“I’m going to report you to the National Audubon Society!”
Eddie entered the tavern and rubbed the bull’s hoof for luck. Ruthie de Angelo, a full-figured woman of indeterminate age with braided dark hair and a noticeable space between her two front teeth, waved to him. She operated the Coat-Check Room and her gap-toothed grin enticed him to stop for a chat.
“Letitia asked me to give you her regards, Ruthie.”
“How is she doing?”
“She’s as sober as a judge and she credits you with rescuing her.”
“I was only being a friend.”
“She keeps heckling me to go to AA meetings with her.”
Her eyes narrowed. “I’d go if I were you, Eddie.”
“We’ll see, Ruthie, we’ll see.”
Hilda was sitting on a tall stool nearest the entrance so as to keep tabs on all comings and goings. It was a practice that her father had instilled in her barkeep training to help gauge how profitable a night it was going to be. It was also a way to keep a watch-out for any potential troublemakers.
“Achtung! How’s it going, Hilda?”
“It’s too early to tell, Eddie.” A spry woman of 55, her flaxen hair set in a high beehive, Hilda’s angular face and dark eyes peered at you through half-moon reading glasses resting partway down her slender nose. In her youth she had attended Juilliard as an aspiring mezzo-soprano, singing professionally, after graduation, with the Vienna Philharmonic and the Toronto Opera despite her lack of girth. Today she favored post-punk rock music and for several years has been writing a rock opera she intends to produce on Broadway one day.
Dressed in her customary uniform -- an unflattering floral dress with padded shoulders and a hem which came down to her ankles, masking her still-curvy figure – along with bobby socks and black granny shoes. Around her neck she sported a necklace of 20-dollar gold pieces, a gift from a long-ago suitor. A pewter mug of green tea sat steaming on the bar in front of her. Like so many of New York’s legendary saloonkeepers of yesteryear, Hilda is a strict teetotaler. A copy of The Wall Street Journal lay next to her tea. While there was much in the financial newspaper that she didn’t understand, she nevertheless made an effort to daily scan the major articles since all her customers read it religiously and it gave her an insight into their world.
“Has business picked up any?”
She shook her head. “Business is lousy, Eddie, I’m down 50% in the last three years.”
“Hmm.”
“Thursdays are my busiest nights. If there were three Thursday nights in the week, I’d be holding my own.”
“It’s the rotten economy that makes people afraid to spend.”
“The layoffs on Wall Street have hurt us. If I didn’t own this building free and clear, I couldn’t make the rent.”
“I notice you haven’t let go any of the staff.”
“I couldn’t, Eddie, they’ve all got families to support.”
“You’re the best, Hilda, the neighborhood is lucky to have you.”
Winston, the English bulldog, waddled over to stand protectively beside his mistress’ stool. Brown in color, with a white forehead and a broad chest, he had black, wide-set eyes, folds above the nose, drooping lips and sagging skin under the neck. At a weight of 65 pounds, mostly muscle, he was a formidable representative of the stubborn breed. Not playful or cuddly, his only endearing antic was his ability to sleep on his back while snoring with his eyes wide open.
After sizing Eddie up and fixating on the purple sneakers, the dog’s sourpuss expression didn’t change as he growled loudly, revealing sharp teeth with a noticeable under-bite. “Grrrrrrrrr!”
She bent over to pet him. “Winston is also happy to see you, Eddie, he bids you welcome.”
“It sounds more like he’d enjoy taking a chunk out of my leg.”
“Don’t be silly, Winston wouldn’t hurt a fly.”
At that moment the front door of the bar was flung open and a one-eyed man wearing camouflage cargo pants, a dark shirt with a clerical collar below a fighter’s chin leaned his torso into the vestibule. He leveled an accusatory finger at Hilda and shouted: “Du bist die Große Hure der Wall Street zu verkaufen Tod und Verdammnis! Sie sind die Führer aller Huren hier unten! “
Winston barked and lunged at him, however, the intruder managed to slam the door shut before the dog was able to reach the doorway.
“My high school German is a bit rusty,” Eddie said, “what is Reverend Halder kvetching over this evening?”
“He claims I’m selling death and damnation.”
“I saw him earlier on Front Street passing out pamphlets calling for the outlawing of liquor sales.”
“Yes, Eddie, he wants to turn back the clock and get Congress to pass new Prohibition laws.”
“It was a bad idea then and it’s still a bad idea today.”
“I agree.”
“His street sermons are getting violent. Halder could be more than a nudnik at this stage, Hilda, he might be meshugge.”
She stirred her tea. “The reverend said something else which struck me.”
“What?”
“He called me The Great Whore of Wall Street.”
“Did he now?”
“Uh-huh.”
Eddie stroked his chin thoughtfully. “Crazy or not, I’d say Reverend Halder has a definite flair for words.”
“I agree, The Great Whore of Wall Street is a catchy handle.” She scribbled the words on a paper napkin. “I wish there was some way to use it.”
His eyes shimmered with possibilities. “Maybe there is.”
“How?”
“Hilda Gluckmeister can transform herself into The Great Whore of Wall Street.”
She almost gagged. “Me?”
“You.”
“Why … why would I want to do such an insane thing?”
“Because I see BIG BUCKS in it and you have a lot of mouths to feed.”
“No woman wants to be known as a whore!”
“Whores have long been major figures in history, Hilda, women such as Madame de Pompadour, Calamity Jane, Nell Gwynne, Mata Hari, the Empress Theodora. And don’t forget that Cleopatra, the ruler of Egypt, was called the Whore Queen by the Romans.”
“Whores are whores, Eddie, I don’t care what you say. And prostitution exploits women as sex objects; it’s another form of male dominance.”
“I understand that but you’d be The Great Whore, the adjective changes everything.”
“I doubt it.”
“Just recall some of the other Greats in history: The Great Houdini, Abraham Lincoln - The Great Emancipator, The Great Communicator who was Ronald Reagan, Alexander the Great, the Great Caruso.”
“Would I be the first Great Whore in history?”
He shook his head. “No, Hilda, you wouldn’t, there was The Great Whore of Babylon.”
“Never heard of her.”
“She’s mentioned in The Book of Revelation.”
“I never read it.”
“The lovely courtesan lived a