingly, biting back the hard, harsh condemnation that quivered for freedom on his tongue. 

"Sure, I'm a bull in a china shop," he said at last. "I love you so much I hate to see you lower yourself this way. All right, all right. I won't say another thing about it.” 

His hands caught her shoulders, pushed her back and away from him. A scowl blackened his sun-bronzed face. "I'll be after getting out of here now, to let you get dressed.”

"Wait for me in my rooms, Mike? Please?" 

There was a little girl eagerness in her eyes that touched him. He felt like a bully when Moira Creegan looked up at him so appealingly. If ever he could talk some sense into her beautiful head! 

"I'll wait,” he growled, and moved toward the door. 

In the hall, he saw The Egyptian deep in conversation with a society toff, a handsome man in a black cloth Chesterfield overcoat, an Ascot scarf fluffed up beneath his chin, his gray and black striped trousers immaculately pressed. His face was vaguely familiar to Gannon. He had seen him before at The Mummy Case; Banners or something like it, his name was. The big Irishman brushed by them with a curt nod on his way to the stairs. 

He did not see them turn and look after him. "A close friend of hers?” asked Bannerman. 

“Close enough. He's the one sent her to me. They used to be sweethearts on the canal before she married some Rome industrialist." 

“Mmmm. Gone on him, is she?” 

The dusky woman trilled laughter, squeezing his forearm. "I'm not so sure about that. Mike's a handsome devil, big and strong, but they're always fighting. He doesn't want her to go on the stage. She keeps insisting it's the only way she can support herself.” 

A rival for her favors, Bannerman thought, if I decide to go that far with Moira Creegan. There were ways of dealing with big, strong, stupid men. Frank Bannerman had availed himself of these methods during his rise to power. One more victim of a set of brass knuckles or a leaded billy. No man to worry himself over, that was for sure. 

He nodded almost imperceptibly. "Take me in to meet her, Lily. I think it's time your partner and I were introduced." 

The Egyptian tapped on the closed door. In answer to a muffled voice she called, “Company, honey. Somebody wants to meet you pretty badly." 

Her hand turned the knob. The door went inward. Frank Bannerman let his eyes touch the woman in the thin silk wrapper seated before the vanity mirrors. She turned, flashing him a smile, gathering the wrapper about her, rising to drop him a little curtsy. 

He bowed gracefully. "I've been admiring you so vocally that Lily grew tired of listening and brought me here to see you face to face," he told her with a smile. 

"Flatterer,” she scolded, reseating herself with a show of pale white thighs as the wrapper slid aside. "Please be seated, if you don't mind watching a woman primp a bit.” 

Bannerman laughed, well aware that his heart was hammering like that of a schoolboy. Up this close, Mrs. Creegan was even more intoxicating than seen from the other side of the foot-lamps. She was in her early thirties, he guessed, and her body was soft and rounded. She was not so much the paid stage performer as she was a neighborhood wife playing at theatricals. Shrewdly, he decided this must be the foundation on which her tremendous appeal was based. 

"I told Lily tonight that within five years you'd both be wealthy women," he began, watching her fingertips tuck in a few wisps of stray black hair. "I like to feel I'm businessman enough to make a prophecy like that and know it will come true.” 

Her eyes and lips laughed at him. "You're a very dangerous man, sir. You tell a woman things she wants to hear. Not about herself but about matters in which she is vitally interested.” 

"Does money mean so much to you?” 

“Yes and no. I have a little girl. I've sworn she'll never have to do what—what I do to earn a living." 

“You do it very well. So well that you interest an old sober-sides like me in a manner in which no other woman—" 

He broke off at sight of her upraised hand. "Mr. Bannerman, be good enough to forgive me for what I'm about to say. I'm a stage performer, but I'm no bought woman. I pick my friends not for their money, but for their personal qualifications. Do I make myself clear?" 

His flush made him even more handsome, she reflected. Drawing a deep breath, he murmured, "It's my turn to apologize. I meant no offense, believe me.” He came to his feet, tall and worldly in his impeccable Redfern garments. "May I at least beg the privilege of coming backstage from time to time to see you? Perhaps we can find some mutual interest on which to converse.” 

Her glance was friendly. "Such as profitable ventures in which to invest the great wealth you predict for me?" 

His laughter was born of genuine amusement. "Touché! Profitable ventures it shall be. Nothing more personal unless you yourself suggest it." 

She held out her hand. Bannerman bent and kissed it. 

As he shut the dressing room door behind him, the real estate titan decided that, in one way or another, Mike Gannon or no Mike Gannon, he was going to possess the beautiful woman he'd just met. If Gannon was stupid enough to interfere, it would be too bad for Michael Gannon. 

Bannerman whistled as he walked jauntily toward the stage door.