Silver and Gold
Molly May Reed and her sister, Dolly Ann, the only children of a foreman in a textile factory, were born in Paterson, New Jersey, shortly after the turn of the century. They were not twins, but they were so close in age that it was not evident to those who met them exactly which sister was the firstborn. When the girls became adults, no one but the sisters themselves knew who was the younger of the two, although they both claimed that particular honor.
As children, they were exceptionally attractive. Each girl had large blue eyes, dimpled cheeks and the most amazing blond hair. Dolly's hair was the color of honey, a rich golden blond, whereas Molly's was several shades lighter, a color that would come to be called platinum in the Jean Harlow days of the Thirties.
When they were five, the Reed sisters were spotted by a second-rate comedian from Atlantic City who then included them in his vaudeville routine. The girls stole the show, and after a few months, they left the floundering comedy act and went out on their own, forming a song and dance team known as Silver and Gold (the name derived from the color of their splendid curls). The sisters sang and danced reasonably well for small children, but they were no prodigies, and their jokes were not much funnier than those of their former partner. What made their act a success were the cherubic looks and exuberant personalities of Dolly and Molly themselves.
Throughout the remainder of their childhood and early adolescence, the girls toured the vaudeville circuit, sharing the stage with headliners such as Eddie Cantor, Jack Benny, the Marx Brothers and Abbott and Costello. When the girls eventually lost their baby fat and acquired the curves that came with puberty, however, their act lost its appeal. Still, there was always a place in the world for shapely young blondes, so the girls joined the bevy of beauties in the chorus line of the Ziegfeld Follies.
* * *
"He's out there in the audience again," Fanny Brice told Molly when the singing comedienne went backstage after finishing her number. "I could see those diamond cufflinks of his glowing like the headlights of a Duesenberg."
Molly, precariously balancing a twelve-pound Erté headpiece of artificial autumn leaves and wearing a scanty sequined and beaded bodysuit, ascended the staircase on the revolving stage, hoping she would not miss a step and take a spill in front of a packed house. The curtain opened and the stage slowly rotated, presenting Ziegfeld's famous chorus girls, who were impersonating the four seasons. As Molly smiled and posed on her pedestal, her eyes scanned the audience for Tony. She spotted him in the third row, and her heart started to beat faster than the music of the orchestra.
Tony "the Jeweler" Diamond—so nicknamed because of the large collection of diamond cufflinks he owned—had been born Anthony Giuseppe DeLucca in Hoboken, New Jersey. Tony looked more like a moving picture star than a gangster. His dark, Italian good looks and sex appeal might have made him more famous than Rudolph Valentino, John Gilbert or Douglas Fairbanks had he chosen to seek his fortune in Hollywood rather than on the streets of New York and Chicago. How often Molly had wished he worked for Cecil B. DeMille, but the dashing and dapper Tony Diamond was on the payroll of the notorious Al Capone.
After the show came to an end, as Molly was getting out of yet another elaborate costume, Tony knocked on the dressing room door. Since the room was filled with dozens of young women in various stages of undress, he was politely asked to wait outside. Molly quickly removed the heavy theatrical makeup she was wearing, hurried into her street clothes and, with a fluttering heart, went to meet Tony. He smiled when he saw her, and that smile made her knees go weak.
"I hoped you might join me for a late supper," he said, giving her a gold charm bracelet and a bouquet of roses.
The young couple went to a quiet Italian restaurant in the Bronx, a small place where the food was good and where Tony was known by the staff and treated with respect. As they ate their pasta and sipped their wine, the inevitable question came up, the one Molly had been dreading all night.
"I'm going back to Chicago on Tuesday. Do I buy one ticket or two?"
"Tony, you know I would drop everything and go with you tonight if I could," the blond chorus girl replied sadly, "but I can't leave Dolly. Since my parents died, I'm all the family she has. If I go with you to Chicago, she'll be all alone."
"You're a big girl now, and so is your sister. You're both old enough to lead your own lives."
"I know that, but I still feel like I'd be deserting her."
"What if the situation were reversed? What if Dolly were to meet someone? Would you want her to forget about him and give up the chance for happiness to stay with you?"
"I suppose not, but—Oh! I'm just so torn! I want to go, and yet I feel I have to stay."
"Molly," he sighed, taking her hand in his, "did you discuss this with Dolly? Does she know I want you to come with me?"
Molly shook her head.
"I'm beginning to wonder if this is really about your sister at all. Maybe you just don't want to get mixed up with me because you think I'm some two-bit gangster. That's really it, isn't it, Molly? You don't think I'm good enough for you, do you?"
The pretty blonde looked at him with tears in her eyes.
"You know that's not true, Tony. I love you very much." Then after a few moments, she added, "Okay, I'll go to Chicago with you."
* * *
Dolly Reed—far from saddened by her sister's decision—was delighted.
"You know, Molly, I'm tired of playing a statue on stage and wearing more on my head than I do on my body," she admitted. "Do you think Tony would object if I went to Chicago, too?"
"Oh, Dolly, would you? Maybe we could work on our old act, bring it up-to-date and get a job at one of the clubs. You know, Silver and Gold singing jazz tunes and dancing the Charleston."
The sisters laughed and hugged each other as they had done since they were children. Molly was grateful that she did not have to gain a husband at the expense of losing her sister.
The following Tuesday Tony and Molly boarded a train at Grand Central Station. Tony had to get back to Chicago where he had important business waiting for him. (Molly had thought it best not to ask her husband-to-be about the nature of that business.) Dolly, believing the couple would enjoy their privacy on the trip, insisted she had to remain in New York a few days longer to finish packing, say goodbye to her friends and attend to all the little last-minute details involved in moving out of state.
When Dolly arrived in Chicago a week later, the two sisters immediately began putting together a new act. In keeping with the latest fashions, they had their hair cut short and their hemlines lifted. With Tony's connections, they found a job at one of the most popular speakeasies in Chicago, which, like everything else in the Windy City, was run by the mob.
The new Silver and Gold act soon became a hit with the Clara Bow generation. As the girls' success and fame grew, so, too, did Tony's. Despite his young age, he was one of the top bosses in the Capone organization, with his hands in bootlegging, gambling, loan sharking and prostitution.
Molly, still very much in love with her swarthy Italian husband, had repeatedly turned a blind eye to his dealings in the underworld, yet the headlines in the newspapers began to scream out for her attention. Gang wars were escalating, and the death toll in the ongoing power struggle was mounting. Worst of all, the casualties were not restricted to the small-time hoodlums gunned down on city streets. The victims included men such as Dion O'Banion, Frankie Yale and Hymie Weiss, who were on the same level or above that of Tony Diamond in Chicago's gangland hierarchy.
* * *
Dolly and Molly finished their last act of the night and headed for their dressing room. Dolly had a late-night date with her latest boyfriend, a rookie pitcher with the Chicago White Sox.
"So where are you two going tonight?" Molly asked.
"I don't know, probably some all-night diner to get something to eat," Dolly answered with a blatant lack of enthusiasm.
"Don't tell me you're losing interest in this one already. It's only been a few weeks."
Dolly Reed went through boyfriends faster than she went through silk stockings.
"Let's just say he'll soon be off to Florida for spring training, and I don't intend to wait for him to get back to Chicago. Besides, I can't see myself going through the entire baseball season with him traveling to New York to play the Yankees or Boston to play the Red Sox. Can you? How about you and Tony? Have you two made any special plans for Valentine's Day yet?"
"No, Tony has been too preoccupied with business lately."
The two sisters were quiet for some time. Any reference to Tony's business made them both uncomfortable.
Thursday, February 14, 1929, was the first Valentine's Day that Molly and Tony did not enjoy since they met in New York. Despite the ruby and diamond heart-shaped necklace and the three dozen red roses the gangster bought his wife, there was nothing romantic about their candlelit dinner. Molly, along with most of Chicago, had learned of the bloody massacre that had taken place in the SMC Cartage Company on Clark Street and was in no mood for celebrating. After years of trying to ignore the nature of Tony's business, she found it impossible to do so any longer.
"Don't let this incident upset you, honey," Tony urged. "I know how to take care of myself. The press is just making a big deal of this particular shooting to sell newspapers. But there's nothing for you to worry about. These things happen all the time."
"I know they do. That's what upsets me! Every day I read about someone else getting killed. I don't want to pick up the paper someday and see your name in it."
"Then stop reading the paper," he joked in a pathetic attempt to inject a little humor into the conversation.
"Tony, this is serious. When I first met you, my biggest fear was that you might get arrested and go to jail. Now every morning I pray you'll still be alive at the end of the day."
Tony looked at her helplessly.
"I am what I am, Molly. It's too late to change things now."
"Why? There are other ways to make a living. Even if you earn less money, you'd be much better off with a legitimate job where you wouldn't be getting shot at."
"It's not as though I can just go into the boss's office and hand in my two-week notice. Once you're in this business, you're in it for life. I know too much. If I tried to go straight now, they'd kill me just to keep me quiet."
"But you could disappear and assume another identity in some small town where nobody knows who you are."
"And what kind of life would we have then, worrying all the time that they'd find us? We'd always be looking over our shoulders, suspicious of every person we meet."
"Oh, why don't you admit it, Tony? You like the life you lead: the diamond cufflinks, the expensive suits and the way everyone fawns over you when you enter a restaurant or a speakeasy. You like the power and prestige that come with the job."
"Maybe I do," the gangster admitted. "Why shouldn't I? It's a lot better than what I had as a kid in Hoboken. I busted my ass for twelve hours a day in that sweatshop for a few pitiful dollars a week. I turned to crime because it was the only way out of there. Hell, I make more dough in one week than my old man made in his whole life. If there's a danger or risk in this business, then I'm willing to accept it. It's a small price to pay for what I've got."
"What could you possibly think is worth risking your life over? Money isn't everything, Tony."
"No. It's what you can get with it that really counts."
For the first and only time in his life, Tony was angry with his wife.
"I suppose all the jewelry, fancy clothes and furs I buy you don't mean anything. Not to mention the expensive dinners and the trips we've taken. And what about your new car? I notice you didn't say no to that either. Let's face it, sweetheart. If I had been a common laborer, do you think you'd have looked twice at me? You, the glamorous Ziegfeld girl! You wouldn't have wasted your time on some poor Italian immigrant."
Molly burst into tears.
"What I felt for you had nothing to do with what you bought me or how much money you spent. I fell in love with you despite what you were, not because of it," she cried, and then she got up from the table and ran from the room.
* * *
After their argument, Tony tried to make it up to his wife with flowers, jewelry and promises that they would never argue again. The following week he took her to a quiet, romantic restaurant, and the two of them sat at a corner table where they could have more privacy. It was late on a Thursday night, and the place was almost empty. Only three other couples were dining there.
Since the night of their argument, Molly had been unusually quiet, not the same spirited girl he knew and loved. Their conversation throughout the meal was forced and limited to impersonal topics such as the latest movies, the weather and Dolly's new boyfriend. They were both trying so hard to get their relationship back on its former footing that neither one noticed three men, posing as waiters, enter the restaurant. It wasn't until the men took their Tommy guns out from behind their aprons that Tony realized the danger he and Molly were in.
His reactions were quick; he would never have survived all those years on the streets of New York if they weren't. He dropped to the floor and flipped over the heavy table to use it as a shield. Molly, on the other hand, had no idea what was coming. She stared in shocked surprise as the men opened fire, spraying the place with bullets. When Tony yanked her behind the table, she realized her worst fear was about to become reality: these men had come to kill her husband.
The battle was over quickly. Tony's men, stationed outside the restaurant, came running in at the sound of the first shots. The three would-be assassins were themselves slain.
"I'm okay, Molly. I wasn't hit," Tony assured his wife, but there was no response. "Molly?" he asked fearfully. Then, when he saw the blood oozing onto her pale blond hair, his question became a wail, "MOLLY!"
The next few hours passed by like a nightmare. Only vague images penetrated Tony's grief: the police who arrived at the scene, the ambulance ride, the hospital emergency room and the doctors and sisters who tried to offer him comfort and hope.
Tony sat beside Molly's bed in the hospital room as his wife lay there hanging onto life by a thin thread. After a valiant attempt to save her life, the doctor offered a grim prognosis.
"It's all up to God," he informed the frantic husband. "She's in his hands now."
Tony looked up at the rosary-covered crucifix on the wall above his wife's bed. He had been born a Catholic and for a brief time had even served as an altar boy at St. Michael's. But he never believed in all the trappings and rituals of his parents' religion. Although the two of them had died devout Catholics, with a lifetime of faith in the Church to assure their acceptance into heaven, Tony let his religion slip away. He could not remember the last time he received communion or went to confession. His marriage had not even been sanctified by a priest; he and Molly were married in a civil ceremony. And now, according to Molly's doctor, this same God that Tony had forsaken years before would decide whether his beloved wife lived or died.
His heart aching, he looked down at Molly lying on the bed. Bandages covered her beautiful hair and the hideous bullet hole in her head. Her eyes were closed, and she lay there motionless as though already beyond help in this world.
"Why her?" he asked the figure on the crucifix. "Molly never hurt anyone. I'm the sinner. Why don't you punish me?"
Then the awful truth hit him: he was being punished. If he were the one lying on the bed on the point of death, it would have been justice, a fitting end to his life of crime. But God was punishing him by taking away what he loved most: Molly. It was more than the gangster could bear.
Then a faint hope was born within his breast. His wife was not dead yet. Perhaps God was still undecided. If that were the case, maybe he would be willing to negotiate.
Tony reached up to the crucifix and grabbed the rosary beads. He got down on his knees, firmly clutching the beads in his hands, and for the first time in over twenty years, he prayed. He offered prayers to God, Jesus, the Virgin Mary and every saint whose name he could remember. No religious fanatic in the history of the Catholic Church had ever prayed as hard as Tony DeLucca did that night.
And at some point during the early morning hours, God heard him.
* * *
The following morning, Sister Mary Elizabeth found the body of Anthony Giuseppe DeLucca, also known as Tony "the Jeweler" Diamond, on the floor of his wife's hospital room. The rosary was still clasped in his hand, and a bullet was in his brain. Yet the gun that caused the fatal wound was nowhere to be found. The police naturally assumed that Tony had been murdered by a rival gang, finishing what they had started that night in the restaurant. Yet they could not explain the note, in Tony's handwriting, that lay beside his body.
"My dearest Molly," it read, "It was a small price to pay. I love you. Tony."
Whether the price the gangster paid was small or not, God kept his end of the bargain: at the moment Tony breathed his last, Molly miraculously recovered from her injury.
Salem, I don't think you'd make the Ziegfeld follies despite your Erté outfit.
