They needed to move fast; they'd just been given the go-ahead from Ness on the police radio to make the hit, and that meant a paddy wagon would automatically arrive in five minutes, ready for a load of reluctant passengers.
The small sign that extended over the street said DEMOCRATIC LEAGUE HALL in red letters on yellow, with a smaller black-letter notice: Available for Rental. Stocky vice cop Moeller-in plainclothes tonight-led the way, with Toussaint Johnson next, and Curry bringing up the rear. One uniformed man stayed down on street level, and another was in the alley with the car.
It was a narrow, steep, dark stairwell, with the only light at the second-floor landing above. The door was unlocked, but just inside the door a cigar-smoking, beer-bottle-clutching heavy-set Negro in a white shirt and suspenders sat at a card table with an open cigar box full of dollar bills and ticket stubs.
The burly Negro in a gravelly voice asked them if they had tickets, but Curry, as he stepped into the hall, barely heard the man. He was overcome by the sights and sounds and smells confronting him. The air was blue-gray with cigarette and cigar smoke which mingled with the stink of body odor, beer, and bad breath.
The high-ceilinged, many-windowed hall was crammed with banquet-style tables at which at least three hundred men-at least a third of them white-sat applauding and hooting as down on the stage at the far end of the hall a voluptuous young yellow-skinned stripper in a G-string and tassels was doing a bump and grind to a blaring version of "St. Louis Blues" from a scratchy record that was playing through a distorted but loud sound system. Several other strippers, of various Negro shades, were wandering through the audience, specifically enticing a group near the stage who were seated not at tables but on thirty or forty folding chairs; the men were grabbing at the women, stuffing money in their G-strings, generally playing grab-ass. Occasionally a stripper would light on the lap of one and wriggle. A good number of the men up in front. Curry noted, were white.
The fat Negro ticket-taker was almost yelling, now. "I said, do you boys have tickets? If not, cash will suffice."
Toussaint Johnson edged out in front of Moeller and said, "We're the men."
"Christ," the fat man said, knowing that Johnson meant they were cops. "Is this a fuckin' raid? You're raidin' the Democratic League smoker? What the hell's the idea?"
Working to get his voice heard, Moeller said, "We have warrants on six men who we believe are present in this hall at this time."
The formality of that struck Curry as strange and even silly, as he watched two strippers scamper out of the audience up a staircase at either side of the stage and the three women began bumping and grinding in tandem. The yellow girl, who had bosoms that looked formidable even from this distance, was twirling her tassels, one in one direction, one in the other. It was the goddamnedest thing Curry had ever seen.
But he was cop enough to snap out of it and he stepped forward and touched Moeller on the arm.
"This is trouble," he whispered right into the man's ear. "We got political people here, Negro and white-the boss is going to have a shit fit, if this gets out of hand."
Up on the stage, the central girl, the yellow one, was plucking off her tasseled pasties and flinging them into the eager audience; they were whooping and hooting and generally behaving like cheerful but hungry lions being tossed slabs of meat. The other girls followed suit-birthday suit, that is.
"It's already out of hand," Moeller said, watching this.
Curry could read him; Moeller was a vice cop, and Curry knew what he was thinking.
"Don't do it," Curry said.
The girls were sliding out of their G-strings.
"Shit," Moeller said.
"Let it go," Curry said.
"He's right," Toussaint Johnson said. "Let's wait downstairs by the exit and nail the boys we want as they come out."
"We have two more pick-ups to make," Curry reminded them both.
"St. Louis Blues" ended and "Hold That Tiger" took over, just as scratchy, just as loud, inspiring even more frenetic gyrations from the strippers and even wilder response from their appreciative audience.
"Go on ahead and leave me behind," Johnson said. "With one of the uniforms. I'll nab 'em."
The girls were flinging their G-strings into the audience.
"I can't look the other way on this," Moeller said, shaking his head.
Curry couldn't look the other way, either, not in the literal sense anyway, but he said, "The boss just wants the policy suspects."
A very drunk white man, his tie loose around his neck, his shirt half unbuttoned and hanging out, danced up onto the stage and began fondling the bosomy yellow-skinned stripper. She laughed. Curry couldn't hear the laugh, over the hollering and distorted sound-speaker music, but he could see her laughing, and now she was starting to undo the man's pants. The crowd was going berserk.
"That's it," Moeller said, shaking his head. "This is lewd and indecent conduct. I'm hauling all their asses in. Johnson, go downstairs and call over to the Third Precinct and get every goddamn spare squad car they got over here-and every paddy wagon."
Curry said, "Don't do it!"
He wasn't sure if he was talking to Moeller or the woman on stage who seemed about to perform an act of oral sex on the inebriated but obviously capable male dance partner. Curry had heard of audience participation before, but this was ridiculous.
"And tell 'em to come with their sirens blaring," Moeller said, "so I know when they're here. We're going to shut this fucker down."
"You say so," Johnson shrugged to Moeller, and went out.
Moeller turned to the fat man on the door, still seated at his card table, and said, "Not a word out of you. Don't move a goddamn muscle."
"You got it, boss," he said unenthusiastically.
The yellow girl on stage now had hold of the man, whose trousers were gathered absurdly around his ankles, and was leading him offstage, into the wings, as if walking a dog. The man was grinning; he walked like a penguin. The naked yellow woman and the grinning white man disappeared from sight and the audience began to cheer. It struck Curry as disgusting and unreal and a little exciting; but most of all, he was dismayed that vice cop Moeller had strayed from the objective.
"When you hear police sirens," Moeller was telling the fat man, "hit the lights."
The fat man swallowed and nodded; he looked like his best friend had died.
Johnson emerged from the stairwell-he didn't look much happier than the fat man. "Be about three minutes," Johnson said.
Curry knew that was no exaggeration. Ness had worked hard to get the response time of the department's squad cars to a minimum.
Soon sirens were wailing, and the lights came up in the room and hundreds of men of several races turned faces as distorted as the music toward the back of the room in shock and even anger, and the naked strippers on stage froze momentarily, then lost their composure, the bright lights having turned them from nude to naked.
Moeller stepped forward with his badge held high in one hand. "It's a raid, gents!"
And Curry watched with amazement as dozens of the men headed for the side windows and began climbing out, jumping from the sinking ship that was the Democratic League Hall, risking the second-story drop.
Ness snapped the cuffs on the sleeping man, then nudged him awake.
"Lawrence," he said, as the slender handsome Negro sat up in bed startled, "you're under arrest."
Lawrence Gasior, who ran one of Emperor Rushing's policy houses, glanced at his pretty young wife, who sat up in bed next to him, gathering the covers around the front of her, looking at him with wide searching eyes.
His gun was in his wife's handbag way in the kitchen; might as well have been in France. His bedroom was filled with uniformed cops and the safety director of the city of Cleveland.