The Sunday Gentleman by Irving Wallace Read Free Book Online

$125,000 by one Lizzie Allen, madam, as a supplementary sideshow for visitors in search of culture at the Chicago World’s Columbian Exposition of 1893. After the fair, and shortly before her death, Lizzie Allen, madam, had leased the house and sold its furnishings and inmates to Effie Han-kins, madam. Now, Effie Hankins, full of years and wealth, was ready for retirement. She was also ready to deal with the Everleighs. She offered the huge seraglio at her bottom price—$55,000 for the furnishings, the girls on the premises, the good will, and a long-term lease at a rental of $500 a month.
    On February 1, 1900, the Everleigh Club of Chicago had its grand opening—and on that day, for connoisseurs of joy and students of earthy Americana, its legend began. It was also the debut of Minna and Aida under the name of Everleigh. Their family name had been commonplace. Now, on the eve of history, they sought something uplifting and appropriate. One of their beloved grandmothers had always ended her letters to them, “Everly yours.” So Everly it was, spelled Everleigh.
    For its grand opening, the house had undergone a drastic transformation. Effie Hankins’ white servants had been replaced by colored help, and Madam Hankins’ hostesses (uncouth and used wenches in abbreviated costumes) had been replaced by Aida’s hostesses (“comely and skilled…no amateurs…the choicest talent in the country” garbed in costly evening gowns). The kitchen was of the best, the wines were imported, the dishes and hospitality Southern, and the furnishings and decorations were unmatched by any similar brothel on the face of the earth.
    To help make the opening night a festive one, a Washington senator sent flowers. The Midwest’s leading wine companies and packers supplied gifts of their best food and drink. The first customers were millionaire Texas cattlemen whose party spent $300 in a few hours. Despite freezing weather, the Everleigh sisters grossed $1,000 on that historic initial evening. For fledgling madams, aged twenty-two and twenty-four, it was an auspicious beginning.
    During the nearly dozen years of its heyday, following its opening night, the Everleigh Club achieved a worldwide reputation largely because of the brilliance and good taste of its proprietors, the extraordinary abilities of its prostitutes, the distinction of its service, and the splendor of its interior.
    To each male seeker of escape through fleshly indulgence, this was no mean house of ill fame. Once inside its doors, the customer was quickly divested of any reservations he might have held of crass commercialism. This was at once a men’s club and a great lady’s home that offered culture, beauty, domestic warmth, gracious living—and expert sex encased in the thinnest chrysalis of exotic romance.
    From the moment of a customer’s entry into the Everleigh Club, every effort was made to seduce his senses. The fifty rooms, in buildings rising three stories high, were decorated by Minna Everleigh to represent a Midwestern Mohammedan paradise, captivating a client’s eyes, ears, palate, and emotions. The rooms, decorations, niceties were not expected to satiate every facet of every man’s taste. There was simply something available for every man, no matter what his peculiarities or needs.
    On the main floor, there were twelve spacious soundproof reception parlors, and these were the Gold Room, the Silver Room, the Copper Room, the Moorish Room, the Green Room, the Rose Room, the Red Room, the Blue Room, the Egyptian Room, the Chinese Room, the Japanese Room, the Oriental Room. The Gold Room featured gilt furniture, gold-trimmed fishbowls, eighteen-karat cuspidors that had cost $650 each, golden hangings, and a $15,000 gold piano. The Copper Room was paneled in copper and brass; the Moorish Room had thick and priceless Oriental carpets and incense burners; the Blue Room had blue divans with leather pillows on which were sewn prints of Gibson Girls, and there