Well, this Frenchie goes crazy. He launches into a torrent of French that is way above my head. And he’s distressed, nearly in tears. Reaches into his pocket and brings out a letter, very important-looking, with wax over the flap and a kind of seal. Waves it in my face.
Now at this point I am still trying to be nice to a visitor in distress. The temptation is to finish the ice-cream, throw down a dime and get out of there. But instead I think, what the hell, let’s try and help this guy because he seems to have had a worse day than I have, and that is saying something. So I call over Papa Fellini and ask if he speaks French. No chance. Italian or English only and even the English with a Sicilian accent. Then I think: who speaks French around here?
Now you guys would have shrugged and walked out, right? And you’d have missed something. But I’m Cholly Bloom, the sixth-sense man. And what stands just one block away at Twenty-sixth and Fifth? Delmonico’s. And who runs Delmonico’s? Why, Charlie Delmonico. And where does the Delmonico family come from? All right, Switzerland, but over there they speak all the languages and even though Charlie was born in the States I figure he probably has a little French.
So I wheel the Frenchie out of there and ten minutes later we are outside the most famous restaurant in the whole of the United States. You guys ever been in there? No? Well, it’s something else. Polished mahogany, plum velvet, solid brass table lamps, seriously elegant. And expensive. More than I can afford. And up comes Charlie D. himself and he knows it. But that’s the mark of a great restaurateur, right? Perfect manners, even to a tramp off the street. He bows and asks in what manner he can help. I explain that I have come across this Frenchie over from Paris and that he has a major problem with a letter but I cannot understand what it is.
Well, Mr D. makes a polite enquiry of the Frenchman, in French, and the guy is at it again, going like a Gatling gun and producing his letter. I can’t follow a word so I look around. Five tables away is Bet-a-Million Gates going through the menu from the date to the toothpick. Just beyond him is Diamond Jim Brady early-dining with Lillian Russell who has a decolletage to sink the SS Majestic. By the by, you know how Diamond Jim eats? I’d been told it but I never believed it; last night I saw it for real. He plants himself in his chair, measures an exact five inches, no more and no less, between his stomach and the table. Then he moves no more, but eats until his belly touches the table.
By this time Charlie D. has finished. He explains to me the Frenchie is a Mon-sewer Armand Dufour, a lawyer from Paris, who has come to New York on a mission of crucial importance. He has to deliver a letter from a dying woman to a certain Mr Erik Muhlheim who may or may not be a resident of New York. He has tried every avenue and come up with a blank. At that point, so do I. Never heard of anybody of that name.
But Charlie is stroking his beard like he is thinking hard, then he says to me: ‘Mr Bloom’ - real formal - ‘have you heard of the E.M. Corporation?’
Now, I ask you, is the Pope Catholic? Of course I’ve heard of it. Incredibly rich, amazingly powerful and totally secretive. More shares of more pies quoted on the Stock Exchange than anyone barring J. Pierpont Morgan and no-one is richer than J.P. So, not to be outdone, I say: sure, based at the E.M. Tower building on Park Row.
‘Right,’ says Mr D. ‘Well, it may just be that the extremely reclusive personage controlling the E.M. Corporation could be called Mr Muhlheim.’ Now when a guy like Charlie Delmonico says ‘it may just be’ he means he has heard something but you never got it from him. Two minutes later we are back on the street, I hail a passing hansom and we are trotting downtown towards Park Row.
Now do you guys see why being a reporte
r can be the best job in the city? I started trying to help out a Frenchie with a problem and I am facing the chance of seeing the most elusive hermit in New York, the invisible man himself. Do I get to do this? Order up another pint of the golden brew, and I’ll tell you.
We arrive at Park Row and drive up to the Tower. And boy, is it tall? It’s enormous and its tip is damn near in the clouds. All the offices are closed, it’s now dark outside but there is one lit-up lobby with a desk and a porter. So I ring the bell. He comes to enquire. I explain. He lets us into the lobby and calls someone on a private telephone. It must be an inside line because he does not ask for any operator. Then he speaks to someone and listens. Then he says we should leave the letter with him and it will be delivered.
Of course, I’m not having any of this. Tell the gentleman upstairs, says I, that Mon-sewer Dufour has come all the way from Paris and is charged to deliver the letter in person. The porter says something like that down the phone, then hands it to me. A voice says: Who is this talking? I say, Charles Bloom, Esquire. And the voice says: What is your mission here?
Now I’m not going to tell the voice that I am from the Hearst Press. I already have the impression that this is a recipe for going straight out the door. So I say I am the associate in New York City of Dufour and Partners, notaries of Paris, France. ‘And what is your mission here, Mr Bloom?’ asks the voice, sounding as if it came straight off the Newfoundland Banks. So I say again that we have to deliver a letter of signal importance into the hands personally of Mr Erik Muhlheim. ‘There is no person of that name at this address,’ says the voice, ‘but if you leave the letter with the porter, I will ensure it reaches its destination.’
Well, I’m not having any of this. It’s a lie. I could even be speaking to Mr Invisible for all I know. So I try a bluff. ‘Just tell Mr Muhlheim’, says I, ‘that the letter comes from …’ ‘Madame Giry,’ says the lawyer. ‘Madame Giry,’ I repeat down the phone. ‘Wait,’ says the voice. We wait again. Then he comes back on the line. ‘Take the elevator to the thirty-ninth floor.’
We do that. You guys ever been up thirty-nine floors? No? Well, it’s an experience. Locked in a cage, the machinery clanking all around you, and you’re going up into the sky. And it sways. Eventually the cage stops, I pull the grille to one side and we step out. There’s a fellow there, the voice. ‘I am Mr Darius,’ he says. ‘Follow me.’
He takes us into a long, panelled room with a boardroom table set with silver pieces. Clearly this is where the deals are struck, the rivals crushed, the weak brought out, the millions made. It’s elegant, Old World style. There are oil-paintings on the walls and I notice one at the far end, higher than the rest. A guy in a wide-brimmed hat, moustache, lace collar, smiling. ‘May I see the letter?’ says Darius, fixing me with a stare like a cobra sizing up a muskrat for lunch. OK, I’ve never seen a cobra or a muskrat, but I can imagine. I nod to Dufour and he puts the letter on the polished table between him and Darius. There is something strange about this man that sends the hairs on my neck straight up. He’s all in black: black frock-coat, white shirt, black tie. Face as white as the shirt, thin, narrow. Black hair and jet-black eyes that glitter but do not blink. I said cobra? Cobra will do just fine.
Now listen up you guys,. ‘cause this is important. I feel the need for a cigarette, so I light up. Mistake, bad move. When the match sputters Darius comes round on me like a knife out of a sheath. ‘No naked flame, if you please,’ he snaps. ‘Extinguish the cigarette.’
Now, I am still standing at the end of the table, near the corner door. Behind me there is a half-moon table against the wall with a silver bowl on it. I walk to it to stub out the butt. Behind the silver bowl is a vast silver salver, one edge on the table and the other on the wall so it is tilted at an angle. Just as I stub the cigarette I glance into the salver which is like a mirror. At the far end of the room, high on the wall, the oil-painting of the smiling guy has changed. A face is there, wide-brimmed hat, yes, but beneath that hat is a visage to scare the Rough Riders right out of their saddles.
Under the hat is a kind of mask covering three-quarters of where the face should be. Just showing, half of a crooked gash of a mouth. And behind the mask, two eyes boring into me like drills. I let out a yell and turn around, pointing up at the picture on the wall. ‘Who the hell’s that?’ I yell.
‘The Laughing Cavalier by Frans Hals,’ says Darius. ‘Not the original, I fear, which is in London, but very fine copy.’
And sure enough, the laughing guy is back, moustache, lace and all. But I am not crazy, I know what I saw. Anyway, Darius reaches out and takes the letter. ‘You have my assurance,’ he says, ‘that within an hour Mr Muhlheim will have his letter.’ Then he says the same thing in French to Dufour. The lawyer nods. If he is satisfied there is nothing more I can do. We turn towards the door. Before I can get there, Darius says: ‘By the way, Mr Bloom, from which newspaper do you come?’ Voice like razor-blades. ‘New York American,’ I mumble. Then we are gone. Back down to the street, into a cab, back to Broadway. I drop the Frenchie off where he wants to go and head for the city desk. I have a story, right?
Wrong. The Night Editor looks up and says, ‘Cholly, you’re drunk.’ ‘I’m whaaaat? I haven’t touched a drop,’ says I. I tell him my adventure of the evening. Start to finish. What a story, eh? He will have none of it. ‘OK,’ he says, ‘you found a French lawyer with a letter to deliver and you helped him deliver it. Big deal. But no ghosts. I just had a call from the president of the E.M. Corporation, a certain Mr Darius. He says you called this evening, delivered a letter to him personally, lost your head and started shouting about apparitions in the walls. He is grateful for the letter, but threatens to sue if you start casting slurs on his corporation. By the way, the bulls just picked up the Central Park murderer. Caught him in the act. Get down there and help out.’
So not a word was printed. But I tell you guys, I am not crazy and I was not drunk. I really saw that face in the wall. Hey, you are drinking with the only guy in New York who ever actually saw the Phantom of Manhattan.
5
THE TRANCE OF DARIUS
THE HOUSE OF HASHISH, LOWER EAST SIDE, MANHATTAN, NEW YORK CITY, NOVEMBER 1906
I CAN FEEL THE SMOKE ENTERING ME, SOFT, SEDUCTIVE smoke. Behind closed eyes I can leave this shoddy, shabby slum and walk alone through the gates of perception into the domain of Him whom I serve.
The smoke clears … the long passage floored and walled in solid gold. Oh, the pleasure of the gold. To touch, to caress, to feel, to own. And to bring it to Him, the god of gold, the only true deity.
Since the Barbary Coast where I first found Him, I a foul catamite elevated to a higher calling, seeking always more gold to bring Him and the smoke to take me to his presence …