The Golden Room

Irving Wallace

The Golden Room

ONE

Chet Foley was awed by what he was seeing and hearing.

It was a chilly spring afternoon in the last week of March in 1903, and although Foley had already spent his first week in Chicago, this was the moment he had been waiting for.

They were walking on the cobbled sidewalk of South Dearborn Street, scrawny young Foley in step with his older, huskier companion, Thomas Ostrow, veteran City Hall reporter for the Chicago Tribune. Ostrow had been assigned by the managing editor to show their new feature writer around.

Foley straightened his jacket as they proceeded. He was wearing his very best suit. It was a grey and black English worsted with a finely cut boxed coat. He had put on a red cravat and his shiniest lace-up shoes. It was an outfit he wore only for special occasions with young ladies, and he wore it now hoping that it would impress the charming young women he would meet today.

'We're almost there,' Ostrow said, less concerned about his baggy, worn blue suit with two cigarette burns on the rumpled jacket.

Foley nodded with anticipation.

'This is the notorious Levee district,' Ostrow went on. 'You've heard of it, of course.'

'Yes, sir, I have.'

'It got its name just before the Civil War,' Ostrow continued, 'when steamboats came up right near here and discharged southerners who wanted to go to the gambling places and enjoy sex shows and orgies in houses of ill fame. It hasn't changed in all the years since, just gotten wilder. It is not a large area. Only four or five square blocks, but there are over 200 whorehouses crammed into this space. However, you're only interested in seeing one of them.'

'Yes, just one.'

They strode in silence another thirty feet, and then Ostrow abruptly halted.

He waved his hand towards the three-storey building to their left. 'Here you are, Chet. Here it is. This is 2131 South Dearborn Street. This is it.'

Foley looked at the building – one broad stone mansion -with its smooth stones, solid lines, grand windows and its broad flight of steps leading up to the entrance.

'The Everleigh Club itself,' Ostrow a

'I heard of it many times in Peoria.'

'Just as everyone knows about it in New York, London, Paris, Berlin. What do you think?'

Foley gulped. 'I… I wonder what it's like inside.'

'You'll know very soon. I called Mi

Inside the Everleigh Club, behind the oversized rosewood desk in the richly appointed study that served as her office, Mi

Nibbling at her sturgeon and truffles, Mi

Even standing straight, Mi

Across the desk, Aida, taller, heavier at 124 pounds, was definitely wearing a corset to accent her hourglass figure. She was more conservatively garbed in a Havana-brown cloth dress trimmed with silk braiding. She was reading aloud from the newspaper story about the mayor's latest re-election speech.

Listening, Mi

Viewing the study, Mi

Having decided that the room was very much in order, Mi

There was a brisk knock on the office door, and Edmund, their mulatto valet, put his head in. His hair was short, wiry, grey, his nose straight and long, his complexion light brown, set off by a perfectly fitted dark-blue valet's uniform. 'Miss Everleigh,' he addressed Mi

'I am,' said Mi

Seconds later Edmund opened the door again and held it open as Ostrow and Foley entered.

Quickly kissing both Mi

Mi

Momentarily dumbfounded, Foley shook her hand, and then Aida's hand. He swallowed. 'I am honoured.'

Mi

Briskly, Mi

Returning to the desk, Mi

Feeling more at ease, Foley could not resist a thin smile. 'You're quite right, Miss Everleigh…'

'Make that Mi

'Yes, Mi

'I'm never tired of that question,' said Mi

Mi