Our story starts back here
Ben had succeeded in putting together a three part birthday gift for his wife that year. He had gotten her booked at the 500 Club, bought her a brand new Dodge Challenger, and a gorgeous designer gown for her performance. Performing at the 500 club was a goal every entertainer on the east coast aspired to, and Lucinda could finally say that she made the grade.
The only drawback of this perfect birthday was that Ben couldn’t accompany her to Atlantic City, as he had to go to Chicago on a family emergency. He sent Charlie not only as her musical accompaniment, but as her escort and chaperone.
Charlie and Lucinda decided to make a day of it, so they arrived in Atlantic city several hours before her show time to take in the sights of the boardwalk and enjoy the club and its celebrities.
While Charlie was more interested in the beach, the nightclub held a fascination for Lucinda that was irresistible. It was a veritable mecca for the entertainment elite, and one couldn’t throw a rock without hitting Frank Sinatra, or Dean Martin, or Danny Thomas or Jackie Gleason. Mob boss Sam Giancana sat in his usual booth seemingly conducting the family business, high priced call girls wore gowns worthy of the stage, and executed their trade with class and elegance. An illegal crap game was out in the open with absolutely no fear of shut down from the authorities. The booze was top shelf and the men were in black tie before 5:00 in the afternoon. This was the best birthday present she had ever had, and she was in all her glory as she wandered around the massive club in her beautiful new evening gown introducing herself to her future audience and hobnobbing with some of the most interesting people in the world.
At around 6:00 she was engaged in a conversation with the wife of the owner of the club, when she heard a distinctive and recognizable voice from behind...
“Hello there, Sister”
She turned to find a familiar face addressing her. Her heart fluttered wildly as she looked on the face of Sammy Davis Jr. She swallowed hard, regained her composure, and rose to introduce herself. He was gallant and incredibly macho for a man of his diminutive height. She towered over him, but was keenly aware of his enormous stature as an entertainer, and a powerful man in the industry.
They talked for a few minutes, and she discovered that not only did he know who she was, but he considered himself a fan of her work. He was as magnetic a personality in person as he was on stage, and the two of them talked and laughed and drank and enjoyed each other’s company like they were the best of old friends.
After a short while, he told her that he was meeting with some friends in one of the back rooms, and asked if she would like to join him. Lucinda still had almost 3 hours before she was due on stage at 9:00, so she jumped at the opportunity to “hang out” with Sammy Davis Jr. and his friends. She followed him through the club and down a long hallway to a smokey recreational room with dark oak panelling, brown leather sofas, dark green carpeting... and in the middle of the room was a poker table complete with poker chips, cards, and 3 men sitting around it smoking cigars and drinking bourbon.
They all looked up when she came through the door, and she trembled with excitement as she recognized the legendary Dean Martin. The man sitting next to him was comedian Joey Bishop. They were sitting with a third man that she didn’t recognize.
When introduced, Dean Martin was charming, jovial and warm… and a little drunk. He had also been aware of her work the way Sammy had, and said that he looked forward to attending her show that evening.
“Do you know how to play poker, Beautiful?” Dean Martin slapped the poker table causing the chips to vibrate. “Get the little lady some poker chips!” He shouted.
Lucinda laughed nervously. “Oh, Mr. Martin, Everyone knows the games here are pretty high stakes. I’m sure they’re way too high for me. I’m just a poor singer from Brooklyn.”
“Oh, but Sweetheart, you need to be initiated into the fold. I mean, you’re one of us, now, right? I’ll tell you what. We’ll lower the stakes for you. We’ll play penny ante, how’s that?”
Joey Bishop laughed. “Penny ante for Dino here is a twenty five dollar minimum bet. You can handle that, can’t you kiddo? Spot her a couple hundred in chips, will ya Sammy?”
Now, Lucinda had been no stranger to the game. Cleaning hotel rooms and playing 5 card stud in the neighborhood laundromat for dryer money was how she managed to make ends meet before she had met Sam. She demonstrated a real talent for the game with her excellent poker face and, what Charlie had called an “iron gut” when it came to making the bets that take nerves of steel. Lucinda accepted their kind offer, was offered a seat next to Sammy and dealt into the next hand as though she was an old friend they had been waiting for.
She sat down across from the man introduced to her as Henry Mahoney, in town on behalf of his boss, Johnny Carson, to seek out new talent to showcase on the Tonight Show. He was a middle aged white guy with dirty blond hair, a square jaw, and a rugged, weather beaten look about him. He seemed to take a special interest in her from the moment she had walked in the room.
Lucinda played for an hour, losing $25 on one hand, gaining $40 on the next. She ordered a glass of wine from the waiter standing by to take drink orders, and even took and lit up a cigar when it was offered to her. She was as comfortable in this setting as she had been back in Brooklyn playing poker with the guys outside the barber shop on Clermont avenue as a teen.
She wasn’t down more than thirty dollars when she found herself in a one on one dogfight with the talent scout from The Tonight Show. Everyone else had folded one by one, and she and Mahoney were left to duke it out a they raised the pot to a level that should have made her nervous. But it didn’t. She had a hand that couldn’t lose, and she was calm, and confident about the outcome. In a few minutes she would walk out of that room about six hundred dollars richer.
Henry Mahoney leaned back in his chair and bore into her eyes with a glassy impenetrable stare. He laughed a laugh that sounded good natured and sinister at the same time. “I’ll tell you what, Miss Lucinda Hastings. It’s just you and me left. You seem to think you have a winning hand.” He leaned into her and his voice seemed to drop an octave. “Well so do I. Let’s make this interesting, okay?”
Lucinda was determined to stand her ground and not be intimidated. She stared right back at him and leaned in to meet him halfway. “What’cha got in mind, Mahoney?” She said his last name as though she were making fun of it.
He couldn’t help but smile at her nerve. “If you win this hand, I’ll book you on the Tonight Show. I can guarantee 3 minutes for a song, and a full 5 minute interview with Johnny on the couch. Maybe even eight minutes.” He winked at her. “It’ll change your career.”
Could this day get any better? Lucinda held her breath and looked down at her cards once again. Four kings. There was no way he could beat four kings. What are the odds he’s holding four aces or better? It was practically mathematically impossible. Lucinda clenched her teeth so hard her jaw began to ache. She decided to up the ante. “And my band,” she said.
“What?”
“I sing on the Tonight Show with my band. I don’t want to use the house band.”
Mahoney sneered. “Fine. We’ll also book your precious band,” he said mockingly.
Dean Martin and Joey Bishop wailed with laughter at Lucinda’s chutzpah. She was impressing everyone with her courage and tenacity, and she was having the time of her life.
“And if you win?” She asked.
Mahoney smiled laciviously and leaned into the poker table. “Then it’s just you and me.... my hotel room. We’ll have our own little Tonight Show.” He winked again.
It took about ten seconds before Lucinda realized that her mouth was open. She looked around the table and noticed that every eye was on her, waiting for her response. She cut her eyes back at Mahoney, then down at her cards… then she closed them tight.
I have to make this bet because I already know that I’ve won. There’s no doubt in my mind that he can’t possibly beat this hand, she said to herself. The Tonight Show could be the turning point in her career. For her to not make this bet would be almost... irresponsible. The rationale for making such a decision mounted in her head so high, she couldn’t see around it.
She opened her eyes and said, “Done. What’cha got?”
“Read ‘em and weep” he said as he spread a fan of four aces, and a pair of 4’s. Lucinda’s throat closed up and she felt herself beginning to faint.
She had lost!
The groans from the other men in the room echoed in her ear along with the throbbing of the blood in her brain. How could she have lost? How would she ever handle having to pay up on this debt? She had never welched on a bet in her life. But she never wagered her body either. She felt the tears behind her eyes beginning to push through. She folded her cards and raised them gently to her lips.
Mahoney began to slide the chips from the middle of the table over to his pile. “I’m staying at the Traymore Hotel.” He grinned showing tobacco stained teeth. Lucinda began to feel sick. How was she going to get out of this? She might be able to get away with welching on a bet in her old neighborhood, but this was the 500 Club. No one could do it and get away with it here. There were too many powerful people who would make sure she’d never work in this business again. She might not even live long enough to get back to Harlem. Lucinda started to feel as though she wanted to throw up.
Suddenly Sammy Davis Jr.’s distinctive voice cut through the sea of shouts and jeers. “No. forget it Mahoney, Babe. I can’t let you do this. This is not Groovy at all, Babe. Not cool at all.” He turned to Lucinda. “Lucinda, honey, you didn’t lose that hand. This cat is sitting on the real hand he was dealt. The aces were in his jacket pocket the entire time.”
It took her a moment to comprehend what had just happened. She was stunned… relieved…She studied Mahoney’s face. She was hoping that he would start laughing, that it had been merely a prank that the guys play on the new girl. She could certainly take a joke with the best of them. But something was wrong. There was no sign of amusement on his face or anyone else’s for that matter. That rat bastard Mahoney had every intention of cheating her and holding her to her debt had he not been caught. His face was turning red as he shot resentful daggers at Sammy.
In a matter of seconds Lucinda’s blood pressure boiled over and she was mad as hell. She slammed her cards down on the table so hard it sounded like a gunshot. She stood up, leaned into Mahoney, pulled her hand back and slapped him so hard across the face he was almost knocked off of his chair. She felt a pair of arms wrap around her waist and pull her back to prevent her from causing serious damage to Mahoney’s face. Lucinda kicked and grabbed at the air trying to reach him again as she seethed with unadulterated rage.
“You were going to cheat me and have me pay up… you sick, perverted mother...” Lucinda let loose a string of expletives that would embarrass a sailor. Mahoney remained stoic and took the tongue lashing that he knew he had coming as he rubbed his sore and swollen cheek. The refined, elegant woman she had become in the last ten years was being replaced by the Brooklyn ghetto punk she had tried so hard to leave behind. She methodically and skillfully went about the task of disputing the legitimacy of his birth, insisting that he perform anatomically impossible acts upon himself, threatened the safety of his genitalia, offered to shove his cards in a place that would make him extremely uncomfortable, and accused him of perverted sexual acts with his own mother. Joey Bishop and Sammy Davis Jr. listened with their jaws on the floor as the air in the room was filled with more obscene language than they had ever heard from any woman, while Dean Martin held her tightly from behind to keep her from killing the object of her wrath.
When she was exhausted and through spitting out every disgusting, vile noun, verb and adjective she could come up with, Mahoney looked at her and calmly said, “I’ll have the contract messengered over to you. How’s the week after Thanksgiving?”
For a low down, cheating, sick bastard, Mahoney actually kept his word, no doubt at the insistence of Martin and Davis. They were almost as angry as she was, and if one couldn’t welch on a bet in the 500 Club, one couldn’t get away with attempting to cheat either.
About a week later, the contract was delivered, and Lucinda made up a story about meeting the talent scout at the bar, having a cordial conversation, inviting him to her show, and “Man, I must have really impressed him!” She never mentioned Sammy Davis Jr, Dean Martin, the poker game, or the bet. Ben bought her story, hook, line and sinker, and never questioned it. He was so proud that not only did she deliver a flawless performance that evening at the 500 Club, but she apparently had taken a professional proactive role in her career without unfortunate incident.
Three Months later, at NBC Studios in Manhattan, the performance on the Tonight Show went off without a hitch. Lucinda sang with all the skill and relaxed demeanor of a woman born to be on national television. Charlie and the band received a few seconds each of camera close-ups during the song, and her eight minute interview with Johnny Carson was witty, clever and captivating. This was a night she’d remember for the rest of her life.
During the taping of the Tonight show, Ben waited for her in the NBC Studios Green Room, which was a living room setting with television monitors where the relatives and managers of the show’s guests could watch the show from backstage. Lucinda was the last guest of the day, and everyone who had occupied the green room had gone home. When she was done with her segment, she walked in to find Ben standing in the middle of the room alone with the volume of the monitors turned completely off. She was elated, with her adrenaline pumping, the endorphins swimming in her brain. She had loved every moment. She hugged Ben tight and refused to release him until she heard him speak softly in her ear.
“Guess who I met while you were on stage.” Ben whispered.
“Who?” She asked dreamily.
“Sammy Davis Jr.”
Lucinda’s eyes flew open wide and her body stiffened. She pushed away from him and looked in his eyes for a hint. “Really? He was here? That’s... exciting.” She looked around nervously like a bird with a heightened alertness of predators. How much does he know? Did Sammy tell him about the...
“...Poker game,” she heard Ben say.
“What?”
“Mr. Davis wanted to apologize about the poker game.” He eyed her as though he could see clean through to her brain. “He said he was sorry he put you in that position, and asked me to forgive him. Then he shook my hand.” He gently grabbed her chin and pointed her eyes toward his. “Imagine my surprise when the first time I meet the great Sammy Davis Jr., the first words out of my mouth are ‘what the hell are you talking about?’”
“Uh… Ben… I...”
“Why didn’t you tell me that you met him?”
Can’t lie. Won’t work. “Didn’t I tell you?” She laughed nervously. “I thought sure I told you.” She looked at her wrist at a nonexistent watch. “Look how late it’s getting. It’s going to be a long drive home, why don’t we…”
“Lucy,” he said forcefully. “Look at me. You met Sammy Davis Jr. and Dean Martin, and never said a word in three months?”
Oh, God… He knows about Dean Martin, too? What else does he know? The most wonderful day of her life was turning into a nightmare.
“What… what else did he tell you?” her voice trembled.
“No. I want to hear it from you. Talk to me, Lucy. Tell me about… the bet.”
The bet? There was a quiet but potentially explosive storm brewing behind his eyes. He obviously knew too much, and the jig was up. Lucinda wasn’t going to be able to take this secret to her grave the way she had planned. She bit her lip and looked at the floor. “I’ll tell you everything… as soon as we get home,” she said, defeated.
“No.” he said. “You’ll tell me now.” His voice was chillingly calm, his eyes… frightening.
At that moment the door opened, and Charlie walked in, his face beaming with pride for his performance and Lucinda’s perfect musical pitch and timing. They made a good team, and he wanted to wrap his arm around her neck and plant a kiss on her forehead. What he found was Ben staring at his wife, and his palm up signaling Charlie to stop in his tracks. “Charlie, Please leave us alone. And do me a favor. Make sure no one comes in here. Okay?”
Charlie glanced back and forth at the two of them. “What’s going on?”
“Just help me out, brother.”
“It almost looks like there’s gonna be hell to pay,” Charlie said half jokingly. An uncomfortable laugh broke from his throat.
Ben nodded without taking his eyes off of his wife. “Looks like it’s going to be one hell of a payment, too.”
Charlie never questioned Ben, but he usually had at least some of the facts. This time he was completely in the dark. Charlie backed out and closed the door without another word.
Ben looked at his wife and gave her another chance. “You’ll tell me now,” he repeated.
Lucinda took a shaky step back. “Ben Webber, have you lost your mind? We’re in the green room at the Tonight Show at NBC Studios, for God’s sake!”
“Well then I suggest you start talking, and I mean fast.”
She stared at him in disbelief for a moment, and then realized that this whole debacle had unravelled on her like a cheap sweater, and there was no way to hold it together. Lucinda’s legs became weak and she sank to the couch. Ben took a seat next to her and listened as she gave him every detail of the day at the 500 Club, from meeting Sammy, to the failed attempt at scratching out the eyes of one Henry Mahoney. By the time she finished the story, she was crying. Tears streamed down her face and under her chin.
Ben stroked his chin for a moment. “Where was Charlie during all of this?”
“Oh, Ben, please don’t be mad at him. He offered to stay with me, but I convinced him to go to the beach while I hung out in the nightclub. He doesn’t know about any of this. I couldn’t tell him about the poker game or the bet. I was too ashamed.”
Ben stood up slowly and began unbuckling his belt. Lucinda rose off the couch and began stepping backward around the coffee table. “Ben… I only made that bet because I knew I could win…It was a sure thing!”
“There’s no such thing as a sure thing. You know better than that.”
“Ben, you can’t do this here. Someone will hear! There are people walking the hall right outside that door. There are other people who need to use this room! We’re at fucking NBC Studios!”
“Then we better get this over with fast.” Ben menacingly pointed to a spot on the carpet directly in front of him. “Now, come... here.” Ben doubled the belt in his right hand and slapped it against his left while Lucinda glanced at the door trying to gauge whether or not she could reach it before he could grab her. Ben seemed to know what she was thinking. “You take one step toward that door and you’ll regret it, woman.”
“Ben, please, can’t we talk about this?” She franticly smeared her tears into her makeup with the palm of her hand.
“The time for talking was months ago when you had the opportunity to tell me about this. You don’t get to talk now. I get to talk. Now come… here.”
“I didn’t tell you about this because I was afraid you’d react like this!” she said.
“You’re going to blame my possible reaction for you lying to me for weeks? No matter how I was going to react, you needed to come clean, if only for the sake of our marriage. For the sake of my trust in you. Lucy, you wagered our marital bed on a hand of poker for a shot at Johnny Carson! Dammit, woman, if you had lost that bet…”
“But I didn’t!”
“If you had, you would have had to pay. And if you hadn’t paid it, you would have put us both in danger.”
Lucinda again re-lived the gravity of her wager the way she had for those frightening minutes when she thought she had lost that hand. “I know,” she said as she glued her eyes to the carpet. “I’m so sorry.”
“No… I don’t think you are.” He began to move toward her. “I think you’re sorry this whole thing came out. If you were really sorry you would have confessed months ago, You had no intention of telling me.” Suddenly the anger in Ben’s eyes turned to sadness. “I guess part of this is my fault,” he said quietly. “I trusted you when I shouldn’t have. I know you better than to think that you could be in that environment without losing control.”
“I’ll never play poker again. I swear!”
“You don’t get it. Your lack of control wasn’t in the fact that you played poker and made a bet. You’re one of the best poker players I know. Hell, you taught me how to play! The lack of control was in the kind of bet you made.”
“The kind of bet?”
“You bet us! Don’t you understand? You bet US! You were willing to sacrifice us for an interview with Johnny Carson. And then you kept it from me.”
That cut Lucinda to the core of her being and her heart sank. “I know. How can I prove to you how sorry I am? You think keeping this secret from you hasn’t been eating me up inside? I wanted to tell you every day what I had done. That I will never do anything like this again. I made a mistake. Yeah, I knew there would be hell to pay if I confessed, but it was more than that. I was terrified that you’d look at me differently. That you’d see me as someone unworthy of you. I understand that what I did was horrible. I put our marriage, my name, our livelihood at risk. I was just so sure that I would win that it didn’t seem like a risk at the time. But no matter how confident I was… it wasn’t worth losing your trust.” Lucinda clasped her hands together as though praying. “And I promise I’ll do whatever you ask to get it back.”
Ben didn’t say a word. He simply motioned his head toward the couch and waited for Lucinda to make good on her promise. He watched while she slowly lifted her gown above her waist, and gently draped herself over the arm of the couch. She placed her head in her hands and waited. After a moment, she felt Ben’s fingers reach into the elastic of her panties and panty hose and pull them down off of her buttocks. This was the first time she would been spanked with her cooperation. There was no running, hiding, fighting or squirming. She knew that this was the only way that she could be cleansed of her transgression to feel normal again. The secret had been an agonizing cross to bear for weeks, and now was the opportunity to absolve herself of her foolish mistake.
Ben brought the belt back and swung it at his target, striking Lucinda’s behind with full force. the pain bit into her flesh with savagery as her legs bucked and she stifled a scream in her hands.
The belt came down again and again, and Lucinda fought to remain as quiet and still as possible, which wasn’t very successful. She was desperate to do the right thing, but she was unable to control her body and her hips began to wiggle and jump as she began to yelp with each blow.
Suddenly between strikes she heard Ben’s voice shouting out words. The ones she caught between her sobs were disjointed, but she got the gist of his message. “Treat...” WHAP “our Marriage...” WHAP “like a game?” WHAP “Lie to me?” WHAP “Put your reputation...” WHAP “on the line...” WHAP “Disrespectful…” WHAP “Dangerous…” WHAP “How dare you…” WHAP
Outside the room in the hallway, Charlie stood guard, listening to the sounds that penetrated through the door. He heard the cries of his best friend as she took her husband’s punishing strap across her tender bottom. He didn’t know what was going on and he couldn’t imagine what could have turned the most exciting day in Lucinda’s career into an emotional disaster. It wasn’t any of his business. As he stood there his shoulders jerked a little with each blow after painful blow of the belt as he listening to the pitiful wails that followed. After a moment, Jackson and Bobby came down the hallway, Their bow ties loosened and shirts unbuttoned, laughing and chatting about the exciting afternoon they just had. When they got to Charlie standing guard at the door, they heard the sounds from the other side. They knew immediately what was happening. They had heard it before.
“Uh, we’ll meet you guys in front of the building?” Bobby said, and they both walked a little faster in the opposite direction.
When the noise stopped, Charlie waited another 60 seconds before knocking.
“Come in.”
Ben and Lucinda were in an embrace, and with the entrance of Charlie, Ben gently peeled away from his wife. “I’ll have the valet bring the car around,” he said, and left the room.
Charlie said nothing for a long time while he waited for Lucinda to stop gasping for air. She was a pitiful sight. Her hair was a mess, her makeup was running, and she held on to her bottom with both hands as she sniffled and spasmed through her waning sobs.
Finally he said, “You okay?”
Lucinda looked up at him from below her eyelashes. “Whassa matter? Don’t I look okay?”
“A little like a drowned rat,” he said as he tried to smile.
Charlie reached into his inside jacket pocket and pulled out a silver flask and took a swig from its contents and then handed it to Lucinda. He watched as it trembled at her lips. “You wanna talk about it?”
She handed back the flask and put her head on Charlie’s chest. He wrapped his arm around her shoulder and let her cry it out as she pressed her face to his tuxedo shirt.
She told Charlie the whole story two days later, and as he promised her, he never told another soul.
***
When Lucinda finished telling her story, she looked up at four faces staring back at her in amazement. She caught a glimpse of young Frank silently mouthing the word wow.
“Boss Lady, you are something else!” Bobby finally said.
“What ever happened to that Mahoney guy?” Jackson asked.
Charlie smiled almost nostalgically. “He got jumped and got his ass kicked in an alley off of w. 83rd street.”
Lucinda looked at him curiously. “How do you know that?” she asked.
Charlie shrugged. “It’s just a rumor.”
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