Gypsy - Lesley Pearse [62]
The Bowery was a street of entertainment, lined with bars, music and dance halls, theatres, German beer halls and restaurants. At night the sidewalks were crammed with stalls, selling anything from hot dogs to fruit and candy. There were also what were called ‘museums’, though in fact they were freak shows, where for a few cents you could see the Bearded Woman, dwarfs, trained monkeys and other curiosities. Prostitutes mingled with the crowds, and inevitably there were pickpockets too. But in the main it was the playground of ordinary working folk.
Jack had said that Heaney’s clientele was comparable to those who drank in the big, noisy, ale houses near Lime Street Station in Liverpool — cab drivers, carpenters and engineers. He’d also pointed out that Heaney’s was one of the smartest saloons on the Bowery, with its shiny mahogany bar, huge mirrors behind it and a great deal of well-polished brass and clean sawdust on the floor.
Sam looked quite relieved when he saw it, for the men drinking at the bar were ordinary, not the bruisers or degenerates he’d expected.
Pat Heaney clearly liked the look of Sam right off, and after only a few questions, he told him to get behind the bar and serve the customers while he talked to Beth.
‘I’ll be straight with you,’ Heaney said, swigging down a large tumbler of whisky and keeping one eye on Sam. ‘Girls, specially pretty ones, are trouble in a bar. But I like the idea of a girl fiddler, and you’ve got spunk coming in here and asking to play when yer just off the boat.’
Beth lied and said she’d played publicly in Liverpool but he waved his hand in a gesture that said he didn’t care what she’d done before, he was only interested in what she could achieve in his saloon.
‘I’ll give you one chance,’ he said. ‘Tonight at eight. If they like you, you’re on; if not, then finis. Out you go. I can’t say fairer than that. I’ll get one of the boys to hand round the hat for you, and I’ll take half of it.’
It struck Beth that the odds were all in his favour. He wasn’t going to lose even if she played badly.
He was an intimidating man, not just because of his scar, or the muscles that showed under his thin shirt, but through his blunt manner and the way he looked at her. There was no light in his pale brown eyes, just cold calculation. He asked why they’d come to America, and when she said both their parents had died and they wanted a new start he made no comment, not even to say he was sorry for their loss.
Instinct told her he had no soft side, and that she and Sam would have to tread very carefully with him. Jack had recommended they tried this bar first because Heaney considered himself ‘the man’ on the Bowery: he liked to be first with anything different, and a girl fiddler was certainly that. But Jack had also warned her he had a reputation as a dangerous man to cross.
‘How long will you want me to play for?’ Beth asked cautiously.
He took his eyes off Sam for a minute or two to give her another cold stare. ‘That depends on if they like you,’ he said. ‘If I wave my hands after the first three numbers, you go. If not, you play for an hour. At the end of that I’ll tell you what next. Right?’
Beth nodded nervously.
‘Got something more colourful to wear than that?’ he asked sharply, looking at her brown coat with disdain. ‘They won’t like you if you look like a school marm.’
Beth gulped. She had very few clothes and all of them were dark in colour. ‘I’ll try and find something,’ she said.
He got to his feet and looked down at her. ‘Off you go then. Be back at eight sharp. Your brother can stay on.’
She hesitated at the door, looking back at Sam. He was polishing a glass as Heaney spoke to him. He glanced around at her as the man walked away and made a cheerful thumbs-up sign. But she saw a flicker of anxiety in his face which she guessed was because he wouldn’t be able to escort her here tonight.
‘I’ll be fine,’ she mouthed, and gave him the thumbs-up sign back.
That afternoon she practised her fiddle for a couple of hours and made a list of all the numbers