The Last Madam: A Life in the New Orleans Underworld (11 page)

“Hurry, Jackie,” Norma said, “go hide them. I don’t have the nerve to tell Guillot you like to dress in men’s clothes.”

Norma was frightened as she let Big Mo in that night, but not of the friendly, flirtatious policeman with the booming voice. She was afraid her Good Man from Uptown, who’d been coming to the house for a little over a year, would never come back. She whispered to Jackie while Big Mo was tapping all the walls and checking each room in the house, “We’ve lost a customer, and what a customer! We’ll never see him again, I just know it.”

Big Mo was in a particularly expansive mood that night, and any other time Norma would have found herself enjoying the game. But that night all she could think about was her good customer imprisoned in the dark hideout, four feet wide and twenty feet long, its brick walls damp with condensation. She thought Big Mo would never leave; he even accepted a drink, something he rarely did, saying her house was his last stop that night, and sat in the courtyard—only a few feet from the entrance to the hideout!—to drink it.

When he finally left and Norma’s girl opened the hideout, she expected the trick to go
clickety-click-click
off into the night. Instead he came out aflutter with happiness. “Oh,” he breathed, “I’ve been in a raid! I’m Madeleine, a girl in a raid!” He went directly up the stairs and carried on with the night.

But Norma and Jackie held their breath during the following week. Norma said, “He’ll think about it and we’ll lose him, I bet you.”

The next Saturday night, though, the doorbell rang, and there he was. On the off chance he’d come, Norma had bought him a new pair of red satin high heels, the biggest size she could find. When he saw those shoes, he went into ecstasy.

CHAPTER NINE

Birds on the Wire

Norma was fifty-three years old in 1954. It was a memorable year—the year she bought the property in Waggaman and the year she seduced Wayne Bernard, an act that would change her life. In the meantime she was caught up in politics, police probes, and federal grand juries.

After her first grand jury appearance in 1952, her photograph had made the front page of
The Times-Picayune.
She could have been a politician’s wife in her modest below-the-knee shirtdress, pulling on her white gloves—except for the company she was in. Gertie Yost, a grandmotherly-looking woman wearing sensible shoes, and Dora Russo, who had pulled her coat up to hide her face, were walking out of the Fifth Circuit Courthouse with Norma. Both Gertie and Dora were notorious madams, but neither had Norma’s glamour, or her dark glasses, which added a touch of intrigue.

The newspaper photographs of Norma through the years, especially in the fifties, are large and shot close up, suggesting that she was a media favorite. She is always dressed in tailored suits and dresses that were ladylike rather than madamlike. An earlier photo shows “Norma in her heyday,” wearing another of those cockeyed hats she favored, her hair short and dark. She looks like one of the girls from the Lucky
Strike Hit Parade, big smile, head at a coy angle, an innocent come-hither look.

In 1954, called for the second time before the grand jury, she was once again front-page news, caught by the
States
photographer as she walked into the hearing. She is in a dark suit with a nipped-in waist and her dark glasses. She exudes the imperturbable aura of an under-world figure with the seductive allure of a 1950s movie queen. She is all mystery and sex, powerful as an absinthe aphrodisiac.

By 1954 Norma and McCoy’s marriage, nearly ten years old, was in trouble. Mac, uncomfortable with his wife’s making front-page news as a known proprietor of a house of prostitution, kept after Norma to give up the business. He sometimes chauffeured the girls to hotels or to Bourbon Street in his black Buick, but according to the SCIC report he’d also been arrested twice in connection with prostitution, though the records of these arrests had disappeared. He didn’t like staying at the Conti Street apartment with her, and Norma often thought that their place on Governor Nicholls Street wasn’t far enough away. She was straining at the bit of marriage again, torn between wanting her freedom and her love for her good and kind husband, who needed something to do besides play golf, drink, and keep an eye on her.

Norma found ten acres in Waggaman, only twenty minutes by car from downtown New Orleans. It had been the site of the old Cedar Grove Plantation and was located on River Road on the West Bank of the Mississippi, just upriver from Avondale Shipyards. Over the years the main house had been changed—taken off its tall piers when it was moved farther from the river. A smaller house, a barn, and stables were also on the land. Behind them ran railroad tracks, the property’s only drawback. Otherwise it was beautiful, romantic because of the ancient live oaks dripping with moss that surrounded the house. Norma and Mac could have horses there, and Mac would have plenty to do to improve the property. And, business never far from her thoughts, Norma saw the place as a definite option should Conti Street get too hot.

Norma and Mac introduced themselves to their new neighbors as Mr. and Mrs. Patterson, owners of the Patterson Trucking Line. A family named Bernard lived next door with their sons and Snapbean,
their tall, thin grandfather. Behind them lived Earl and Elise Rolling. Elise was Helen Bernard’s sister. What Norma didn’t know when she bought the place was that Earl Rolling worked for the Jefferson Parish Sheriff’s Department.

“Oh, Lord,” she moaned when she found out, “what have I done now? I’ve moved right next door to a policeman!”

But Elise and Bubba Rolling were sociable and liked to party, Norma’s and Mac’s kind of people. Before long the two couples were seeing each other regularly and forming a genuine, solid friendship. Norma and Elise cooked together, shopped together, and sometimes sat on the patio behind Norma’s house to chat and have a few drinks. Norma hired Elise’s nephew Wayne Bernard to do yard work and small repairs, and to help Mac fence the property. Wayne liked working for Mrs. Patterson. He’d work three or four hours and she’d pay him twenty dollars. He knew guys who worked a whole week at the shipyards for that.

One warm summer afternoon the two women made up a pitcher of martinis and brought it out to the table and chairs nestled into the L of the house. Wayne was working in the flower beds. He’d taken his shirt off, and his naturally bronzed skin had a burnished sheen in the sunlight. He was only fourteen years old, but he was tall and strong and had thick, wavy black hair.

He heard Mrs. Patterson and Nan Ease, as he called his aunt, laughing. They tried to muffle it at first, but then they started whispering and giggling unabashedly. They were watching two sparrows mating on an electric wire, feathers flying everywhere. But Wayne had no idea what was happening and, true to his nature, ignored the women and got on with his work in the beds.

After a while Nan Ease returned home. Norma called out to Wayne that there was something she wanted him to do in the house. “Yes, ma’am, Mrs. Patterson,” he said and followed her inside, up the stairs, and into the bedroom as she explained the job to him.

In the summertime Mrs. Patterson liked to wear loose dresses with scooped tops. That afternoon her dress kept falling off one shoulder, exposing her ample cleavage. Wayne couldn’t keep himself from staring. He was embarrassed and tried to look away, but he was also fascinated.

Suddenly Mrs. Patterson stopped talking. When Wayne noticed, he looked up at her. “Do you like what you see?” she inquired. Wayne was so frightened that he couldn’t answer. “Come on over here,” she said. Wayne moved a little closer. “Come on,” she told him again. When he got close enough, she took his hand and put it on her breast. “Do you like that?”

Wayne’s legs were shaking so hard that they might have gone out from under him, he wasn’t sure; all he knew was that he ended up on the bed. Mrs. Patterson started touching him and caressing him, all the while talking softly, saying, “It’s okay, you don’t have to be afraid, I’m not going to hurt you.”

Afterwards she asked, “Now, did that hurt?”

Wayne said, “God, no.”

The next afternoon Mrs. Patterson asked Wayne if he’d like to go riding. He scrambled up from the flower bed he was tending, and Mrs. Patterson told him to go saddle the horses. They rode up a trail to the top of the levee, then ran the horses for a couple of miles. On the way back Mrs. Patterson was friendly, her usual self, but she never said a word about what had happened between them.

At the stables, as Wayne was hanging the saddles, Mrs. Patterson said, “Sometimes I walk in those woods at night.” She pointed toward a small coppice growing up between two oaks, forming a natural fence between her and the Bernards’ property. Wayne didn’t know what to say, so he just nodded. “I know how to whistle,” she continued, then added pointedly, “and sometimes I whistle in the woods.” Again, Wayne nodded. “I
like
to whistle in the woods,” she said. He still didn’t get it. Mrs. Patterson looked him straight in the eye. “
You
might hear me whistling in the woods some night.”

It took Wayne another minute; then he said, “Oh! Well, if I hear you whistling, I’ll come out.”

That night he began a routine of walking in the lane at the side of his parents’ house. He strained to hear a whistle. For a few nights he heard nothing. Then, there it was! When he found Mrs. Patterson under one of the big oaks, they held each other and kissed, but she seemed in a hurry to get back to her house.

A few more nights passed, and Wayne frantically paced the edge of the woods. The night he finally heard her whistle again, Mrs.
Patterson didn’t seem to be in such a hurry. They kissed, their hands were all over each other, and then they got down on the ground under the big oak. He had managed to deal with both his and her clothing and was finally in the act when they heard a peculiar shuffling, as if someone were kicking up gravel and dragging something through the leaves that covered the ground.

Both Wayne and Mrs. Patterson froze, breathing hard. Wayne knew that sound, but he was too scared to think. Then someone called out, “Anybody there?”

It was Snapbean, Wayne’s grandfather! Since Snapbean’s wife had died, he had taken to wandering at night, one foot dragging, kicking up gravel and leaves. And he’d heard them! Wayne’s breathing became loud and ragged. Mrs. Patterson put her hand over his mouth. He could feel her heart revving in her chest.

There was more shuffling; if Snapbean got any closer he was going to step on them. “Anybody there?” Snapbean called again. An eternity passed in ten seconds before they heard that foot dragging and Snapbean easing back over to the lane.

Snapbean had scared the life right out of Wayne, so he and Mrs. Patterson didn’t finish what they’d started. After that, whenever Wayne worked at Mrs. Patterson’s house, Mr. Mac showed him what to do. They still went riding, but Mr. Mac was always with them. Wayne would sweat, wondering if Mrs. Patterson had ever told her husband, but then he’d think that he’d probably be dead already if she had. He continued to be paid very well.

The friendship between the Pattersons and the Rollings deepened. If Norma saw a dress she liked on Canal Street, she bought one like it, perhaps in a different color, for Elise. She gave Elise a pair of yellow high heels Elise wore until her arches fell a number of years later. Bubba invited Mac to go duck hunting and deer hunting, but Mac finally had to admit he’d rather be on the golf course. The two couples spent holidays together.

Bubba Rolling had raised fighting cocks since he was fifteen years old. Behind his house he kept them in individual pens, the floors covered with cornhusks and straw so they had to scratch for their food,
which made their legs strong. He worked with his roosters every day until they were ready to fight with tiny boxing gloves on their spurs, then until their spurs were ready to be cut off so that small, knifelike razors could be tied to their legs. Bubba had done very well with his roosters, fighting them and selling them, supplementing his policeman’s salary and occasionally traveling to Central America because his roosters had such a reputation.

He also kept a kennel full of hunting dogs. Both the dogs and the roosters helped him put food on the table, so he was very careful to feed the animals properly to keep them in strong working condition. But soon after Norma bought her property, he noticed that his dogs were putting on weight. He took a couple of his best roosters to a derby, but they weighed in at two pounds more than when he’d started training them. He was mystified. Then he caught Norma feeding the animals bread and milk, two loaves and a gallon a day!

“But, Bubba,” Norma said, “they look hungry.”

Bubba just adored Norma, even though she was a disaster with his animals. He learned not to talk to her about fighting the roosters—the chickaroos she called them—or she’d cry! And Norma learned that Bubba was the kind of policeman she understood and liked. He was fond of saying, “The only way you can do police work—you gotta swap a dozen eggs for a crate of chickens,” which was his way of saying that good information was worth a blind eye. It wasn’t long before the Rollings were the only people in Waggaman who knew the Pattersons’ real names and the reason for their deception.

So when Wayne was fifteen or sixteen years old, his uncle Bubba phoned one day and said, “Come on, we gotta get dressed up, we’re going downtown.”

Wayne put on his Sunday suit, and he and Uncle Bubba drove to the French Quarter in Bubba’s police car. They pulled up in front of a huge green house with galleries and a lot of fancy ironwork, and when they got out of the car Bubba said, “I’m taking you to a place where there’re a lot of pretty girls.” Bubba walked him up the alley to the back door.

Bubba was doing what all good tribal elders are supposed to do in New Orleans, seeing to it that the rite of passage to manhood was
conducted properly. He had no idea that Wayne had been initiated already.

They walked into Norma’s back parlor. Wayne stopped cold just inside the door—a dozen of the prettiest girls he’d ever seen were all looking at him. Bubba sat in a chair and watched Wayne perch on the edge of the sofa. The poor boy was so nervous that he couldn’t stop his leg from jumping.

Bubba patted his own leg and said to one of the girls, “Come on over here.” The girl sat on his lap. He said to Wayne, “Pick yourself one of these girls.” He saw that Wayne kept eyeing a blonde, Ruthie. “How about Ruthie?” Ruthie sat next to Wayne. “When you want to go upstairs, boy, you just go. ’Cause I’m gonna take off with this one in a minute.”

Wayne sat for a moment, then leaned toward his uncle. “You know what I’m thinkin, Bubba?” he whispered. “What if Nan Ease comes in here?”

Bubba yelled, “Whoa, man! If
that
happens, you just follow me, ’cause I’m gonna make a hole in that wall and run through it!”

After a while Wayne went upstairs with Ruthie. She sat on the bed, under a canopy, and lifted her short skirt to unsnap her stockings from her garter belt. Wayne had never seen a woman peel off her stockings before. He was so enthralled that he forgot all about undressing himself. Ruthie took off her dress and very carefully, very neatly hung it over a high-backed chair. Wayne was looking and trying not to look at the same time.

Standing before him stark naked, Ruthie said in a soft, gentle voice, “Aren’t you going to take your little suit off?” Wayne snapped to attention. It didn’t take him long. He threw everything over the back of another chair.

Downstairs, Norma came out of hiding to bring Bubba a Scotch and water in a tall highball glass. The girl who had been sitting on his lap was now hanging over the back of the chair, her arms around his neck. But Bubba declined to go upstairs, which turned out to be a prudent move that day. Because upstairs Wayne was already getting dressed, though he was fumbling with zippers and buttons and trying to get his tie prim and proper. Ruthie took over, dressing him so that
he thought even
that
was something. He came down the stairs before Bubba was half finished with his Scotch.