second-generation immigrants were often thrown into this sinkhole of vice, and joining them out of necessity were Robert and Sherpa. That they did not become common criminals, petty pilferers, or die in a useless drunken orgy is testimony to Robert’s powerful will.
Their residence, if it could be called that, was named the Half-Shell Palace. Located along lower 6th Avenue in the nether region between the Bowery and the Tenderloin, the three-story Half-Shell had once been an oyster bar, with the owners living above. But when Robert and Sherpa entered the establishment seeking a cheap meal, they discovered that the Half-Shell Palace was actually a hotel, and one barely hovering above flophouse status at that. The owner of the Palace was a second-generation German Jew named Bill Silver, actual name Wilhelm Zylbar. A runner and general fixer for the Tammany political machine, Silver had worked in various, discreet roles for both Big and Little Tim Sullivan. With the death of Little Tim in 1913—he died, like Big Tim before him, a raving madman—Silver then did odd chores for the local bosses before deciding that he needed to retire from the faltering Tammany rackets. Silver purchased the unused Half-Shell in 1915, converted it into a hotel, and made a solid if not extravagant living by renting rooms to whoever staggered through the saloon-style doors. Any and all who stayed at the Half-Shell Palace remembered less than fondly the intensely cold lobby, where Silver and his Irish wife Maud sat huddled behind the oyster bar/check-in counter with a small coal stove warming their feet. Considering Rouncival’s career, walking into the Half-Shell seeking a dinner and finding instead Silver hunched behind the grungy hotel counter can be seen in hindsight as Fate furiously weaving her webs.
For you see, behind the hotel, a small carriage house was located amidst the tenements of the neighborhood. Attainable only by way of a dim alley alongside the hotel, the carriage house itself had been unused for years. Inspired, Silver purchased it along with the Half-Shell, blacked out the windows, built a rough stage and a small riser in the back, then installed some benches up front and opened a theater named, in mockery of the movies he so detested, the Silver Stage. There, at least once a week, a small company calling themselves the Minsk Troupe performed the great dramas of the Yiddish theater. It was upon those very benches, watching the passion plays of the Hebraic faith, that Robert underwent his final apprenticeship. It was also at the foot of the Silver Stage that he fell in love for the first time, with none other than the cat-eyed chanteuse of the company, Roza Ellstein.
If you would, permit me a moment to set the stage. The conjunction of personalities, heritage, and aspirations alone is remarkable, though perhaps not atypical of the Bowery of the early 1920s. All roads met at the Half-Shell Palace that winter. We have Silver, former cog of the Tammany machine, with his shanty-Irish wife Maud, a morose, mostly silent personality who possessed a savant-like ability to replay any tune on the piano. Strange Maud often assisted the Minsk Troupe with their musical numbers, while Silver, despite owning an establishment named for shellfish, remained faithful to his Hebraic roots by allowing an amateur theater company to perform Yiddish dramas in his carriage house auditorium. Then we have young Robert and Sherpa, two roustabouts essentially at loose ends, performing in the street again for pennies, kept above a truly criminal existence only by Robert’s burning, yet still confused, desires to become an artificer of real worth. Then add the Minsk Troupe to the tableau, led by a talentless writer and producer named Jacob Davidoff who happened to luck into one of the premier talents of her time, Miss Roza Ellstein.
A Jewess of German-Polish lineage, Ellstein possessed a rapturous alto voice and multi-colored eyes; her right iris was a lush green while the left was a far lighter, pale amber hue. To have seen Miss Ellstein, one week a dark and vengeful Lilith, the next a tormented victim of a savage dybbuk (a kind of ghostly, ghastly demon in Jewish folklore), only to return the following performance as Judith carrying the severed head of Holofernes, was to have witnessed a marvel. Just approaching her twentieth year and close to six feet tall, with mahogany hair and a voluptuous figure, it is no wonder Roza Ellstein alone rose above the Minsk company, becoming by 1923 a lead player with the legendary Folksbeine Troupe. That Rouncival, Sherpa, and Ellstein— names of notoriety all—could all three come together if only briefly at such a distinct place and time proves: the distance from half-shell flophouse to the greater, silver stages of the world may be only a short stroll down a dank alley. Such is, or was, America.
I have rhapsodized enough. Let us return to the story, which was by the holiday season of 1921 very cold. Unused to such weather, Sherpa was extremely hard-pressed by the chill, and he took to wearing all of his costumes at once just to keep warm. With the robes, kaftans, headdresses, and whatever other flimflam Robert told him to wear, he must have truly begun to look the part of a beleaguered Tibetan mountaineer. In fact, their act was hardly supporting them, and Robert took for a while (though he denied it later) to working what we would now recognize as an early form of a shell game. Never an obvious aspect of the con, Sherpa would lurk around, carefully observing Robert’s gulls. At any hint of violence or wrath on their part, he would leap in pretending to be yet another victim of Rouncival’s scams. With much clattering and shouting, Robert would allow himself to be chased down the street and around the corner by the maniacal, knife-wielding Sherpa. As an escape method, it was highly effective, but it also meant the two were forced to go further and further afield into bitter weather lest any previous witnesses see a repeat performance.
All in all, they were often down to their last nickel and took to spending their time in the lobby of the Palace, chatting with Silver and assisting him with whatever sots fell through the saloon doors seeking “berths,” as Silver wryly referred to his beds. “The sooner we get them into their berths, the sooner they stop screaming” was the old man’s mantra. The veteran of many a Bowery donnybrook, Silver enjoyed the young charlatans, realizing quickly they were relatively harmless, and he would often regale them with stories of the old neighborhood and its horrors. He relished telling of McGurk’s Suicide Hall, where patrons took to tossing back carbolic acid in order to end their earthly misery; the Haymarket Dance Hall, so popular during its glory that the owner dared to charge an unheard-of-before admission price and actually got rich doing so, and Honest John Kelly’s, a 24-hour gambling den whose Stygian doorman was nicknamed Dandy Jack. These stories entranced Rouncival, and Suicide Hall especially would become a notable aspect of his later, mystery performances. Still, a good story could only be so warming, and it was during a particularly freezing evening that Silver suggested the two young men attend a show by the Minsk Troupe, if only for the wealth of warm bodies in the carriage house.
While Robert had shown little interest in the comings-and-goings of the troupe, and he certainly did not have even a smattering of Yiddish, the night was so chilly that he and Sherpa pounced at Silver’s suggestion. I have here Robert’s description of first seeing Roza Ellstein as she performed in Davidoff ’s paltry revision of “The Golem.” The description actually comes from a rare speech given by Robert himself to a meeting of the Harbingers’ Club held right here in the study. And yes, madam, your smirk has given you away. Rest assured, there will be far more regarding the infamous Harbingers’ Club before the tour is over. For now, let us content ourselves with Robert’s entranced memory of that night, transcribed by the secretary of the club and later approved by Rouncival as an addendum to the official minutes, all of which were found within the hollow volumes.
My god, it was cold that night. The water bucket in our room had frozen over, and even standing down in the lobby with crazy Maud and the stove wasn’t much help. Silver had gone out to find anyone passed out in the vicinity, as they certainly would not have survived the night. I was leaning on the counter, hoping against hope Maud would make some tea to take the chill off, while Sherpa just stood around by the stairs at the far end of the check-in, moaning and shivering beneath his bundles of rags. All I could see was his sharp, red nose sticking out from between the scarves.
Finally Silver reappeared, banging his way through those goddamn saloon doors, stamping and clapping his hands. He hardly gave Sherpa or me a glance as he darted behind the counter and then, so help me god, pulled down his pants in order to warm his bum by the stove. He stood so close I thought for a moment he was going to come to terrible harm but he seemed to know what he was about. As his behind heated,
